Herbal Supplements

Weight Loss Patches – Any Better than Pills?

The weight loss patch, like this herbal weight loss patch that we talk about in this blog, has really taken the dieting and weight loss supplement market by storm.

The diet patch basically uses the same technology that is used in nicotine patches to get the dieting and weight loss ingredients such as appetite and blood sugar regulating plant based ingredients, to the blood stream in a more direct, more steady manner than when one has to pop pills that are not time released at several critical points throughout the day.

If you’ve ever taken a diet supplement, you’ve probably noticed that you usually are advised to take them at several different intervals throughout the day. Why is this?  Well, because after a few hours, the appetite suppressing abilities of the active ingredients usually wears off, and you must replenish your stomach with them.

From there, it may take another hour for the active ingredients to go to work in the body, because they must first be digested, then deposited into the blood stream where they can have their positive effect on things like blood sugar levels and the appetite.

With a weight loss patch, you don’t have to worry about that, because transdermal technology – the same kind that nicotine patches use to help people quit smoking by giving them a steady dose of nicotine throughout the day to stave off withdrawal symptoms and satisfy cravings – actually allows the person to get that steady dose all day long.

Herbal weight loss patches are an excellent alternative for people who hate to have to haul around pills and supplements, and then remember to take them with a large glass of water at sometimes inopportune times of day where they may not be able to get a moment away to take them in privacy.

Sceletium Tortuosum Being Studied for Appetite Suppression

A new plant, which incidentally I talked about on this blog a few years ago, and I also incidentally found it online and bought some to try, is now being seriously studied as a new natural appetite suppressant and mood booster called sceletium tortuosum.

This natural plant which is found in Africa and used by the San bush people, just like the other infamous natural appetite suppressant Hoodia Gordonii, has been used by the san people for it’s mood boosting and appetite and thirst satisfying qualities for years. They would chew on the plant to get the natural organisms and essence of the plant in their blood stream, and apparently experienced a nice “buzz” and mood boost, and well as a noticeable reduction in their appetite.

That could be a billion dollar marketing idea, for sure, if it works like they say it might. I actually tried a powdered capsule of this sceletium tortuosum years ago when I read an obscure article about it online and I was trying to lose some weight but couldn’t seem to get my appetite under control. It sounded perfect since it may boost mood along with decreasing the appetite. Mood boosts are something we could all use most of the time!  So I tried it.

I did notice a mild suppression of my appetite, but nothing to write home about in my humble opinion. I don’t know if the formula I bought just wasn’t strong enough, but it wasn’t the extreme appetite suppression I was looking for.  I hate the ones with stimulants in them, so this sounded like the perfect idea. Alas, there is probably no magic bullet, but there are definitely some that can help you get through those times when your appetite seems to be on constant raging high.

I’m anxious to see if this is marketed as a product with greater strength, as I have a feeling the one I ordered wasn’t totally on the up and up. When I got the capsules, they were all powdery and they looked as if they’d been sitting forever on a shelf, so I wasn’t sure I was getting them fresh, which could make all the difference in the world since the people who’ve been using them for appetite suppression for years chewed on the raw, fresh leaves of the plant for the therapeutic ways to take effect.

We’ll see, I looked online and only really found one brand offering them thus far. I’m waiting to see what further studies come out and more importantly, if they actually put a good product out there.

More Popular Herbal Diet Supplements (Part II)

In India the succulent plant caralluma fimbriata produces caralluma is sought after as a weight loss aid. Another natural appetite suppressant, it is not as well known as Hoodia, but is fast becoming popular in the Europe and the U.S. Caralluma was discovered because in its native India it was and still is often used during periods of famine to help citizens manage through periods of food shortages by suppressing their appetites.

The raw version of the caralluma fimbriata plant is used as a vegetable, in preserves or even eaten raw. In the U.S. caralluma is only available along with green tea in herbal supplements product from Country Life called GenaSlim.

The Asian continents give us green tea as the answer to dietary health. Diet aids created with green tea provide many health benefits including appetite suppressant, diuretic, colon cleansing. Other health benefits of green tea include heart health benefits and antioxidant characteristics.

Green tea also has natural caffeine which produces a metabolism boost to help burn excess calories and manage obesity. The caffeine content in green tea is also responsible for fat burning thermogenesis.

Scams

Beware of scams when looking to purchase weight loss supplements. Herbs like acai berry, hoodia and caralluma are only available in certain regions of the world making them more expensive than plants easily found in any country. If you find a source for any supplement that is far less expensive than others, avoid purchasing such drugs.

Making Weight Loss Aids Work For You

Carb blockers and metabolism boosters only work if you create the right atmosphere. Reduce calories and carb intake so your body is working efficiently. The carb is a common enemy in the weight loss world, but not every carb is bad.

CaYou must be sure to get the proper amount of good carbs. Fat blockers do not prohibit some carb calories, so be careful to not eat many high starch carb products like corn and potatoes. Get more leafy green vegetables that are a source of good carb intake. Creating the right atmosphere will let blockers and other sources of herbal weight loss aids be the most effective help for your efforts.

Popular Herbal Diet Supplements Part 1

Most Popular Herbal Diet Supplements When considering the most popular herbal diet supplements, you have to also consider the ones that actually work, or work as promised. A few products provide some benefits, but don’t live up to the claims on their packages.

Looking at the enormous variety of supplements is a confusing job, so narrowing it down to particular types that suit your needs best is a good way to begin. Keeping your diet aids herbal in nature enhances the likelihood they will be safer to use and kinder to your body in general.

What Makes an Effective Herbal Diet Supplement?

Two of the most popular diet aids are fat blockers and metabolism boosters. These aids are popular for good reason: they are responsible for two of the powerful functions responsible for losing weight. The fat blockers keep ingested fats from assimilating into the system and becoming fat in the first place.

Because it is nearly impossible to remove all sources of fat from the diet fat blockers goes a restricted calorie diet one better. Metabolism boosters create an extra benefit in making the body burn energy faster to use up an food taken in, and hopefully pulling extras from stored fats when you restrict daily calories.

Herbal Ingredients That Really Work

One of the hottest weight loss supplement ingredients on the market today, the acai berry comes from a South American palm tree. In the Brazilian Amazon, the acai berry is a large portion of their total food source. It is an antioxidant fruit as well so there are many health benefits associated with herbal supplements with acai in them.

However, because they are as popular as they are, the acai berry has also developed a bit of fabrication surrounding their actual abilities, and some claims of curing serious disease or enhancing body parts are more myth than fact. It’s distortions such as those that take away from the true power of herbal supplements.

Another famous weight loss supplement comes from South Africa. Discovered by local bush people, the Hoodiagordonii plant became more affectionately known in America as Hoodia. It is available in many forms, and originates from a succulent plant.

Hoodia is a natural appetite suppressant which helps conquer one of the most difficult parts of weight loss control: calorie restriction. Hoodia helps convince your brain that you have had enough. Some experts believe that one of the main problems for obese people is that their natural brain triggers no longer work properly to recognize the signals of being full so they keep eating. With that in mind it is easy to see why Hoodia is an important supplement.

New Review : Caralluma Product

Carallluma fimbriata is another one, like the all too popular hoodia, that is a plant who is from the succulent family. Succulents look like cactuses, or cacti, and I supposed you could call them from the cactus family as well.

Caralluma is a plant that, when ground up and turned into a powder, or shoot, if eaten straight in it’s native land, far far away, will curb your appetite, and can even help to curb your thirst. It is another plant that is used by tribesmen to help stave off their hunger and thirst for longer periods of time so they can get more important things done eating.

Leave it to us diet-obsessed Americans to find these types of miracle plants, and use them as ingredients in diet and appetite suppressing products designed to help us lose weight. Well, that’s exactly what’s been done, and the product I’ve reviewed is Caralluma Burn, which is a pure Caralluma diet supplement that does not contain any of those additives that make you feel like you want to jump out of your own skin like caffeine or any other types of harsh stimulants.

The problem with these types of diet aids that use stimulation as their main way to suppress hunger is that they often leave the person hungrier than they ever were when they wear off. This product is unique in that it does not use any stimulants, as a lot of hoodia products do, to aid you in your strike against hunger to help fulfill your weight loss goals, rather it just uses the power of this unique caralluma plant to ward off hunger and help your blood sugar remain stable for hours on end so that you can begin to burn your calorie stores and reduce your overall weight.

After all, weight loss is by it’s very definition a loss of excess calories, and in order to do that, you have to intake less. Caralluma Burn helps you do that by reducing cravings and appetite. Read on for a full review of the Caralluma product.

With So Many Herbal “Miracle Diet Pills”, Who Knows What Works?

We all want to believe that there really is a magic bullet diet plan or pill out there that will allow us to lose weight without cutting calories or exercising, but the fact of the matter remains, there are no long term solutions to weight loss and weight maintenance that do not involve these two vital disciplines.  Sure, there may be appetite suppressant pills that can definitely help you in the willpower category, but in the end it’s not the fact that you have a smaller appetite that makes you lose weight, it’s the fact that you’re taking in fewer calories because of that.

So far, just visiting my email account at Yahoo and Gmail, I’ve noticed tons of ads for the New Years miracle diets, and they almost all claim to make you lose weight without actually dieting.  I gotta cry foul on this one.  I guarantee that they all say in fine print on the bottom of their websites that you only will lose weight if you combine with a “sensible” eating plan, and that not all results are like the pictures and tesimonials they show you, that’s to cover their butts for saying that you don’t actually need to diet. 

I’m sorry, but I’d like to believe there is a magic bullet out there that will allow me to cram my favorite foods down my gullet with reckless abandon without putting on an ounce but it simply isn’t true.  We all wish it was, but there has yet to be a pill that helps us lose weight without us putting in the effort to increase our healthful foods intake and cut the crap out.

I definitely still advocate a good herbal weight loss pill, as long as it’s not one that has tons of stimulants in them, because there are some good diet pills out there that curb appetite and help make dieting and eating right a little easier, but I’m just saying not to have unreasonable expectations as to what they can actually do for you without you dieting. 

Diet Pills Do Help to Kick Start Your Diet

While I never advocate taking diet pills over a long period of time, I do think they are a great way to kick start a diet or just to start helping to naturally curb your appetite and get that stomach shrunk back down so you can be on your way to slimming down in no time, as well as reshaping your dieting habits so that you can get back on the track of your true, inner slim self.  Boy, do I sound like a weight loss hypnosis CD (which by the way those totally work also, double whammy is to use a good CD set on top of herbal diet pills to really help kick it in).

I am currently taking a very potent hoodia appetite suppressant and am experincieng a huge decrease in my appetite, and a renewed sense of what it’s like to appreciate the food I do eat when I’m good and hungry enough to eat. You know how that can be sometimes, when you’re just seemingly shoveling food into your mouth for the sake of keeping your mouth full?  I don’t get that when I’m really ready to cut back and am using an effective diet aid to help me in my quest to get back down to my ideal weight.

I would only recommend that you try herbal weight loss pills, since I am against putting more chemicals in the body that may actually cause an increase in appetite when you are through with your bottle. Herbs and natural ingredients tend to be much easier on the body, and as long as you are not buying a caffeine intensive formula, they usually will not give you the shakes or any other adverse side effects. 

Be careful though for stimulants that are disguised as herbal or natural, harmless ingredients, since those can actually cause you to feel shaky, have difficulty concentrating, and may even make some people feel dizzy or faint, and cause hot flashes.  Of course, I’m ultra sensitive to harsh stimulants, so these side effects may just affect me, but I think they probably affect other sensitive people as well. 

Hoodia Gum For Consistent Appetite Control

I’m loving the idea of this new trend in appetite control, which is that the person chews on a piece of gum for a while and gets the benefit of a slow release into the blood stream of appetite suppressing ingredients.  So goes the idea behind the hoodia gum break through which helps to time release the appetite controlling properties of the Hoodia p57 molecule, which is one of the latest and greatest natural appetite suppression tools used by people who just can’t seem to get the willpower they need without a little help from some natural chemicals which help tell the brain to stop eating when full.

That’s probably one of the biggest problems behind our national weight problem these days, is portion control.  If we could learn to just stop eating when we’re actually full, which is when our bodies don’t need any more calories, and that way nature intended for us to put a self-stop to overconsumption, then we would have very little problem with obesity and excess weight here in the US, the capital of overdoing it if you ask me.

Heck, you got to any restaurant that is a chain, and the portions are usually about double or sometimes even triple what they should be according to a person’s actual daily caloric intake needs.  This coupled with the fact that many restaurants pile on the sodium and the fat to make their foods taste better, and that Americans are increasingly turning to fast food and restaurant foods in the wake of increasing time constraints is just one of the many factors behind us eating too much, and eating foods that contribute greatly to weight gain and perpetual weight increases.

One of my favorite ways to kick start my diets is to take hoodia gum or some other similar natural appetite suppressant that is usually stimulant free, and use it to my favor to help me to both stop eating when I’m full as well as to not get hungry as often.  This type of appetite suppressant usually helps to stabilize the blood sugar, which is one of the prime reasons we may feel too hungry too often. 

It helps us to truly eat only when our bodies need the calories to be able to function well, instead of randomly eating any junk that we want out of boredom or sheer ignorance as to when our bodies are truly satisfied and done eating.  The other problem is that we tend to eat too fast, so our brains don’t catch up with our bellies and signal one that the other is satisfied, hence the phenomena of “extreme fullness” and feeling disgustingly stuffed not sinking in until way after we clear our plates, another reason we eat excessive calories.

5htp as an Appetite Supressant – Follow Up

I had promised a few weeks ago to write a follow up to my research on using 5htp – which is a natural anti depressant, or so some people think, because it is a natural precursor to the “pleasure” hormone called seratonin, as an appetite suppressant as well as natural mood lifter and equalizer.  I’ve been using the product now for almost two weeks, one 100mg pill in the morning with breakfast, and one in the evening with dinner. 

One note on 5htp is that you do have to take it with food or else there’s a good chance you may end up with an upset stomach, especially if you have a sensitive stomach to begin with.  So, my dosage was the two 100 mg capsules a day, because I read that’s a good place to start, although some people may need more than that depending on their weight, height, metabolism and more. 

I’m actually taking the product not as an appetite suppressant, but because I was experiencing a lot of different moods and wanted to even myself out, and heard that this product was a good natural way to do that, and it’s also good for anxiety, which is something I struggle with as well because I have the type of personality that always puts too much in front of me to do, and I end up stressing out about it.  My own fault, I know! 

As far as 5htp as an appetite suppressant though, I’m only noticing a very mild effect when it comes to my appetite though.  I noticed it more at first, and now that I’m almost two weeks into taking it, I’m not really noticing a decrease in my appetite at all.  The bright side though, is that although it may not work well as a natural appetite suppressant, it sure is working well on my mood and anxiety.  I haven’t experienced very many anxiety attacks or mood swings since I’ve been taking it, so I think there is something to it with regards to mood stabilization.  

What Sorts of Herbs are Used in Weight Loss?

Weight loss herbal pills are usually synonymous with one particular ingredient, and that is unfortunately caffeine or some other sort of stimulant that some people, like myself may be sensitive to.  You can’t get my skin near some of those herbal weight loss formulas without my skin breaking out in zits like I was 16 years old again because I’m so sensitive to many stimulants.  And that’s just one of the side effects, there’s also jitters, nausea, dry mouth, rapid heart beat and other rather unpalatable side effects that both scare and repel us from using these potentially harmful substances. 

But there are some formulas that are made with non stimulant ingredients that also help you to lose weight by cutting the appetite or helping with fat loss through thermogenesis, which is the assistance with the breakdown of fats in the body (although it is unclear whether this works through helping them break down in the digestive tract, or whether it is meant that they actually help “burn” fat off the body that is already there, which I think is very hard.

Take for example, hoodia gordonii, which is made in so many different ways and formulas that it is hard to tell what is actually pure hoodia and what it just a fake.  You have to be careful with this one because you may be getting a very watered down version of the effective appetite suppressing herb, or you may be getting something that isn’t even the real hoodia plant that has gotten all the press for suppressing hunger of the san bushmen in Africa on long hunting trips. 

Another one is guarana, which is essentially a stimulant, but it is fairly effective at staving off hunger if you use it correctly.  Be careful with any stimulants as they may have a rebound effect that can make you even hungrier and make you eat even more when you are off of them because your appetite returns with a vengeance. 

Another ingredient in herbal weight loss pills is chromium picolinate.  This one is supposed to help your body stabilize it’s blood sugar levels, which in turn helps you become a fat burning machine, eat less because you are not overly hungry ever thanks to a balanced blood sugar, and also may even help with the slower burning of foods so you stay fuller longer. 

None of these herbs and natural ingredients is without controversy of course, so you really have to read around and find something that works for you, with your chemistry before you make a judgment call on what herbal formula to go with.