Diet Supplements

Despite what the commercials and magazine advertisements tell you, diet supplements are not miracle pills that will make all of the extra weight disappear. In fact, most of them will have no effect at all. What they can do, at least the quality ones, is give you a little help in conjunction with a healthy eating and exercise regimen.

Some beneficial ingredients

There are a number of diet supplements that do contain beneficial ingredients such as herbal extracts, vitamins, minerals and other nutrients. These ingredients, if found in significant concentrations, can certainly contribute to your overall health as well as provide specific benefits. You'll often find ginseng, caffeine, gingko or green tea extract. These can help speed up your metabolism and boost your energy.

There is also a placebo effect that can take place in some people. For these people, just believing that the pill is helping them lose weight will give them that good feeling and keep them motivated to eat well and work out regularly.

How to really lose weight

Many people who take diet supplements think they can just pop the pill and start losing weight. This is not the case. In order to lose weight, your body has to burn more calories each day than it takes in. It takes a 3500 calorie loss per week (500 calories per day) to lose one pound of weight.

Taking a pill and changing none of the habits that contributed to the weight problem in the first place will not help you lose weight. If you do manage to lose the extra pounds, they will likely come back as soon as you stop taking the pills.

As such, you need to change your diet to eliminate unhealthy foods, incorporate healthy ones and keep an eye on your total caloric intake. You should also add regular exercise to your daily routine, to help ramp up your metabolism and burn excess calories. Only when you are eating well and exercising regularly can diet supplements truly work for you.

No supplement regulation

It's important to be aware of the fact that dietary supplements are not regulated like prescription medications. As such, manufacturers don't have to prove that any ingredients listed on the bottle are actually present in the product, or are there in the stated concentrations. So the supplement that you decide to take could have too much of a certain ingredient, or too little to actually have an effect. Worse yet, it could contain harmful ingredients or contaminants.

Because of this you really have to be careful when choosing dietary supplements. You could experience a number of adverse reactions depending on what kind of diet supplements you choose.

Diet supplement side effects

With supplements that alter brain chemicals to make you feel hungry less often, you can experience depression, high blood pressure, hair loss, fever or heart damage. Side effects of the pills that work in your stomach rather than your brain can include oily stools, diarrhea, and anal leakage among others. This ebook will show you how to make safer and cheaper diet supplements.

Conclusion

Talk to your doctor first before starting any supplementation. A high quality diet supplement can certainly help you reach your weight loss goals, but a subpar one can potentially lead to serious health complications.