In the world that we live in today with it’s fast food, video games and technology that brings quick results with little work, it’s no wonder we have issues with weight control. In addition, many of us have such hectic lives where we are running to work and taking our kids to school or their extracurricular activities grabbing food on the run. Many of us are tired after all that and just don’t have the energy for exercise. We find ourselves slowly but surely gaining weight. At the same time, skinny models are glorified as the image everyone wants.
Out of frustration or maybe just plain laziness on some people’s part (who don’t really want to work at exercise), many are turning to diet pills as a quick and easy way of losing weight.
Many of these diet pills can be obtained over the counter, thereby giving consumers the false impression that they’re perfectly safe. This is not true. In the 1990’s there were a total of over a hundred ingredients, normally found in over the counter diet pills, that were actually banned. Some of the ingredients were found to be outright dangerous to people.
Guar Gum is a product that was used in several brands of diet pills. The claim was that this ingredient would swell once in the body to help promote a feeling of fullness. It was later found that this Guar Gum actually caused blockages in the stomach and throats in some individuals.
Another ingredient called PPA was pulled from the market by the FDA because they were concerned with it’s connection to strokes.
Typically diet pills do not offer long term effects. While they may help one to lose weight in the short term, the individual hasn’t changed their bad eating and exercise habits so once the pills are stopped the weight will be regained. Additionally many people do not realize that diet pills usually have a poor interaction with prescription drugs. If one is taking prescription medication, it’s very important to speak with your doctor before attempting to try any diet pills.
Another ingredient in diet pills was found to cause some potentially dangerous problems for users. This is Fen/phen. This ingredient, which has been touted as the miracle diet drug of choice among the current generation, was found to be connected to heart problems.
The best thing anyone can do when looking to lose weight is to work on changing their exercise and eating habits. Exercise more, even if you are super busy and just too tired at the end of the day, as little as twenty minutes of walking will get your metabolism moving, and give you more energy too. Change your eating habits. Avoid fast foods and all the sugary drinks that bombard us each day and replace them with healthy fruits, vegetables and juices.
You’ll find that with just a few changes in your normal every day habits will make a huge difference over time. Difference that is long lasting as opposed to the quick lose and gain that diet pills usually cause.