Diet schmiet

I’m not sure if I’ve wasted half an hour or invested it.

The dietician did actually seem to take on board what I was saying – it did help, taking in the Studying Human Nutrition course book – and she seemed to accept my reasons for believing diet is not as much of an issue for me as Dr A appears to think, especially when I asked what she would have expected my weight loss to have been in the six months between diagnosis and surgery for my gallstones, when my diet was constrained by what set off the pain (and if anyone tells you to have a fat-free diet when you have gallstones, it’s a safe bet they have never experienced the condition.  A small portion of fish and chips was the only meal I could eat and be fully confident of not being in pain four hours later, and a salad sandwich with no fat whatsoever was guaranteed to set it off – and I know other people who have had the same experience.  But they are talking sense about alcohol though ).  Given that for four of those six months I was going to the gym at least three or four times per week, she suggested I should have lost at least 10kg.  I personally considered that somewhat conservative, but I still surprised her when I said I lost less than 4kg in that period.

As for the suggestion of medication like Orlistat, I have very serious reservations about any drug that purports to actively prevent the absorption of most of a major food group, even if I thought it would be a good idea to reduce fat consumption, IMO this is better done consciously rather than via drugs, even if the net effect of the drug is to force you to eat less fat by forcing the digestive system to pass it out the other end.

I’ve varied my diet significantly over the past decade or so and none of the changes has had any significant impact on the rate and timing of weight increase.  If she can get this simple point across to Dr A then I will consider this time invested rather than wasted.  And I might actually like a dietician!

~ by me on 10 April 2006.