People are very interested in losing weight, looking slim and being healthy. Obese/ over weight people who want to lose weight look for shortcuts. It would feel really nice to lose 20 pounds in a week and get into that perfect dress. It is not just a wish many have, they are willing to go to any extent, try any thing to achieve this.
Taking pills for weight loss is one of the common trends. People believe it is possible to lose weight by taking just a pill, keeping their dietary habits as unhealthy as before.
There are a lot of weight loss pills available in the market. Many of them are available as over-the- counter drugs.
Over the counter weight loss pills:
Bitter orange- it is a herbal supplement, aimed at increasing the body metabolism. This would enable you to lose weight in a short time.
1. Chitosan- this is a drug which would block the fat absorption in the body. All the fat is eliminated and you lose weight.
2. Conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) – this is said to decrease your hunger, resulting in your eating lesser calories in a day, enabling weight loss.
3. Ephedra- decreases appetite and you eat less.
4. Guar gum- acts on the body to lessen the fat absorption.
There are other prescription weight loss medicines as well. ALLI is one of the FDA approved prescription medicine for weight loss. It acts to decrease the fat absorption in the body.
But do these weight loss pills work?
It is true that the weight loss pills do work to some extent. As suggested, they increase your basal metabolism, resulting in increased rate of calorie burning, or decrease the level of fat absorption in the body. Much of the excess calories stored as fat in the body comes from the fatty food people eat. Hence, if the absorption of fat is decreased, the accumulation of fat also decreases. But the long term effects of the weight loss pills are really doubtful.
Long term effects of weight loss pills
Most of the weight loss pills would work when taken regularly. But there is a catch. They work only till the time they are taken regularly. If you make no permanent life style changes related to diet and exercise, and discontinue the pills, the lost pounds come back and real fast. There is a scientific reason behind this. Weight loss pills act in your body in a specific manner. On discontinuation, the action stops as well. The metabolism gets back to normal, and the body stores everything as fat.
Side effects of weight loss pills
Many people who want to try on a weight loss pill are not even aware that there could be side effects. Most of the over- the- counter weight loss pills are not just one medicine. There might be different components in them. In many of the herbal supplements, even where the ingredients are mentioned, you might not recognize the components are and how they affect you.
If you are taking some medication for some medical condition, there are chances that one of the components might react with the drug and cause some adverse reaction. Some of the drugs may act adversely with some ingredient in your diet or even alcohol. There are even chances that you get side effects because of the drug itself.
Some of the common side effects of weight loss pills are vomiting, diarrhea, constipation, bloating, flatulence, irritability, sleeplessness etc. There are reported side effects as increased blood pressure, irregular heart rate etc due to some weight loss pill, though such severe side effects are relatively uncommon.
Is there a way to lose weight quickly?
No. There is no quick way or short cuts to losing the excess weight. It is only continued efforts and life style changes that would help you with this. And losing the weight in the proper way is better than going through short cuts, starving yourself, losing the weight only to regain it.
What do I do to lose weight?
Described below are the measures you can employ to lose weight. And the weight lost would be gone forever.
1. Make dietary changes. Increase fiber in the diet. Limit the intake of refined foods. Reduce the intake of fatty foods.
2. Eat lesser number of calories. Limit your portions.
3. Eat frequently. It helps to eat frequently than eating three whole meals in a day. This would boost your metabolism and keep it running all through the day.
4. Increase your exercise. Add more physical activity to your life. Take the stairs, walk more, do some moving around every hour if you have a sedentary job.
Make all this part of your life. And the result would be a healthy you in no time.