Herbal Weight Loss - What is it?

Many people turn to supplements in order to lose weight - it can be an easy way to encourage beneficial lifestyle changes - if you see a positive change in your weight or health levels due to herbal supplements, you will (hopefully!) be inclined to exercise more, eat better, or other things in order to keep that progress moving in the right direction. Don't take the easy way out, make substantial life changes and you won't need a supplement or pill to help you keep the pounds off - you'll be more active, get more exercise, and gravitate towards eating the right portions of healthy food. In the meantime, though, herbal weight loss may help you reach your goals.

Most herbal weight loss supplements are appetite suppressants. You know how it feels when you're full, or generally not hungry? That's what an herbal supplement will likely do for you - trick your stomach and body into thinking you're not hungry. The cravings decrease, on the whole you eat less, and you lose weight. The technical term for these drugs is "anorectic." There are two main classes of appetite suppressants - those that make you feel less hungry in anticipation of a meal, and those that help you feel more full faster.

Supplements that work on the latter, making you feel fuller faster, work primarily through seratonin re-uptake inhibitors. If that technical jargon sounds familiar it's because they're the same class of drugs that people take to treat depression. Makes sense, since they help you generally feel better - mealtimes (satiation) included. Similarly to helping depression, when the SSRI is ingested, it can lessen the high one feels from overeating, and allows your stomach to correctly manage the "I'm full" signal. Thus overall, you eat less because sooner rather than later you don't want to.

Feeling less hungry before a meal is a good thing! You're less likely to eat as much if you don't feel as hungry. How do supplements that make you feel less hungry work? They act primarily on two neurotransmitters in your brain - epinephrine and its cousin norepinephrine. If you've heard of them before it's because they're often mentioned in conjunction with the adrenaline response - they can modulate your blood pressure and heart rate. In the case of appetite suppressants, inhibiting the signal that tells you "I'm hungry, feed me!" As such, around meal times you'll eat less, which will take some getting used to. At first you may end up with extra on your plate because you took what you're used to eating, but soon you'll recognize your new lower appetite levels, and the virtuous cycle of weight loss will begin.

Another class of supplements work on the principle of thermogenesis. They "heat you up" - like caffeine, by speeding up your breathing, food digestion, and heart rate. If that doesn't sound fun at all, it's not supposed to - it's supposed to get you active, make you want to exercise, while speeding up your metabolism. It's really a poor substitute for actual physical activity. If nothing else will get you out the door and jogging, or at least walking around the block a few times, consider a thermogenic supplement. If at all possible, though, stick to it the natural way - just go out and do it. They mostly contain caffeine, which is OK, and ephedrine, which has been banned by the FDA for "presenting an unreasonable risk of illness or injury, and should not be consumed."

Still a third class of supplements are diuretics - they help you reduce water-weight by stimulating your body to jettison some of its water stores. They're also known as "water pills." This weight loss, though, is mostly illusory - water weight is the weight you lose first, and is the first weight you put back on. People often see impressive early weight loss and think they've stumbled upon a miracle cure for being overweight, but in reality they've just stopped carrying a few pounds of water around all day! These'll show the quickest results, but if you stop or change routines, it'll likely come back. Not a good choice for someone in it for the long term. After a few days use, the body will respond to the water and electrolyte loss by increasing the amount of fluids it naturally keeps. So the effect is temporary at best - celebrities probably use diuretics a day before a big awards show to look svelte on the red carpet, and then hide out for a couple weeks afterwards as they balloon back up. In the extreme case, abuse of diuretics can lead to long term kidney damage as you get into dehydration territory. Electrolyte imbalance caused by diuretics (the fluids you lose contain electrolytes) can lead to sudden heart failure and death. All in all, diuretics are all around bad - temporary use, you lose fluids which are both critical to health and easy to get back once you stop. The simple answer for diuretics is to stay away, there are better ways to lose weight for real and keep it off.

To be clear, however, supplements, herbal and natural or not, can have negative effects on your life. They are drugs - they can be addictive. The best plan, therefore, is to use herbal weight loss supplements sparingly - just enough so you see the benefits and change your life on your own - eat less, exercise more. They aren't the end-all solution, but supplements can start you off on the right path. As with all things you ingest that aren't regular food, please please please consult a doctor before starting a new nutritional supplement regimen - only a doctor will be able to tell you how herbal supplements may interact with other medications or medical conditions.

It can't be stressed enough that the herbal supplements we'll be discussing are emphatically not the silver bullet that'll make weight loss easy. There is simply no substitute for healthy living - a good diet, portion control, a diverse and regular exercise plan, and overall, the key - self control. However, if you need a little push, as sometimes we all do, herbal weight loss supplements can help out. They are at best a temporary solution, as many of them can cause long term damage.