Zoom

Diet Pills and Good Nutrition

Diet pills suggest by their very name that they make you diet—like, automatically. In a sense, they do. Many diet pills take away or suppress your appetite, meaning that you don’t want to eat as much as normal. Once your desire for food is gone, so are those additional calories. However, the concept that diet pills alone will cause weight loss (with no need for a change in eating habits) is pure myth.

In fact, relying on diet pills alone to help you lose weight, without making any changes in your eating can be counterproductive, uncomfortable, and even dangerous.

• Some diet pills will cause adverse reactions to high-fat foods. Orlistat, marketed under the name brands Xenical and Alli, is a great diet pill because it keeps your body from absorbing the fat in foods. However, consuming too much fat causes the drug to work overtime. That will produce some miserable gastrointestinal discomfort and pain.

• Some diet pills take away the desire to eat entirely. On the flip side, there are those diet pills that simply make you feel full after only eating small portions of food. Not wanting to eat as much as you normally do is a good thing, because that’s part of your problem. However, completely reversing the situation may not be altogether good. After all, your appetite is your body’s natural alarm, indicating that food is needed. Obviously, it can be a very sensitive and overactive alarm. If you are taking appetite-suppressing diet foods, it is important that you eat regularly—even if you don’t feel like it.

• Poor eating habits while taking diet pills could lead to malnutrition. Diet pills do weird things to your body. One of those ‘weird things’ is the way that they can deplete or flush important vitamins. If you are not eating a well-rounded vitamin with all the veggies, grains, and fruits you’re supposed to, you may be missing out on some important aspects of a healthy diet. The easy solution is to take a multivitamin pill.

• Using diet pills as an excuse to eat more or to eat poorly will cause increased weight gain when you stop taking diet pills. By forming habits of good nutrition during the time that you take diet pills, you will contribute to sustained long-term benefits after you experience weight loss and no longer need to take the pills.

Beginning with your diet pill treatment, pledge to eat healthier and exercise more. Go ahead and take diet pills, but use them as just one method of treating obesity, not the only one. Good nutrition is equally important.