Xenical

Xenical is a prescription medication for people who are considerably overweight or obese.  If you have a BMI (body mass index) of 30 or greater, you are considered obese. You can check out your BMI by using a BMI calculator on any of numerous health or weight loss sites—just put BMI calculator into your Google search engine.  If you have BMI of 27 or higher and also have other risk factors such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, heart disease or diabetes, you may also be a candidate for Xenical

It is important when taking Xenical to reduce your calories and eat a nutritionally balanced diet.  No more than 30% of your caloric intake should come from fat.  If this sounds complicated, you can check out the American Heart Association’s recommended diet, which adheres to this same criterion.
 
Be sure to talk to your doctor if you are thinking about integrating Xenical into your own weight-loss program.

How Does Xenical Work?

If you like foods high in calories and fat (like meat and dairy, fried foods, cookies, donuts, etc…) and either you don’t exercise or your metabolism is slow and doesn’t burn it up, then all the excess fat is stored—and the inevitable result is:  You Gain Weight! 

Xenical is unlike other weight-loss drugs that work by suppressing the appetite or speeding up your metabolism.  Rather, Xenical works in your digestive system by keeping much as 1/3 of the fat you eat from being assimilated by the body.

Enzymes called lipases help break down fat in our diet so that it can be digested and either used or stored away.  Xenical (which should be taken with meals) attaches to the lipases, effectively blocking them from breaking the fat down and digesting it.  This undigested fat is then taken as waste through the intestines to be eliminated from the body when you go to the bathroom. 

How Do I Integrate Xenical Into My Diet?

You should take one 120-mg capsule at every meal that contains fat, up to three times a day.  If you skip a meal or have a no-fat meal, you don’t need to take your Xenical capsule. Again, your meal should have only about 30% of its calories from fat.  It is best to try and divide your fat, carbohydrate, and protein intake equally over three main meals each day. 

The American Heart Association diet recommends you balance the calories you eat each day with the calories you burn each day.  To calculate, multiply your current weight by 15 if you are moderately active. This is the number of calories used in one day.  For sedentary people, multiply by 13 instead of 15. 

Say I am 200 pounds and moderately active.  By the above calculation, I use about 3,000 calories a day.  If I take in 3,000 calories, spread over three meals, that’s 1,000 calories per meal.  By the 30% rule, that means I can only get 300 of those calories from fat per meal.  I think I’ll have a couple of hot dogs for lunch, so I look on the package and, opps, that’s 360 calories and a whopping 300 calories from fat already!  As you can see, this is going be tricky.  To succeed with Xenical, you will need to start on a nutritionally balanced diet and stick to it. 

Recommendations Of The American Heart Association Diet

Each of the AHA dietary guidelines promotes healthy living with proper eating and physical activity habits. The following is a brief list of the guidelines:

· Eat a variety of vegetables and fruits to include five servings per day.
· Eat a variety of grains to equal six servings per day.
· Eat fish at least two times each week, preferably fatty fish such as salmon and tuna.
· Choose reduced-fat dairy products, legumes, skinless poultry and lean meats.
· Select fats with no more than two grams of saturated fat per tablespoon such as liquid and tub margarine, canola, corn, safflower and olive oil.
· Be physically active for at least thirty minutes each day.
· Limit high calorie, low-nutritious foods like soft drinks and candy.
· Limit foods high in saturated fat, trans-fat and cholesterol.
· Maintain sodium intake at or below 2,400 mg or 1 ¼ teaspoons per day.
· Limit alcohol beverages to no more than one drink per day for women and no more than two drinks per day for men.

Precautions And Possible Side Effects Of Xenical

Do not take Xenical if you are pregnant, nursing, have food absorption problems or reduced bile flow.  If you are taking cyclosporine, speak to your doctor before taking Xenical.  Because Xenical reduces the absorption of vitamins, it is important to take a daily multivitamin.

With Xenical, the fat that is blocked and undigested is eliminated in your bowel movements.  Thus, it is likely that you will experience some change in your bowel movements, generally during the first weeks of treatment, though these changes may last longer for some people.  The changes can include gas with oily discharge, more frequent bowel movements, an urgent need to go to the bathroom, and even the possibility that you won’t make it to the bathroom in time, particularly after meals containing higher amounts of fat than are recommended.  So stay close to the potty when you start Xenical and maybe put off going out to eat at that fancy new restaurant until you know just how Xenical affects you.

By following a healthy eating plan, such as the American Heart Association’s diet plan, you can decrease some of Xenical’s possible gastrointestinal effects—and lose weight, of course!

If you are concerned about these or any other side effects you experience while taking Xenical, be sure to talk with your doctor or pharmacist. 

For information about purchasing Xenical, Click Here: Link to Xenical