Wanting to lose weight and get in shape, but all the dieting and exercising just isn’t working? Or maybe it’s working, but just not working quick enough. Maybe it’s time to consider dietary supplements.
We would say “diet pills”, but as soon as you utter those words, it seems like everyone and their dog suddenly has an opinion. Depending on who you talk to, they’re either dangerous and will kill you if you go near them, they’re safe and effective and everyone should take them, or they’re useless and just a waste of money. And what might surprise you is that all of these are right – to a degree!
In this short article, we’ll explain exactly and precisely what diet pills are, what they do, and why they work, but will not work for everyone.
What are diet pills?
Probably 90% of diet pills currently on the market are extremely expensive caffeine pills: even the fabled Hydroxycut. The terms “diet pills” and “energy pills”, for all practical purposes, can be used interchangeably. Check on the back of any diet pill or energy pill bottle; you’ll find caffeine listed either by it’s common name, or by its scientific name, “trimethylaxine”, and while this may be buried within a list of other (mostly useless or inert) ingredients, it’s actually the primary ingredient being used. Rarely are there other chemicals besides caffeine that are added that are actually effective, and the primary reason for this is that caffeine is inexpensive, and easy to manufacture and put in a pill. Things like synephrine, guggulsterones, or carnitine, if included in at any effective dosage, will cost the manufacturer loads of money without any guaranteed return on that investment. For a market strategy, it’s “safer” to put mostly caffeine in a pill, dress the bottle up with fancy pictures and pretty colours, and sell that. So most often what you’re taking is just caffeine. If you want something else (like any of the aforementioned ingredients), you’re better off buying them separately (carnitine pills, or green tea pills). And yes, they do work.
Why do diet pills not work?
Mostly because you’re not using them right. If you take diet pills, then eat a bag of potato chips, you might as well drive your car by pressing the brake and the gas at the same time; because that’s what you’re doing. You’re increasing your metabolism, then shoveling empty calories into your mouth. If you thought diet pills would allow you to lose weight and still eat like a pig, think again. You still need to follow a basic diet plan, or a diet strategy, or hell – just follow any reasonable diet at all!
Diet pills can be effective without exercise, but will be incomparably better if you do exercise. And it can be any exercise at all: even yard work. Just get up and move! Clean the house, dust the shelves, wash the car – exercise doesn’t have to include lifting weights or running a marathon. Eat right and move more; diet pills will work just fine.
Finally, some diet pills are extremely high priced, and given tons of marketing hype, but they’re just simple caffeine pills. They can promise the moon and the stars, but they wont be significantly more effective than your average cup of coffee. In cases like these, the pills probably are working, they’re just not turning you into that super sexy swimsuit model you saw on TV in just 2 easy weeks with no exercise.
Dangers of Diet Pills: How dangerous are they?
Depends on how stupid you are. Some people really abuse even safe substances, to the point where they become dangerous. The some diet pills on the market today are FDA approved, meaning they’ve been tested thoroughly for safety. A lot of the ingredients in your diet pill are probably FDA approved, even if that particular brand of pill is not. If you’re a risk taker (and an idiot) and you’re going out of your way to combine various pills to see what happens, then the dangers of diet pills might end up in tomorrow’s headlines, right next to your obituary. Just remember: if the world had no idiots, we would not need warning labels.
Prescription diet pills can carry even more danger: hence, the prescription needed to obtain them. Sadly, there’s actually a market for prescription diet pills, but by the time a person so frustrated with their weight that they’re willing to ask their doctor for something, the doctor should seriously recommend basic diet and lifestyle changes. Think of the word “supplements”: the word means “to add on to”, not “to do everything for you”. If you can’t control what goes into your mouth, then even the best diet pills aren’t going to help you.
Diet Tips and Diet Pills
The body is an extremely complex biochemical machine. Knew that already? Here’s something you probably didn’t know; your body also needs over 22 essential elements, and if you don’t get these, you will not only make your weight loss goals impossible to reach, you could potentially die. That’s right, you heard me – die. Getting each of these nutrients is tremendously important if you want to keep living and breathing, and much more important if you expect your internal biological fat-loss processes to function normally. Some of these include: thiamine, riboflavin, naicin, pantothenic aicd, pyridoxine acid, cyanocobalamin, Vitamins A, C, E, and D, calcium, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, zinc, copper, manganese, selenium, choline, and folate. Some of these may not immediately lead back to having an effect on fat loss, but eventually, they all do. Vitamins A and C, for example, are exceptionally important for a healthy immune system, which doesn’t just fight germs, but polices your blood stream and keeps things in order, especially during exercise, which in turn affects fat loss. Miss out on even one of these nutrients, and you’re just slowing yourself down. However, if you get all of them, then the diet pills you take are able to work completely unencumbered and the pounds will start rolling off in no time.
Thankfully, it’s rather easy to get most of these by taking a multivitamin – which you can easily find at GNC – and by occasionally including green and orange vegetables in your meals. Remember what we just covered though; “supplement” means “to add on to”, so multivitamins should not replace food! Eat healthy and live healthy. The diet pills are there only to help, not to completely do the job for you while you sit back in front of the TV with your feet up and eat junk food.