Secrets of Weight Loss Diet Pills

Weight loss drugs can work for you if you use them properly. Here are common reasons people try diet drugs:

• Decrease appetite
• Reduce cravings
• Experience less hunger
• Gain control
• Reduce stress in your dieting efforts
• Make weight loss easier

Types of Weight Loss Diet Drugs

• Phentermine (appetite suppressant)
• Bontril (time released appetite suppressant)
• Meridia (prescription drug, can be habit forming)
• Xenical (lipase inhibitor)
• Didrex (appetite suppressant)
• Tenuate (appetite suppressant)
• Ionamin (appetite suppressant)

Not surprisingly, none of these drugs work unless you also incorporate a change in your usual eating habits (less overall calories) and exercise.

So if you must diet and exercise, why take a weight loss diet drug? Simple, it might help you learn to distinguish true hunger for instance. If you take a diet pill that reduces your appetite, and then find you still eat anyway, that means there are likely emotional reasons for your overeating that have nothing to do with your appetite.

Do you suddenly get hungry when you smell fresh baked donuts? In much the same way Pavlov's dogs would salivate at the sound of a bell, you too can be made to salivate by thinking of eating (which can cause a physiological response) when you see a picture of food, smell food, or someone mentions food. This is what happens when watching TV after a big dinner and suddenly you decide you must get a snack. Obviously, you aren't truly hungry but tell that to your grumbling stomach.

Diet drugs that effectively reduce your appetite can demonstrate how your lifestyle supports your overeating, and how your habits such as night time eating or your activity/food associations such as popcorn at the movies may also be undermining your efforts to lose weight. It's not that you are truly hungry all the time, it is that your lifestyle supports your eating often.

Used in this manner, diet drugs can be helpful to jump start your weight loss, but if you expect the pills to do the work, then you're better off leaving them alone.

Kathryn Martyn, M.NLP

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