Weight Loss Diet: Are Diet Pills Effective for Weight Loss?

Diet pill supplements can be used to support a weight loss diet plan for women, but it's important to be aware that they have side effects that affect everybody differently. One of the biggest benefits to using weight loss pills to supplement your diet plan is to help suppress your appetite, which can help to get you through the tough times as you transform your bad eating habits for good ones.

Losing weight is really only 10% about what you put in your mouth and 90% about what's going on in your head.   A lot of times when you are thinking about eating it's got very little to do with being hungry.  If you were truly hungry you would be just as happy to munch on a hard-boiled egg as you would be to snack on a blueberry muffin.  The truth is we develop habits with eating and just like any other habits, the bad ones are always hard to break.  Just as smoking cessation products can ease the struggle of quitting cigarettes, diet pills can take the edge off of  breaking your bad eating habits when starting a diet plan.

Let's start by understanding how diet pills work.

Before I talk about what diet pills can actually do for you, I want to tell you what they cannot do.  Do not buy into the myth that there are magic pills out there that will either melt away body fat or stop your body from producing fat.  This is simply not true.  The best a diet pill can do for you on a healthy weight loss diet plan is help you to eat less, or better yet, allow you to make better food choices.  It does this by suppressing your appetite.  I'm not trying to insult your intelligence here, but it's important to understand the difference between your appetite and actually being hungry.  Your appetite is controlled by your mind and your emotions (I feel like a cheeseburger) whereas your hunger is controlled by your body (I need energy).  Diet pills that contain appetite suppressants reduce your appetite pangs by stimulating the release of two hormones known as epinephrine and norepinephrine. The result is to interrupt the signal in your brain that tells you what you feel like eating.  Another benefit of diet pills is that they can improve your sense of  well-being, which helps you feel more emotionally satisfied and therefore less likely to gravitate to a bag of chips to get a sense of fulfillment.  On the flip side of this there can also be negative side effects.  The hormones stimulated through the use of diet pills will work to increase your blood pressure and heart rate.  This can be dangerous for people with high blood pressure or cardiovascular conditions.  

Diet pills with an appetite suppressant will help you lose weight  and also help you achieve weight loss because they assist you in overcoming the urge for unhealthy snacking.  It takes about 21 days to mentally break a habit, so if you are serious about changing your eating habits, an appetite suppressant can help you get there. But it's very important to research what you are taking to ensure you avoid misuse.  As with many medicinal substances there is always a risk of addiction.  If you seriously want to consider using an appetite suppressant to help get you over your bad eating habits I recommend starting with a natural or herbal supplement as they are less likely to be habit forming.

Diet pills can have a temporary place in your quest to reach your weight loss goals and achieve the healthy lifestyle you desire, but you have to remember that nothing of value comes without effort.  If you are not ready to make permanent and lasting changes to your diet and lifestyle, diet pills will not be the right solution for you.  I always recommend talking to your doctor before you start any health regime.  He or she can always make recommendations on which diet supplements would work best for you.


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Weight Loss Diet: Sugar in a Healthy Weight Loss Diet

We are fatter than we’ve ever been.  The United States is facing an epidemic with respect to the level of obesity in our country.  Based on data from the National Centre for Health Statistics, 34% of American adults over the age of 20 are obese (2007-2008).  Today, the average American consumes approximately 180 pounds of sugar annually compared to the 1800’s when that number was only about 18 pounds a year.  It's pretty scary to think where we are, but it's even scarier to think what this will mean for the future if we don't get educated on the dangers of this potent provision.

Over the years I've come to understand that sugar is the most misunderstood food item we consume.  Most of the struggles we encounter on a healthy weight loss diet have to do with this misconception about sugar. Most people associate sugar with highly sweet food products.  Donuts, ice cream, candy bars and chocolate chip cookies are obvious examples of food products that contain sugar, but what if I told you that your body doesn't know the difference between that donut you had for breakfast or the baked potato you had with dinner.  In fact, whether you consume a couple slices of whole wheat bread, a bowl of pasta or a chocolate bar your body breaks it down to the exact same substance.  Sugar can take many forms in the food we eat (sucrose, fructose, and maltose to name a few), but through our body's digestion and absorption process it all breaks down to the same thing…glucose.  Glucose is the simplest form of sugar and it’s what our body needs to ensure we receive the energy we require to go about our day.  Glucose is an important nutrient when it comes to fueling our bodies, but once your body has processed all the sugar it needs to function it stores the extra as fat.  When on a healthy weight loss diet, by eating a balanced diet from natural sources such as meat, vegetables, fruit and dairy you are getting more than enough of the glucose your body needs to function at its best.  It's important to realize that your body has a limited capacity to store excess sugar after it converts to glucose, but it can easily convert it into excess body fat. 

The major challenge in controlling our sugar intake today is that excess refined sugar is hiding in most pre-packaged foods on the market.  Advertising labels on processed foods makes it difficult for the average consumer to know what they are actually buying.  Messaging on food packages such as “fat-free” and “less than 200 calories” are misleading if you aren’t aware of the dangers of sugar.  Processed foods are loaded with sugar and other chemicals that work to prolong the shelf-life of the product and make it taste appealing after the manufacturer has removed most of the essential nutrients.

 

So how do you start to eliminate, or at the very least, reduce the amount of sugar you are consuming on a daily basis?  

It’s really just about getting back to the basics.  Getting away from packaged food products and frozen entrees and introducing real, whole foods back into your diet is the only way to be successful.

Now it’s important to note that sugar is a drug and as with any drug if you have been consuming a lot of it over an extended period of time, your body has most likely become addicted to it.  That being said, getting off sugar is not an easy feat.  If it were, we could jump into just about any commercial diet plan on the market and see lasting weight loss results. But, if you’ve ever been on a diet you know that is simply not the case.  If you think of sugar the same as nicotine, caffeine or dare I say even narcotics, you will be better equipped to understand this process will not happen overnight.

A good place to start is to try and eliminate something from your diet that contains refined sugar about once a week and replace it with something natural, but enjoyable.  For example, if you regularly eat frozen dinners, stop!  Fresh or even frozen fish fillets are easy to prepare. There are tons of varieties to choose from so ask the guy behind the seafood counter to recommend something that’s not too “fishy”.  Couple that with some fresh or frozen cooked veggies.  If that's all you change for the next 3 months...congratulations!  You’ve just cut about 3 inches from your waistline.  How "sweet" is that!


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