Weight loss can be a tricky and questionable world. We don’t necessarily know what we want, and we don’t actually know what we are supposed to expect. When it comes to diet pills, you will find that there are many different ideas, most of them false about what diet pills are and what diet pills can do. Many of us have learned from commercials rather than clinical studies, and so we assume a lot of things that just aren’t true.

1. You need prescription diet pills to get results
The only sure thing it would seem with prescription diet pills is the fact that they are going to be potentially dangerous. Even the so called “safe” diet pills in the prescription market come with some potentially nasty and serious side effects. Unfortunately, studies on some of these prescription diet pills have not actually shown them to promote any weight loss results at all. Or they only promote results for a short period of time.

2. The best diet pills will help you to achieve results without diet and exercise
This is simply not true! If you want to lose weight, regardless of what method you may be using, even if you use gastric bypass surgery, you still have to diet and exercise! If you do not, you will gain the weight back even with small portions associated with gastric bypass surgery.

3. Diets are the way to go!
When you are trying to lose weight, you need to make a lifestyle change! Diets come and go, and then you go back to your old habits. And then you gain all the weight back.

4. All diet pills are just another rip off
Unfortunately, there are a number of diet pills out there that don’t come through. But this does not apply to all diet pills. There are diet pills out there that actually have the right stuff.

Do you feel as if you live healthy, but yet you’re not at the weight you want to be? Many people are this way. They feel they are living the healthiest lifestyle they can, yet their weight is not their desired weight. What is the cause? Well there could be several causes. Are you eating late at night? If you are, you are probably storing fat away. One is usually not active at night, causing the body to store the fat away from the food that had been consumed.

How much sugar and calories are really in the food you’re eating? A lot of American foods are packed with sugar, even though they don’t seem that way. Check how much sugar and calories you are really taking in. Also not getting enough sleep can help add to weight gain. It all has to do with chemicals that are sent through the body. When one is not asleep, the chemical that tells the body that it is hungry is released, making one eat at night, tying this back to eating late at night.

However, if one is asleep, the chemical will not be released. Naturally, your body wants fat. So it will tell your body, “FEED ME!” However, as humans, we all have the willpower to fight against this urge and tell it when enough is enough.

It is a popular misconception.  You diet, you lose weight, and then it’s all good, it’s all great in fact.  The problem is that idea doesn’t work.  Dieting doesn’t work.  You may lose weight now, but you will gain it all back later, because people are volatile and go on extreme diets that they cannot actually live with for long periods of time.  So after they have lost all the weight they want, they go back to all their old eating habits or at least half their old eating habits, and of course all the weight comes back in a shorter time than it took to lose it in the first place.  This is what happened with the Atkins diet and many like it for that matter.  It’s even happening with newer diets like the South Beach diet that try to slowly incorporate more carbs over time.

So for long term weight loss results, you need to change your lifestyle, using solutions you can stick to literally for the rest of your life.  Do things like first of all, exercising at least 3 times per week if not more like 5 times per week.  5 times per week is optimal.  You burn excess calories and your body can start to burn excess fat calories over time.

Second, learn to eat foods that you like, but fill you up faster and therefore prompt you to eat less.  These are foods you could see yourself eating a lot of all the time instead of just for a few months.  They should be packed with vitamins, minerals, nutrients, fibers, and have few calories to boot.  Examples of this include fruits, vegetables, and grapes specifically have 100 calories per 100 grams, making them a better snack as compared to some others.

And third, control your portions.  Even if you’re eating the best foods, if you eat too much of them, the calories will still build up, and you will still end up with troubles surrounding your weight.  This is what the books “French Women” something about never get fat is based on.

Finally, everything in moderation.  You can cut out fats, carbs, etc. But you are much better off if you have all these foods, but in moderate and controlled amounts.  Also, eating too many acidic fruits and vegetables could actually damage the walls of stomach lining among other things.  So moderation is key.

            You may remember Kirstie Alley from shows like Cheers or from commercials for Jenny Craig.  But after a stint working for Jenny Craig, Kirstie Alley has apparently decided to launch her own weight loss program.  She first joined Jenny Craig after topping a record 200 pounds, and apparently lost 75 pounds on the Jenny Craig diet plan.  And when they brought in Queen Latifah, they were still feeling good about their relationship with Alley.  But despite all the rumors as to why the split occurred, Kirstie Alley is optimistic about her plan to be introduced this year.

            Surprisingly, Ms Alley doesn’t actually have a plan as to how she is going to create this amazing weight loss line as of yet.  It is 2009, and she has only said that she wants to create a diet plan for those who seem to be unable to put an end to their yoyo dieting.  She claims that it will be the “healthiest, yummiest, easiest, and most effective weight loss program on the market.”  There is speculation that it may use Chinese acupuncture. 

            But the fact is diets don’t work.  In the beginning, women lost weight with Jenny Craig and then gained it back once they stopped ordering the food, because they never actually learned how to pick the right kinds of food.  They never learned about fruits, vegetables, all that good stuff.  They only ate the given meal plans that apparently contained all the things they liked best.  I would be surprised to see if Alley’s diet is any better than what Jenny Craig used to be.

            The fact is that when Alley used Jenny Craig, she was given prepackaged and preplanned meals.  So she knows nothing else, and she learned nothing else.  The reality is that she has struggled with obesity for a long period of time, and it doesn’t seem like she has learned anything new.  So we are highly doubtful that she will come up with anything revolutionary, let alone more revolutionary than Jenny Craig.  And frankly, the whole part about “yummiest, healthiest, easiest”, well she wouldn’t be the first to try.  But others who have tried have had backgrounds in medicine, nutrition, something that applies.

            If you have come to the point where you believe nothing else will work, you might turn to bariatric surgery such as gastric bypass or lap band, in other words getting your stomach stapled.  As kids, we spread a rumor around about a pretty big girl that it was said burst her staples because she ate so much.  Now we all know that if you eat too much with that, you just throw it back up.  But we were relatively uneducated about bariatric surgery, as many patients unfortunately are.  So there are a few questions you should ask of your surgeon before undergoing a procedure.

            First, ask if you are a good candidate.  You could have various medical conditions and such that could cause complications.  They could recommend one type for you over the other, and if you are trying to do it under the age of 18, it is not recommended except in extreme cases.  Most doctors will not perform these procedures on children.  However, the Stanford Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital specializes in gastric bypass surgery for children.  You can also ask what types of surgery they actually perform at that hospital.

            Second, you should ask how much it will cost.  This is essential, considering you should know if you can actually afford it.  They vary between 9000 and 55,000 depending on the surgeon.  This is a huge gap, and you should definitely know what you are getting.  You should also know if your insurance is going to pay part of it and how much.  If so or if not, you should know if you can make payment plans or if you are expected to pay it all at once.

            Third, what are your personal chances of dying?  I mean is it really worth it to die now instead of just trying to diet and exercise to lose weight?  The mortality rate varies from doctor to doctor.  There is an average in the United States.  But you should know if there have been any malpractice suits against your particular doctor or hospital.  This could significantly raise your chances of dying on the table. 

            Fourth, what should by diet now entail.  Gastric bypass surgery requires you to make certain changes to your diet, not only in how much you eat, but in what you eat to get the required vitamins and minerals and so on.  You will only be able to eat a small amount, and there are certain foods you will have to avoid.  Avoiding these foods might help you without the surgery.  But with the surgery, it is essential to life.  You should probably work with a dietician.

            Finally, do I need a mental evaluation?  As with any procedure of cosmetic or weight loss nature, you do need a mental health evaluation before proceeding.  This is partly to ensure that you are not doing it because you are addicted to the surgeries among other things.  Some requires one visit to a mental health professional, and others require extensive visits to a trained psychologist. This all factors into the cost.  Some patients are likely to completely lose it following this particular procedure, eating themselves to death by gorging despite feelings of fullness and throwing up.  Suicide significantly raises the mortality rate with this particular procedure.

            If you’ve ever raised a small child, you may have found that it is an uphill battle to get them to eat anything descent.  Some parents have taken the route of feeding them foods they don’t like in different forms.  For example, one parent I knew realized that his child did not like fish.  The mother would have preferred to not make him eat anything he didn’t like.  The father however bought him fish sticks.  Not the healthiest choice, but the child is eating fish…technically. 

            Kids are always targeted in fast food commercials, and many children’s drinks are made up of a large amount of sugar as opposed to actual nutrients.  In fact, sweet drinks are one of the major foods blamed for childhood obesity, even though they’ve technically been around for generations. 

            Researchers are backing up these claims about sweet drinks.  Researchers from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as well as Harvard Medical School and the University of Missouri have collectively tested 10,904 children of the ages of 2 and 3.  In Missouri, these tested children were part of the WIC program, and they used questionnaires including the child’s BMI.  Sweet drinks generally include kool-aid, vitamin C and grape juices that are supposedly juice, and sodas, even the sugar free ones. 

            When the study began at the ages of 2 or 3, children were generally of normal weight or lower weights.  At that time, 14.5% were at risk for obesity, and 10.1% were already overweight.  A year later, the normal or underweight became overweight at a rate of 3.1%.  The risk group included a 25% rate of raised obesity, and those who started out overweight maintained a 67% rate of overweight numbers.  Drinking 1 to 2 of these sweet drinks significantly contributed to rates of obesity.  Those children drinking 2 or more drinks were twice as likely as others to become overweight, and they were considered the at risk group. 

            In terms of adult obesity, excess amounts of soda and other sweet drinks and liquid calories can certainly contribute to obesity.  The implications are just a bit clearer in children.  So, children should be given more water, more real juice, and fewer artificial and sweetened drinks.

            There are plenty of extreme and unorthodox ways to lose weight.  They are generally not the healthiest approaches, and some can even lead to extreme nutritional deficiencies.  I would go so far as to say nobody should actually use these diets, especially if you are struggling to lose weight.  There is no easy way out or miracle treatment or diet.

            The first is the supermodel diet.  They go under the assumption that lettuce, diet coke, tomatoes, and apple can fulfill all your nutritional needs and make you “drop dead” gorgeous.  Maybe the drop dead part applies, but not the gorgeous.  Malnourished people generally tend to get bony, lose hair, all that fun stuff that anorexic individuals suffer through.

            The second, replace water and soda with enviga.  Apparently, 3 cans contains negative 100 calories.  You cannot go negative in calories, unless you eat nothing and exercise a lot of course.  That is also unhealthy by the way.  Either way, were this possible, you would have to eat 100 calories just to break even.  But most wouldn’t to maximize results.

            Push the bus.  Not only is this completely unrealistic, being that you would have to have some serious adrenaline rushing through your body to do it, it is also extremely unhealthy.  Trying to do that could push your muscles into panic mode, actually forcing you to go to the hospital for something far more serious than just fatigue or muscle fatigue.

            Fourth, corrective surgery.  By this, I mean liposuction, tummy tucks, breast augmentation, etc.  It may work, but at what cost.  Thousands of people die on the table every year due to complications or unqualified doctors.  Even with qualified doctors, there are quite a few risks.

            Fifth, the fat flush program.  It basically allows you to sit on the toilet all day.  It will get rid of a lot of water weight and possibly make you dehydrated.  It consists of eating a lot of flax seed oil.  It works with eccentric geriatrics!  But it’s far from healthy and far from a lasting approach.

            The 3 day diet requires that you only eat once every 3 days.  Um….this one should be obvious.  The minimum amount you should be eating on a daily basis is 1100 calories.  This could cause starvation, malnutrition, and oh binge eating.

            Ask yourself what would Jesus eat, what would Jesus eat?  So while this is great in theory, because Jesus would obviously not eat fast food or fried foods, you get to eat a lot of fish and bread.  They have some vital nutrients, but not many.

            Finally, the heroin diet.  This is a favorite of young starlets.  Well that or meth.  Nevermind the rapid aging and the damage it does to your body and the late nights of not being able to sleep or do all the other normal things.  You are so hyped up you lose tons of weight. 

            So if you are considering a serious diet, consult your nutritionist.  These extreme diets and programs are not the way.  They may work for starlets.  But do you really consider supermodels and starlets to be normal, especially since one such supermodel collapsed and died on the runway?

            Trying to reduce portion sizes, many find themselves struggling to lose weight, because they are always starving, especially in the beginning due to years of overeating and otherwise abusing the body.  But many successful dieters, not just in the United States, have found more frequent meals to the answer.  Smaller meals give your body a chance to digest the components on a more consistent basis, and some even find that they are eating more throughout the day, eating every 3 hours and 5-6 meals per day, but paradoxically they are losing weight.

            What if workouts functioned in the same way?  Medical experts are now suggesting that workouts broken into 10 minute durations throughout the day could actually effectively reduce the risk of heart attack as compared to those who only workout 1-3 times per week.  Some studies have used subjects who exercised 5 times or more per week.  These subjects had a lower rate of heart attacks and heart disease related death.  Exercise was required to be vigorous enough to produce sweat, and timing was specific.  But all these studies were only conducted on men, not women.

            But the official statement from the American Heart Association remains the same.  For most people, workouts of a 30 minute duration in those 65 or younger are generally the most effective methods of action.  It has been suggested that any workout longer than 30 minutes is less effective for the time spent, and you are no longer burning so many calories as you are unnecessarily abusing your body.

            Either way, some find that they can better stand smaller workouts throughout the day, both in the impact on their bodies as well as the impact on their available time.  As our society becomes bigger, we cannot use large chunks of our day all at one time to complete the recommended amount of exercise.  But if we break it out, we are ultimately getting the same amount of caloric burn, but in a way convenient to our individual situations.

1. American Heart Association Science Blog.  Frequent Workouts Better For Heart. http://www.scienceblog.com/community/older/1997/A/199700045.html 1997.
2. http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/aerobic-exercise/AN01947
3. Gruenmay, Jennifer.  Frequent Workouts Are More Effective.  Lifescript.  October 29, 2006.  http://www.lifescript.com/Body/Shape/Fit-tips/Frequent_Workouts_Are_More_Effective.aspx?page=postcomment

            Popularized through Chinese medicine, Ginseng is one of the best known herbs in the world’s market.  Also known as panax or “all curing” in Greek, ginseng has been used to increase energy, stamina, and well being.  However, it has recently been connected to being highly effective in weight loss and diabetes control. 

            Phytotherapy Research Journal has actually researched the molecular basis of a red ginseng constituents, which apparently stops the cells from storing energy as fat.  In short, the cells cannot fully complete the process of fat storing.  They used wild mice and fed them 100mg/kg or 200mg/kg for 4 weeks, resulting in a loss of weight and decrease in blood glucose levels as compared to the placebo mice.it may also normalize hypothalamic neuropeptides and serum biochemicals related to weight gain.

            Ginseng comes from a group of non-habit forming elements that optimize body function.  It was found in Manchuria and is referred to as Ren Shen or man root.  It can be used fresh ore dried, and it comes in different varieties.  It affects the adrenal glands, which may be why it decreases stress. 

Working as a metabolic equalizer, ginseng may actually live up to its name of “cure-all.”  Russian studies have shown it to stimulate physical and mental acitivity, increasing energy, and balancing the body in general.  It stimulates the endocrine glands, and there are some that are suggesting that it may treat erectile dysfunction.  Some have also said that it can treat anemia as well as strengthening the gastrointestinal system, helping the liver to regenerate itself, and getting rid of poisons. 

While there is speculation about all the effects of ginseng, it has actually been confirmed that it can contribute to weight loss and increased stamina, which may contribute to a higher level of exercise in some individuals.

“The Health Benefits of Ginseng”, health.learninginfo.org.

Dr. Maoshing Ni, Secrets of Longevity.