Herbal Supplements

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. 

Could 5htp Act as a Mild Appetite Suppressant?

I have just recently ordered a few bottles of the natural supplement called 5htp.  5htp is a component of tryptophan, which is the natural chemical that makes you feel sleepy after you indulge in one too many slices of that holiday turkey.  This is the relaxing component of the product, but the more important action of 5htp is that it acts as a natural precursor to the very important hormone called seratonin.

You’ve heard of seratonin because it is a buzzword in the world of depression and anxiety control, and that is why 5htp has become a fairly popular supplement for depression and anxiety.  Seratonin also behaves as a patrol for your appetite, making you feel fuller faster, and may explain why bulimics eat too much and then vomit, because they are deficient in seratonin.

I am going to try this natural appetite suppressant out and review it for you as an appetite suppressant which is actually it’s secondary use and has not really been proven yet.  I have bought it to help deal with depression and anxiety, so we’ll see if it works for either one. 

Do Digestive Enzymes Help Aid Digestion?

About two months ago, I had some major problems with indigestion, and a friend of mine has had problems her whole life basically, and like me, also had problems with IBS.  She recommended I try digestive enzymes for when I’m going to eat meals that may be a little harsh on my digestive system, such as a meal heavy in meats or fats, or even something heavy in dairy, which I have a really hard times processing without severe discomfort.

So, I went to my local GNC and bought some enzymes that were pretty lightweight, not really the “real” enzymes that you pop before your meal that tend to really help with the digestion, but this time I bought these papaya enzymes that taste like candy.  While I do think they helped to ease indigestion when taken after a meal, they really didn’t help to ease severe discomfort and I wondered how something that tastes like candy could really be helping increase my digestive juices and enzymes in my stomach so that I could digest foods much more easily.

So, the next time I went back to GNC, I got the real deal.  These were capsules that were labeled as digestive enzymes, and they contained several different types of enzymes, which were the same enzymes found naturally in your stomach “juices” that help you to digest certain types of foods.  For example, did you know that you have specific enzymes in your stomach to digest dairy, and then yet another to help break down vegetables and fiber-y foods, and yet another that helps you to digest meats and proteins, and then again another that helps to break down carbohydrates easily?

I like these enzymes from GNC, and if I can remember to pop two of them or one of them before a meal, I do notice a substantial difference in how well my food is digested and how much less discomfort and indigestion I experience, so there is something to be said about these digestive enzymes. If you would try them, I would suggest probably getting one that contains all of the enzymes necessary to break down all food groups, so that you get complete help no matter what you’re eating that day. 

Total Body and Total Body Mega Formula Still Causing Health Scares

If you are taking either of the following dietary supplements for weight loss or calorie burning, you need to stop taking them immediately, as they have been recalled and are causing major health issues in those taking them.  They are called Total Body Formula and Total Body Mega formula, and the problem is they contain several times more selenium in them as indicated by the label. Selenium is a mineral that is good in trace amounts, but not much is needed by the body, and in high amounts the mineral is actually toxic to the human body. 

There has been a warning issued by the FDA about the product, and the company that makes it voluntarily pulled it from shelves, however, reports are still coming in about negative side effects after taking the product, and this indicates to officials and investigators that there are still people out there taking the product, unaware of the detrimental health effects. 

The problem is, the product is sold in certain stores as well as online, so it is impossible to trace all users, so the FDA is relying on news outlets to spread the word about the recalled product, and we all know that not everyone gets to read the news all the time.

Althought there have been no deaths reported in conjunction with this dietary product, there has been one hospitalization.  Reports of health issues associated with Total Body formulas are hair falling out at alarming rates, painful fingernails, joint pain, muscle craps and fatigue.  Although selenium has been painted as the culprit to the health woes of those taking the supplement, field tests on the supplement concluded that it also had many times more chromium than indicated on the label. 

Although the levels of chromium are inconclusive as to their potential effects  on the human body and it is not known whether high levels of chromium can be harmful in any real way, this is another factor that has been cited as getting this product out of the hands of consumers, just in case. 

Just another reason to be mindful that, even when taking a natural or herbal weight loss product, you should still be mindful that there are no reports of harmful side effects.  Perhaps before you purchase a supplement like this, you could go online and google search it to see if there are any complaints out there to be safe and put your mind at ease.  At least it’s some sort of safety precaution. 

DexC20 Ads Claim to “Reduce Fat Cell Formation”

I had seen a brief news story on this new weight loss and fat loss supplement called DexC20, with what is the latest plant based herbal weight loss ingredient that is likely to cause a sensation if people start to notice results, called Caralluma Fimbriata, and thought it sounded really interesting.  The short news story was about how the company had commissioned a guy to do a special small study involving ten people (yes, a small study indeed), and also lasted around 30 days.

He said that all study subjects ended up losing weight while on the product, and they also had a guy on that looked like a personal trainer and who’s resume included that he was a model as well who said he’s used the DexC20 diet product for around four months and lost roughly ten pounds of what he feels was fat, without changing his diet or excercise regimen at all.  They didn’t say whether this guy was affiliated with this product, but I had to wonder if he was compensated in any way for making those statements – just the skeptic in me I guess.

I then went to the DexC20 website where it showed me that this product could be purchased in several store, including Walgreens, CVS and GNC, and could also be purchased online.  It also held my interest a little because Shelia Kennedy, a player in the Big Brother reality show which I happen to be addicted to, was one of their testimonials, and I can testify that she looked better than she did on the show in a bikini, but I also remember her losing weight throughout the season, but I don’t know if it was because of this or just because of the stress of the game. 

They have some before and afters that look good, however, my one problem with this product is that it claims to help “reduce fat cell formation”, which shouldn’t even be a statement, because you already supposedly have all the fat cells you’re going to have for the rest of your life once you hit adulthood, so to claim to reduce fat cell formation sounds like an incorrect statement that they may need to re-evaluate.  Heck, maybe it helps shrink fat cells, but it should be stated more clearly.  Have to admit though, the product does pique my interest, and the company is supposedly now commissioning an even larger study to test the efficacy of the diet product.