Review by calyx:

I’ve been taking this product for two years now. It was prescribed by my doctor after I stopped smoking and gained quite a bit of weight. I lost 60 pounds but also dieted vigorously and exercised regularly at the gym on the treadmill for 35 minutes. Oily discharge sometimes? you bet, but only when I ate meals with a high fat content. Couple bits of advice: if you feel like you need to fart, don’t. You can’t be sure of what will come out. Restrain yourself until you get to a toilet, just in case. Also, not only fried chicken and fried food have fat. Any kind of red meat has fat content. Rule of thumb for me is if calories from fat are high, I take a pill with the meal. This product is a lifesaver but it only works with diet and exercise.

Review by KLK:

I started taking Alli about two months ago to augment my diet and exercise program. I’m active, and with a BMI of 26, I just wanted to lose about 20 lbs that wasn’t coming off with my fairly intense cardio routine and low-fat diet. I would take Alli as directed with meals containing some fat but rarely more than the suggested amount of fat. And I did experience the treatment effects with meals within the suggested fat allotment: frequent, oily stools, random oily discharge (very gross), and stomach pain about 45 minutes after eating. However, they weren’t severe enough to make me stop taking the med. Over time, I didn’t lose an ounce but kept taking the pill as directed, hoping that it would kick in over time. It didn’t. And then I had a higher fat meal after taking one Alli pill. I know that the`treatment effects’ are supposed to act like aversion therapy, but this was ridiculous. I ended up in the ER with crippling, stabbing stomach pain and dry-heaving. I had such a bad reaction that stomach pumping was treatment of choice. The ER doc suggested I throw the pills out as soon as I got home.

After recovering from the ER ordeal and promptly pitching the bottle of Alli (the aversion therapy didn’t work to GlaxoSmithKline’s advantage this time), I did a little bit of research and found that I was not the only one with adverse reactions requiring medical care. This med has been linked to pancreatitis, gall stones, and possibly colon cancer (research was kind of spotty on this). Will everyone react this way to the drug? Of course not. Every med has side effects and not everyone can tolerate certain drugs. However, I hope that people will consider the risks and weigh the benefits before spending quite a bit of money on something that may not work.

Overall, I ended up with nasty side effects, a considerable ER bill, and no weight loss. And for those it does work for, you may become dependent on the drug for continued weight loss or even weight maintenance (this is from the actual website)- quite a price to pay to lose 2 to 3 more pounds more than you would have with diet and exercise alone. If Alli works for you, awesome- more power to you. But before you buy, please read the fine print- the pill may cost you a lot more than you bargained for.

Review by Susan Collins:

I got my copy of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Eating well after WLS. It is a great resource for anyone who has had WLS or is contemplating WLS. It gives insight to all WLS options and the special nutritional guidelines that each procedure needs. It includes many great ideas and recipes for both WLS patients and those just wanting to eat healthier. This book included many support group websites and blogs. I would recommend this book to any new WLS patient or anyone considering WLS.

Review by Rebecca Scritchfield:

As a registered dietitian specializing in weight management, I received a review copy of this book. I was impressed with the book’s content and organization. Everyone will understand the nutritional importance of eating healthy after WLS after reading this book. People need tasty recipes and there’s something for every palette: margarita pizza, oven roasted chicken, and seared halibut with fennel. They didn’t forget the desserts either (my fave: fugdy brownies). They also include practical tips for understanding food labels and eating healthy at restaurants.

Review by Jacob Hantla:

As a scale the Omron HBF-500 is excellent. It is consistent, in tests with my wife and I (who are more than 100 pounds different in weight) the scale gave the same weight each of 5 times in a row that we stepped on it. So it is consistent. I am a nurse and weighed myself on our calibrated scales and found that this scale weighed me 0.5 pounds heavier than the hospital one, which can be explained by the glass of water I drank when I got home. So it is both consistent and accurate.

So what about the body fat monitor: As to the accuracy of the monitor I cannot speak. However, it is very consistent, much more consistent than the experience that I have had with the handheld-only monitors from Omron. The scale will calculate your percent body fat & your percent skeletal muscle. It will also give you a reading of your visceral body fat, which is a better indicator of your health risk associated with body fat (visceral body fat is the fat which is inside your body surrounding your organs, which subcutaneous fat is the fat that we all see just under our skin). Using these calculations and the user-defined height, weight, and age data that you enter, it will give you your resting metabolic energy needs for the day to give you an idea of how much you should be eating to lose weight in a healthy manner.

The scale has 4 user profiles so that 4 different users can use the scale and track their data. Data can be recalled letting you know what your measurements were yesterday, a week ago, a month ago, and 3 months ago.

The handle fits well inside the front of the scale. I was expecting the scale to be bulkier than it is. It is just a little taller than a normal scale and very attractive. It isn’t something that you’re going to need to hide between uses. Just put it where any normal bathroom scale would fit.

The scale is a little bit difficult to use if you haven’t read the instruction manual. The good news is that the manual is very easy to use and very informative. Plan on 5-10 minutes of reading time when your scale first arrives. You will be glad that you learned all about what your new scale does. After skimming the manual, my wife and I are both able to operate the scale and use all of its functionality.

Price-wise, this seems like an excellent value. The cost of a high-quality scale added to the price of a decent Body-fat monitor (which won’t give you the more detailed body composition detail of this hands-and-feet monitor) will be more than the price of this one unit. Also, this unit keeps all of your data in one location. So for the price, this unit was a no-brainer for me when it was time to buy a new scale after my old one stopped being consistent and accurate.

Highly recommended.

Review by J. Brittain:

I don’t do reviews often, but this product (and/or a similar model) have taken some knocks that my experience contradicts.

First off, I think expectations need to be realistic if you are going to buy any kind of scale or monitor.

1) Weight: No two scales read the same. They may be darn close, but rarely the same. What should be expected is that the scale always reads the same weight over time. I have a dumbbell that says it’s 10 lbs and I have seen three scales say it’s anywhere from 9.5 to 10.3 lbs. So you can demand consistency, but realistically for most of us absolute accuracy is just not practical.

2) Body Fat or Composition: Unless you can find (and pay for) a DEXA (Dual Energy X-Ray) or Hydrostatic (full immersion weighing) test this number is totally subjective. A while back I had two physical therapist/trainers that work in a medical rehab/training facility check my composition using the calipers method ten minutes apart. The results were 29% and 34%. They were not surprised, said they were usually within 2%-3% of each other.

I don’t want it to sound like I am lowering the bar here, just trying to be realistic.

So, what about the Omron HBF-500?

As for weight, my HBF-500 has said from day one that my “10lb” dumbbell is 9.6 lbs (it’s mate is always 9.7). Who’s right, Omron or Weider? No idea. So who cares if the scale is off by 4% or if that dumbbell is really 4% lighter than advertised? The fact is that is is consistent, and if it says that on the day I got it I weighed 296 and I now weight 275, it is that 26lb difference that is important.

Same thing for composition. I feel it is the change over time that is important, not the absolute accuracy. What I have found is that I have to be consistent in using the device. Lay off the H2O for a day and the number changes, hop on the scale after a hot shower, the number changes. Same for after a meal or exercise. I have has the best results using it once a week, at the same time of the day (for me, first thing in the morning on Mondays) before I eat and shower.

Functions/Usability:

1) Read the manual. It’s not great, but after I used the thing two or three times it became simpler.

2) The memory/user functions are nice, but to be honest I think the biggest advantage of the user function is that I do not have to re-enter my age, sex, etc.. each time. Use the enclosed for or write down the results, I’m a geek so trust me when I say it’s just simpler than the memory functions.

Overall I think it is a great tool for measuring changes, if not absolute numbers. And if you think about it, the changes are what matters, either as a warning that you are making progress in a direction you do not want to go, or as a reinforcement that you are doing things right and seeing results.

If accuracy is a big deal for you, pay for the professional tests, use the device at home and note the difference. The apply that correction to the measurements you get at home. For me, the 0 -0 cost of the tests for one shot vs. the cost of the HBF-500 to use whenever I like answered the absolute accuracy question.