Pill Poppers Give Up on Magic Pills
By Craig Ballantyne
Everyone wants a magical pill for weight loss. It’s so much easier than getting off the couch. Unfortunately, the “easy way out” doesn’t work. Fortunately, you don’t need a pill to reach the weight you want.
Canadian researchers took a look at two of the most common weight-loss drugs, Orlistat and Sibutramine, to see how consistently patients used the pills over a two-year period. More than 20,000 patients took part in this study.
Similar studies had reported minimal weight loss but plenty of adverse effects from these drugs (which makes you wonder why doctors still prescribe them). It’s no surprise, then, that less than 10 percent of the patients in the Canadian study continued with them for one year, and only two percent were still using them at the end of two years.
For one reason (ineffectiveness) or another (adverse effects), most of the patients stopped taking the diet pills.
Compare this to a lifestyle change of eating whole, natural foods, and exercising with short but intense workout sessions. When my clients finally try this lifestyle (a plan they can follow for the rest of their lives), we find that most keep it up.
Taking pills is not a way of life. Eating for energy and exercising to feel good and improve your fitness is the best method for improving your health and changing your body.
Instead of a donut for breakfast, eat an apple and some almonds. Replace soda with green tea or water. Get up 10 minutes earlier and start a progressively more intense exercise program. And take a few minutes each night to strengthen your body with bodyweight exercises in the comfort of your own home. I guarantee that it will be easier for you to stick with that program than trying to lose weight with pills.