Fat Binders & Blockers
Fat blockers take a different approach to weight loss. Rather than changing appetite, they reduce how many calories you absorb from the fat in your food.
How fat blockers work
Dietary fat is too large to be absorbed through the gut wall as-is. An enzyme called lipase breaks it down into smaller fatty acids first. Orlistat, the active ingredient in both Orlistat 120mg and Xenical, inactivates that enzyme, so around 30% of the fat in each meal passes through the digestive system undigested.
Getting good results
Fat blockers reward a genuinely low-fat diet. Aim for no more than about 30% of your daily calories from fat, spread evenly across meals. If a meal contains no fat, skip that dose.
The trade-off to understand
The undigested fat has to go somewhere. Eating a high-fat meal while taking orlistat commonly causes urgent, oily or loose stools. This is not a sign anything is wrong. It is the medicine working on more fat than it can comfortably handle. Most people find that the side effects act as a fairly effective incentive to stick to a low-fat diet.
Vitamin supplementation
Because fat-soluble vitamins (A, D, E and K) are absorbed alongside dietary fat, a daily multivitamin taken at bedtime, at least two hours away from your last orlistat dose, is recommended.