I used to work while taking doses of several sedatives that my family doctor said he hadn't seen someone awake while taking just one of the meds at those doses, not 3. I don't really have tips aside from Nuvigil/Provigil. Those helped quite a bit.

I lost weight on a several weight gainers but I was on an AD that caused me to lose weight so that doesn't really count. If you do start gaining you can ask about metformin. I'm taking it at a low dose and have lost about 7 lbs. in 2 months (but a few weeks I was eating really unhealthily while battling kidney stones so it might have been a little more). It's a drug for diabetes but works for weight loss from APs. I want to try a higher dose and have permission if I check my blood sugars but my family dr is worried that it will lower my BS too much since it was fairly low to begin with. But it is working, just slowly.