Product Reviews

Many Diet Pills Come with Side Effects

The sad things about most diet pills is that they just about all come with some sort of unsavory side effect.  Especially the heavy hitters, the ones you have to go to a doc to get the prescription for. It seems that almost every big weightloss drug that’s been put on the market is either found to have serious side effects and taken off the market later, or is forced to put huge warnings on the product.

Heck, look at Alli (orlistat), the nonprescription sister of the prescription weightloss drug Xenical.  This one is notorious because of its potentially embarrassing and very uncomfortable side effect. It is known for producing water stool and diarrhea when too much fat is taken in.

People have literally gone in their pants with this stuff and had leakage, so that’s pretty unsavory and has prevented a lot of people from staying on it very long.  Then there are the heavy hitters like Meridia which I believe was finally taken off the market because of potential heart problems.

And who can forget the Phen Fen disaster? People actually lost their lives due to this lethal combination of prescription diet drugs. Heart problems were also associated with the drug, which is a shame because it was actually effective for weight loss. There are of course herbal phentermine options available and the one part of the drug, phentermine I believe is still available on the market for prescription use.

Then you have some problems even with the OTC stuff or stuff you can buy on the internet that’s herbal or all natural. First off, there have been a couple of scandals about “herbal” products actually containing potentially dangerous and interactive prescription drugs.

Second off, there have been scandals about some of the herbs and ingredients themselves. Consider the ephedrine ban. Ephedrine was linked to heart issues such as rapid heartbeat, arrhythmia and other problems associated with the fact that it tended to make the heart beat too fast.

Of course, this is the same reason it kept the appetite down, because it had you on “speed” motion all day long!  I know a lot of the herbal diet pills out there now give me that “shaky” feeling, like I’m going to pass out, or like I just can’t calm down.

Some of them even have made me feel sick, like I’m going to throw up. Sure, they’ve killed my appetite, but at what cost? Making me feel like crap all day?  These are all reasons that I’ve consistently turned to non-stimulant diet aids like carb cutters and hoodia appetite suppressants. They help me to get that extra “willpower” to not eat so much without making me a nervous, jittery mess!

Don’t Like Diet Pills? Try a Patch!

Lots of people, in fact more than you would think, absolutely despise swallowing pills. No matter what the size, although of course the larger the pill the harder it is to swallow for most, some people’s gag reflexes are just always on, and trying to swallow  a hard object is just against their nature.

I don’t mind taking pills, but I do mind taking the larger ones that seem to get caught in your throat and never go down until they dissolve. If you hate taking pills, and you want a diet aid to help you lose the weight you’re trying to take off, then there is another excellent option for you.

It’s the diet patch.  These appetite suppressant patches have grown immensely in popularity. Much like the nicotine patch that people use to help them quit smoking, the diet patch works the exact same way, except it releases ingredients into the blood stream which may help the body to reduce its appetite, or help it to burn fat, whatever that particular formula may purport to do.

No matter what the formulation, the way a diet patch works is pretty simple. It is attached to the skin in an inconspicuous area. Here, it releases ingredients all day long in a sort of time released fashion,which help to control the appetite, burn fat and raise the metabolism, if that is what its purpose is.

Lots of people prefer this method over the pill, because it has several key advantages over popping a pill.

Here are the advantages of a diet patch over a diet pill:

1.)  Time release. This is a pretty integral part of success in dieting. If you buy a product that is not time released, and have to depend on remembering to take more pills precisely when the effects wear out, then you are increasing the odds of failure.

2.)  No pills to take.  No remembering when to take more.  Most pills are not time released, but if they are, then that’s great!

3.)  You are getting a more steady dose, and you are also getting the benefit of having it be effective more quickly, rather than having to go through the entire digestive process to hit the blood stream.

Weight loss diet patches can definitely be a great part of any successful diet regimen.

Is the HCG Diet a Scam?

You may have heard about the HCG diet, which has been advertised fairly widely by now.  I first found out about it while perusing the diet aids and weight loss pills on Amazon, where I stumbled across it while doing some research on another diet pill.

The whole idea for the homeopathic style of the HCG diet, which contends that it mimics the real HCG diet which was developed by a Doctor on Indian boys who were obese, is that it mimics a pregnancy hormone in the body which stimulates the hypothalamus, which controls hunger and how food is utilized, to keep caloric intake for energy and for the baby instead of storing it as far.

The discovery by the Doctor in India was that he noticed most Indian women would stay incredibly thin while pregnant, since they were very active and still ate a fairly restrictive diet, but they would give birth to totally normal birth weight babies.

Upon more research, he found that this pregnancy hormone, called Human Chorionic Gonadatropin, when injected into young Indian boys who had a problem with obesity, would help them to return to a normal and stabilized weight, essentially curing them of their obesity.

He then contended that this hormone helped them to normalize their eating habits by reducing their appetite because of its somewhat mysterious action on the hypothalamus, which controls hunger and appetite among other things.

Well, the product that is out there now is a homeopathic remedy that is supposed to mimic the effect of HCG on the body and the brain, and assist people in losing weight over time. 

The fact that the homeopathic remedy mimics this hormone though, is questionable by some, claiming that you cannot mimic the hormone’s gut busting effects via a homeopathic remedy.

Some say that this effect can only be achieved by actual shots of the hormone into the body, which of course if a hard thing to come by. If you have been on the commercial form of the homeopathic version of HCG, and had any experience with it, please feel free to comment here. 

We’d love to hear your story!  I’ve seen mixed reviews thus far on the supplement for weight loss, so I must admit my curiosity is piqued!

New Page on Effective Diet Pills

You work hard for your money. So, when you’re embarking on a weight loss strategy to take off those few extra pounds, or if you’ve struggled with obesity or weight issues for much of your life, no one blames you if you hate squandering your money on diet pills that don’t work for you.

Most of us tend to know which categories of diet pills work for us. We’ve usually had some sort of experience in each realm, if we’ve ever dabbled in using supplements to help us reach our goals. For me personally, the most effective diet pill is one that suppresses my appetite.

My appetite is really what gets me in trouble, and portion control, so in order to help me be satisfied by smaller portions and smaller amounts of food throughout the day, I really need a good appetite suppressant diet pill in my corner.

Some people may find that appetite suppression is not the way for them. They may find that other products that help to block fat or carbs, or in some other way change your body’s metabolism of certain types of foods that are their weakness work best to aid them in their weight loss efforts. That’s why we put together this new page on the most effective diet pills.

We provide an overview of a few different types of diet pills, in various categories, so that you can make a choice that seems to fit your body and your preferences as a dieter.

This way, you can see which ones tend to be at the top of their respective fields, with the most clinically proven ingredients to get you where you want to be on that bathroom scale that seems to be the bain of your existence when things aren’t going your way.

So, take a look and see what you can find to help you get your weight loss efforts jump started in this new year at our new Effective Diet Pills page.

Chewing Gum as an Appetite Suppressant?

I use chewing gum all the time to distract myself from eating. The reason is, chewing gum helps me get that part of eating out of the way that’s so hard for so many people to control which is this sort of “oral fixation” to be chewing on something. It’s almost like a pastime, chewing is.  I suppose that chewing is soothing somehow, it occupies the mind and the stomach, at least for a bit, and it doesn’t hurt your concentration, in fact, the really silly part is that half the reason I chew gum is so that I can concentrate better!

It’s as if they rhythm and momentum of my chewing gum helps me to make my thoughts and focus more rhythmic. Sounds crazy, but this is why I’m truly a chewing gum addict -especially at work. But I do always chew sugar free gum. I find that it stays soft much longer, whereas the sugary stuff gets stiff and has to be thrown away sooner. Plus sugar free is better for your teeth and gums instead of pounding sugar into it over and over and over.

And what of these appetite suppressing gums that use hoodia to help suppress hunger?  They’re great!  Not only do you get to enjoy the focus-intensive side benefits of chewing gum, but you also get the benefit of a slowly and evenly released dose of hoodia, which is a powerful natural appetite suppressant that helps you to avoid food and minimize your portions.

It can be extremely helpful to losing weight if you’re looking to lose some pounds, or it can also be helpful if you’ve already lost weight and are looking to maintain your svelte figure, and you don’t want to start over doing it on the sweets, salty fatty foods and other diet temptations that hoodia gums can help to ward off.

I like the fact that it’s portable as well, you don’t have to carry around a big bottle of diet pills and have this awkward sort of pause in your day where you have to get your pills out, instead you just pop a piece of gum out and no one even knows that you’re dieting.

Skinny Bitch Diet Book Review : Part II

I do think the vegan diet has it’s merits, but I think that you have to be careful to still eat the right foods if you choose this lifestyle. You can’t just always be eating veggie burgers and nonstop carbs, you have to make sure that your diet is also rich in fruits and veggies, which are the cornerstone of health and weight loss. One could easily go off the right path if they didn’t know this, but the authors do point this out.

Another point they made, which was a citation from Fit for Life, and one that I’ve used in my own life which I found to be effective, was to try to eat a lot of fruit that is high in natural enzymes, by itself, first thing in the morning, instead of loading your body down with more hard to digest processed food like bagels, cereal and so forth.

The reason being that the morning time til about noon, your body is still supposedly in it’s “elmination phase” where it is still working on getting the stuff out from the day before and bogging it down with more complex digestion is the wrong way to ensure smooth elimination (as the authors say “pooping” – I love it).

The authors also strongly recommend that you go organic whenever possible, and made the point that if you can’t go organic on everything, make sure you at least get organic when it is something that you eat without peeling or removing an outer layer. So for instance, you would always want to buy organic strawberries.

The reason for this is that the peel or outer shell protects the inner fruit somewhat against the pesticides that are sprayed on the fruit to avoid insect infestation, so those are a little safer to consume when non-organic.  They also point out, hilariously, that you shouldn’t be a cheap ass and not buy organic, because look at all the other crap you spend money on.

Overall, I could go on and on about what I like about the basic, albeit crudely delivered messages of this book. It’s a great, quick read, and it leaves you with a refreshing perspective on your food. The messages are good, but not everyone is meant to lead the vegan lifestyle, so if you can even apply some of the principles you will learn in this book, you will be on your way to better health.

I would also highly recommend the book Fit for Life. I believe it was published back in the seventies, but many of it’s messages are still relevant today. Again, it’s not a diet regimen for everyone and Lord knows I couldn’t follow it to a T, but it gives you another perspective on eating and food and health, and I think it’s good to see both sides of the coin.

Skinny Bitch Book Review : Part I

This review is broken up into two installments. Why?  Because I had a lot to say about the book Skinny Bitch, and I just kept going and going and going……well you get the point. I’m not exactly short winded sometimes.  Without further ado, here’s part one of my Skinny Bitch review.

I picked up a copy of the book “Skinny Bitch” when I was at Borders a few weeks ago, and since then, I’ve read it twice. I loved it.  You may have heard of this popular book by now.  The authors are Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin, one a self professed “know it all” and the other a former model and nutritionist.

While they site another book which I love and which I happened to read years and years ago a lot called Fit for Life, which advocates food combining and somewhat eschews meat like these authors do, I found the approach refreshing and very entertaining. I blew threw this book quickly. If you are sensitive or don’t like a lot of profanity or potty mouth talk, you may want to avoid this book, but if you tend to have a trucker mouth in your own home, somewhat like I tend to have at times, then this book is for you.

I did find a few one sided opinions though, such as the idea that eating soy ice cream and tons of processed soy products instead of meats and cheeses is ok. I personally think that you need to limit soy products because they have been under scrutiny for causing hormonal imbalances and also for possibly adding to blood sugar issues.  They also may screw up the function of your thyroid gland when consumed too often – this was something I read only recently.

The authors clearly advocate veganism. Veganism is a step harder than the vegetarian diet, because you have to eliminate all animal fats and meats from your diet. This includes eggs, cheese, milk and of course all meats and fish.

This  can be a lot harder than it sounds.  A lot of breads, pastas, and readily accessible foods and restaurant foods have egg or milk products in them. Even foods you may not guess have things like whey, a dairy product, or an egg derivative in them, so you have to become an avid label reader.  I even found out that Veggie Slices cheese and Veggie Shreds shredded cheese, which I thought were purely soy based, contain whey or other milk derived products in them, so they are not strictly speaking, vegan products.

Unfortunately, the truly vegan cheese is pretty hard to melt and I haven’t found any that are extremely flavorful, but I’m sure there something out there I just haven’t found yet.  I’ve been experimenting on and off with the vegan diet since reading the book, so I’ve been exploring the options and trying out some recipes, and I must say that once you open your eyes to the options, there are some very tasty options.

I still don’t think I could be a full time vegan. It’s just too hard, and I do still crave meat once in a while, and cheese and dairy products, or they’re just too hard to avoid if you’re out and about, but I still try to make healthy choices with these too.  Quinoa is one of my favorite vegan foods. It contains the full spectrum of amino acids, so it’s an excellent source of protein and fiber for vegans.

Originally when I read Fit for Life years ago, which advocates a diet very low in meat and never combining the food groups unless it’s a veggie with another food group, I thought that was hard to apply as well, although I found that approach effective as well for weight maintenance.

Review : Better ‘n Peanut Butter

Well, I finally got to try a product that is a lower calorie and fat version of peanut butter that I thought I would be able to satisfy my occasional cravings for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with, without all that fat and calorie content. I love having the occasional pb&j for breakfast, or slathering some creamy (crunchy is good too) peanut butter on my hot, toasty bread or an english muffin in the morning.

But what kept me away from doing that all the time was the ridiculous amount of calories in peanut butter. For a measly 2 tablespoons (which isn’t much, I use a lot more than that in my pb&j sandwiches), it’s about 200 calories. That means that you are already adding 200 calories to your sandwich, just with the peanut butter, that doesn’t even include the bread of the jelly, even though I do like to use reduced sugar jelly or Polyner just fruit spread, which is calorie and sugar spare.

I just tried my brand new jar of Better ‘n Peanut Butter. It’s a spread that is supposed to taste pretty close to the real thing. It still uses real peanuts, but it looks like a large part of the calorie savings is that it’s low in oil, instead using peanut flour. The consistency is different form “real” creamy peanut butter, in that is is much more liquidy, not as thick as real peanut butter is.

My husband thought it had a little taste of soy to it, but I told him it’s not a soy based product, it’s probably just the peanut flour he was tasting. The taste is good, I want to say a little more like chocolate or something, and a bit salty and sweet, which is how I like my peanut butter, so that was ok with me.

I would say the biggest difference between this and real peanut butter is that the real just seems to have more substance to it, more thickness, and that is something that was missing. Although, what I liked is that when I put it on my hot, toasty english muffin (whole wheat of course), it immediately melted into the nooks and crannies well. And I really couldn’t tell much of a difference from real peanut butter when it was hot and melty with jelly on it.

It’s a great peanut butter alternative if you’re worried about calories. It clocks in at just 100 calories for 2 tablespoons. That’s almost half of real peanut butter! I would just say it’s not the type of thing you can eat out of the jar and get that same satisfaction as you do with the real thing, you have to eat it with something for it to be a good substitute.

Kim and Khloe Kardashian Touting QuickTrim Products

The Kardashian sisters – heck, the whole family, has become quite the reality sensation lately. Kim started off being known as the BFF of Paris Hilton, guess that relationship went kaput, because you never see pics of them together on the internet or in magazines any more, and I read somewhere that Paris Hilton even made kind of snide remarks about Kim’s round rear end (which by the way, lots of men like, and I happen to think she looks great with all her curves).

The only thing I know about Khloe is that she was on a season of the Celebrity Apprentice (Donald Trumps reality show where celebrities try to win the coveted prize of being Donal’s pick for his apprentice, although I don’t know that anything has really ever come of that for anyone), and she’s married to a very tall NBA basketball player.

I also know that she lost a ton of weight recently, and she looks fabulous, and very healthy to boot.  I’m not sure if both the sister’s weight loss is really due to Quick Trim or simply hard work and dedication, but they are both endorsing the QuickTrim diet supplement as a way that helped them to lose weight.

Quick Trim is basically an appetite suppressant and diet supplement that helps you to eat less and crave less food, so you can lose weight more quickly, and with less of the struggle that is typically endured during the diet cycles when you cut your food intake down and seem to be endlessly starving.  Of course, as with most other diet and weightloss supplements, you do have to also make the right food choices, but the right supplement has always helped me to kick start my diet, call it the placebo effect, but I feel like I have more control when I’m taking a good diet supplement.

The rest, of course, I know, is all up to me to actually get the weight off and keep it off and also work out on a regular schedule to burn off extra calories. Let’s not forget that the hallmark notion that you must reduce caloric intake to effectively lose weight, because after all, excess weight is excess calories. You can usually safely lose weight by reducing calories and learning how to suppress your hunger, eating about 1500 calories a day, which is totally doable if you pick the right foods that fill you up and don’t leave you wanting for more all day.

Review : Quaker Weight Control Oatmeal

Well, it looks like I have a new favorite breakfast, and the best news is that while it tastes good, and a little like you’re being naughty, this nutritious breakfast packs quite a bit of dietary fiber in it and also, even when you add some nuts, it comes in at about 400 calories when you also add a small V8 or tomato juice like I do (I like to add to this because it fills me up and keeps me full for several hours, whereas this oatmeal alone probably would not do that as well.

The one Quaker oatmeal packet that I’ve tried thus far is the banana bread one. It is so good! If you like banana nut bread, then you will definitely like this. You might even put a little dash of sugar or sugar substitute in it just to sweeten it a bit more, after all, it is weight control, so there’s not a lot of sugar in it. I like to add chopped walnuts to it also, which adds about 150 calories to this breakfast that really sticks with you but also has a lot of nutritious benefits to it. The walnuts add more fiber and protein, and they also add some of those omega 3′s that really help keep you satisfied and help keep your mind sharp, plus they’re great for your skin.

All I do is add really hot water, which I’m lucky because I have one of those hot water taps on our sink of the house we moved into, just enough to make it into a thicker “soup” like consistency, let it sit for a minute or two to cool off a bit so I don’t scald my mouth, but not too long because oatmeal always gets like paste when you let it sit too long and actually get cold, and then I add a few tablespoons of chopped walnuts to it, and voila, I’ve got a really fast, really tasty breakfast. If you wanted to, you could probably also add some sliced bananas, I haven’t tried that yet, but I bet that would taste really good and keep you full even longer.