My Alli review

My Alli is an over-the-counter drug containing the active ingredient orlistat. After reviewing thestudies done on orlistat, and giving the prescription version of orlistat, (link to Xenical) Xenical, a try, I started using My Alli for 30 days.

My Alli's orlistat supplies used to be Roche Pharmaceuticals, the same company that provides Xenical with their orlistat, but My Alli changed orlistat provider in 2012.

Directions: Take 1 capsule, up to 3 a day, with each meal containing fat.

Take a multivitamin once a day at bedtime.

Claims: Fat blocking

Ease of use: The capsule is average size, made of a coating that gets slick easily and goes down well. It has no smell whatsoever. I had no trouble taking it with either food or water.

FDA: Orlistat is approved for both prescription (Xenical) use in a 120 mg dose and over-the-counter (My Alli) use in a 60 mg dose. It is also available by prescription in Canada and over-the-counter in Australia and the EU.

This review is going to be TMI, just like the Xenical review, since orlistat works to block fat by making it come out in your stool. If you can't handle reading anything about bowel movements, just skip to the rating. If you can't handle the idea of having odd bowel movements, just skip the idea of using anything with orlistat in it all together.

I used My Alli in the past, around 2012. I actually wanted to continue using it but by the time I finished the bottle I had, the product had been recalled. I very distinctly remember suffering the side effects of My Alli with that first bottle. I remember very clearly how it taught me what foods to avoid – foods I knew I should be avoiding anyway, but it really gave me an incentive to avoid them. I never had any accidents, but it was actually a regular fear that I might if I ate a slice of pizza or ate some fast food. Greasy stools and flatulence were a very real thing.

When it came back on the market, I wasn't really paying attention. Enough time had passed that I didn't care about weight loss anymore. But when I decided I wanted to lose weight again, and take it seriously, my mind immediately went to My Alli as a possibility (which is actually why I ended up with a Xenical prescription). Xenical lived up to the expectations, but I didn't want to use that high of a dose of orlistat for longer than a month.

So when my prescription of Xenical ran out, I bought a bottle of My Alli. Using My Alli was nothing like the Xenical, nor was it familiar to what I'd experienced previously with My Alli. I don't know why. I don't know if something has changed, if the new pharmaceutical company providing the orlistat is not providing actual orlistat or if they're just not filling the capsules with the proper dose anymore. I don't know why, but I do know it was different. I had mild diarrhea, at the worst, and even that was pretty rare. Most days there was no discernible effect at all; I could have been taking nothing at all and felt the same. I was sure I must be doing something wrong, or maybe I jut wasn't eating enough fat to see the effects with only 60 mg of orlistat.

So I put My Alli to the same test Xenical underwent; I was not looking forward to being tethered to the toilet again, but I needed to know.

I ate out at Burger King again; I ordered the same type of burger and onion rings that I used to test Xenical just to see how they would compare. I took 2 My Alli pills with the meal in order to simulate a 120 mg dosage. The next day, I had pretty bad diarrhea when I first woke up, but without even a hint of greasy spotting. And that was it.

The diarrhea could easily be attributed just to eating fast food, especially since I'm not really accustomed to eating like that. The lack of any visible fat in the bowl just adds to my suspicion that the diarrhea had little, if anything, to do with My Alli itself.

Rating: 1/5 This product used to work. Xenical still does work. But something seems to be very, very wrong with My Alli. My best bet would be that the pills are actually 30 mg, or even only 15 mg, of orlistat per capsule.

My feelings seem to be mirrored in many of the new reviews My Alli received in 2015 (when it came back on the market). To be clear, I purchased My Alli from Walmart in 2016, so this is not an issue of old product or of Amazon carrying bad product. It seems to be the new My Alli as a whole.