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Originally Posted by snoozlebug
I'm kind of curious if the reason it's supposed to help you lose weight is that the side-effects make you so nauseous, etc., that you don't want to eat, or if it just makes you feel full, or if there is something that the drug does to actually improve metabolism and make it easier for the pounds to come off.
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Not sure of the scientific reasoning behind it, but I can warn you that for the first 4-6 weeks you may feel very unwell indeed. I didn't feel nauseated (actually, I felt like I was always hungry on it to start with!) but I had terrible cramps (which was not a great combo with 'starving hungry/overeating', I must say), cold sweats and chills, moments of light-headedness, and spent a lot of time in the toilet with Bowels of Liquid. Ugh. It was really not a great time; I seriously contemplated giving up, but my endocrinologist was so sure that this was going to be good for me that I stuck it out.
Boy, am I glad I did.
I don't exactly know how it works, but what I found is that once my blood sugar stopped spiking and dropping all over the place like a mad thing, I simply didn't crave - and you know what I mean by 'crave'; it's NEEEEED - the sugary things any more. I can walk past a plate of brownies and genuinely not care; sugary stuff started to look, to my brain, like a completely neutral food and not a desirable one.
I found my tastes changed. Some things that I'd liked became 'meh', but more amazingly some foods I'd loathed became tasty. I'd always thought carrots were vile - nasty, bitter things - but one day I looked at a carrot I was grating (I had to hide them in my food) and thought 'Hmm, that doesn't actually look that bad'. I tried it and realised they're actually kind of sweet; something I wouldn't have believed.
I now eat spinach and love it! I wouldn't have said that was possible, but my tastes just changed that dramatically.
I kind of feel a little like a poser when people ask about my weight loss; I feel like I should have had to suffer more to get where I am, but it's actually been ridiculously easy overall. I've lost 35kg (about 70lbs?) just by avoiding eating the stuff that's bad for me...which hasn't been hard because I can walk past the chocolate aisle and be completely indifferent to it.
Of course, the trick is to work with that feeling. If I actually eat chocolate, I get all sugar-spikey again if I don't limit myself to a couple of pieces. It's weird - three or 4 pieces and I'm fine - I enjoyed it, but I can move on. If I sit down over the course of an evening and knock off a block of it, though? Oh, dear, back almost to square 1. A single binge-out on chocolate can make my blood sugar do wonky things for days, and it becomes very hard to eat sensible foods until that evens out again. Really, i'd say that I pay for a day of over-indulgence with up to 2 weeks of re-stabilising.
THOSE times are hard. Easier just to not go there, really.
I didn't lose any weight at all during the initial stages of Metformin. But once it kicked in and changed my life for the better, I lost it very slowly, steadily, and easily. A little bit of exercise goes a long way, too - I hate exercise, but hubby and I go out for a wander down to the supermarket and back (3.7km - about 1 3/4 miles?) every Saturday to pick up a nice espresso coffee. Sometimes if the weather's nice we divert and wander back along the scenic route (we've done up to 7km) but that's the limit of how far I'm willing to go for my 'exercise'.
I dare say if I'd been the kind of person who loves the gym I'd have been at goal ages back, but the way I see it I put the weight on over 34 years, so if it takes 2 or 3 years to get it off slowly and gently then I can live with that.
Anyway, stick with the Metformin. The entry stages are gross, but once it kicks in it's just brilliant and will make eating healthily so much easier for you that you won't know yourself. If blood sugar highs and low have been making your life a misery, you'll feel like a new person on this stuff, really.
