FitSugar

Have You Ever Taken Prescription Diet Pills?

FitSugar — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 03:47:52 PDT

There may be no magic pill for weight loss, but that doesn't stop the manufacture of diet pills. Although some are having trouble getting approved by the FDA and some pills (read Meridia, which has been on the market since 1997) risk failing reviews by the agency due to increased risk of heart attacks and strokes, many pharmaceutical companies have weight loss drugs and appetite suppressants in the works. Have any of these pill tempted you? Did they work for you?

Internet Weight Loss Supplements: A Bad Idea and Bad For You

FitSugar — Wed, 21 May 2008 12:00:00 PDT

We've all gotten the spam messages in our inbox about pills promising immediate weight loss, without the help of diet and exercise. Sure, it may seem tempting, but new research has found that weight-loss supplements widely available for purchase online often include ingredients that are potentially hazardous to your heart.

I am not a fan of weight-loss supplements - I believe that the benefits of exercise and eating healthy far outweigh losing a few quick pounds. However, I know a lot of folks still invest in weight-loss pills, so I wanted to be sure that if you do, you know which ingredients raise a red flag in terms of safety. For a starter list of ingredients in weight-loss supplements that could be dangerous for your heart,

Ma huang (also known as Chinese ephedra)
Bitter orange
Camellia sinensis
Green tea
Buckwheat
Guarana
Korean ginseng
Licorice root
Synephrine HCl
Caffeine anhydrous
Citrus aurantium

I was surprised to see that green tea made the list, but it does contain caffeine. It is better to drink your green tea than take it in a supplement form mixed with other questionable ingredients.

Source

Glucomannan: A Safe Way to Lose Weight?

FitSugar — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 07:30:00 PST

There is no shortage of crash diets and diet pills when it comes to losing weight fast and easy. Companies are even pushing natural supplements that they claim will help melt away pounds, like this one called Glucomannan. It's a water-soluble dietary fiber made from the corm (underground stem) of the Asian plant known as konjac. People take it because it slows down digestion and delays the absorption of glucose from the intestines. This supplement also absorbs a lot of water so it swells in your stomach, giving you a full feeling. Since it's natural, people think it's healthy and safe.

It's true that fiber is great to include in your diet, because it helps with constipation, and can lower total levels of cholesterol in the body, but is adding fiber in the form of glucomannan a good idea? To find out

Limited studies have been carried out to test whether this supplement really affects body weight. Not only that, but people taking glucomannan have suffered from intestinal and esophageal obstruction, and for that reason, it has been banned in several countries. Yikes!

So if I were you, I'd steer clear of glucommanan until more research can be done. I know it's not easy to lose weight the good old fashioned way of eating right and exercising regularly, but it really is the most effective way to lose pounds and keep them off.

Source

Have You Ever Tried Diet Pills?

FitSugar — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 03:00:00 PDT

Source

I was perusing through a magazine last night and saw a huge ad for Alli, the first FDA-approved over the counter diet pills, and that got me thinking. As women feeling the pressures of having the perfect Barbie-body, I'm sure we've all had thoughts about how to get a quick fix. So I want to know...

WTF?! Fit Edition - Italian Expanding Diet Pill

FitSugar — Fri, 08 Jun 2007 17:15:00 PDT

So what do you think is resting peacefully in that hand in the photo to the left? A jelly fish? Why no, it is a diet pill. When I saw this on WIRED all I could think to say was, to borrow a phrase my buddy Giggle is so fond of - WTF!?

This is a new diet pill, still in the testing phase, that turns into a clear, gelatinous blob the size of a tennis ball to help fill up your stomach. The pill, taken with 2 glasses of water, gives the user a fake-full sensation, like having eaten a "plate full of pasta," but without having to deal with all those unwanted calories. It seems the Italian creators of this "innovative" diet pill were inspired by the increasing size of Americans waistlines when they visited our fair country back in the 1990s.

The pill absorbs the two glasses of water you drink after swallowing it and expands in your stomach. Made of hydrogel, this "water balloon" could produce an effect similar to gastric banding -- without the surgery. The scientists behind the pill said "hydrogel" is made from "biocompatible" material, so the body just flushes it out. The WIRED article did not give any time frame for this flushing process.

The pill may be on the market in both the U.S. and EU later this year depending on how it fares in testing trials.

Is it just me - or does it look an awful lot like a silicone breast implant?

There's another photo and if you want to see it you are just going to have to

This photo illustrates the "before" and "after" shots of the pill. What you swallow and what two glasses of water can do to it once it is housed in your stomach.

I am not sure you can tell, but I am thinking this is pretty bad idea. I know obesity is on the rise on an international level, but I really do believe we can all learn to control our appetites and begin to exercise more. I really do. Do you?

The Rise of Weight Watchers in the 1960s

Annie Scudder — Mon, 14 May 2012 11:00:42 PDT

This week on Mad Men's "Dark Shadows" episode, Weight Watchers serves as a type of therapy for Betty Francis, who can definitely use it. Boredom, jealousy, and insecurity dominate Betty's life as a 1960s housewife on her second marriage, and she's turned to bags of Bugles to pass the time. Now determined to lose the weight, the former model turns to a new diet plan gaining popularity with women like her, Weight Watchers. Considering Betty's mother-in-law already tried to push diet pills on her, which contained amphetamines at the time, the group meetings are the responsible approach to weight loss for Betty Francis.

If you think Weight Watchers was a phenomenon of the '80s or remember Duchess Sara Ferguson as its spokeswoman in the '90s, you may have been surprised to see Betty attending meetings way back in the '60s. Jean Nidetch, the founder of Weight Watchers, got the idea for the weight-loss method after struggling herself to lose and keep off weight with diets and pills. Jean, who had weighed as much as 214 pounds, lost 20 with a diet prescribed by the New York City Board of Health, but couldn't keep it off. So in 1961, she decided to hold meetings with other women facing the same issues with weight at her home in Queens, NY. By Oct. 1962, she had lost 72 pounds.

Thanks to her success, Jean's meetings took off, and she went from having them every week to multiple times a day. She soon recruited other group leaders, like the one we saw running Betty Francis's meetings, who had previously lost weight with the program and continued to keep it off. In 1963, Jean and her husband Marty incorporated the business, and by 1965, they exported the franchises to Canada, Puerto Rico, Great Britain, and Israel, with 102 in total. Changes would come in the '70s, with a psychologist coming on and exercise being introduced, and in 1978 the company was purchased for $100 million by another brand featured this season on Mad Men: H.J. Heinz.

In 2010, Weight Watcher's founder published her autobiography, The Jean Nidetch Story: An Autobiography, which came after her 1972 book The Story of Weight Watchers. The autobiography is described as the story of Jean's "personal struggles, rags-to-riches rise, and sunny, can-do attitude." If only Betty had a hint of a sunny disposition. Instead, her all-consuming jealousy is casting dark shadows.

Photo courtesy of AMC

Whoopi Goldberg Gets Gassy With Dr. Oz

FitSugar — Thu, 26 May 2011 16:47:01 PDT

Dr. Oz couldn't leave The View today without dispensing some helpful diet tips. He talked about a fiber tablet that he thinks everyone should take before meals that will help to curtail the amount of food your body will want to eat during the meal. The only drawback to the pill is that it may leave a person feeling gassy. Whoopi had no problem with this side effect and let everyone in the studio know about it.

The Health Risks Associated With Diet Pills

Heather Dale — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 11:49:30 PDT

If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is, right? I always find the infomercials produced by diet pill companies entertaining; you know, the ones where they promise significant weight loss in just one to two weeks. I'm sure if I drastically restricted my food intake and took appetite-suppressant medications for seven or more days, then these claims might not be so far off. But at what cost?

When we surveyed you all on this topic a while back, many of you answered that you had tried diet pills before. Although I'm not part of this group, I've often wondered if these pills are worth it - and by worth it, I mean, are they worth enduring some of the less than desirable side effects like cramping, gas, diarrhea, and increased blood pressure and heart rate to shed pounds the "quick fix" way? What happens when you stop taking the pills? And are the pills that are supposed to be used in conjunction with physical activity and a well-balanced diet any better?

Keep reading to learn more on the health risks associated with these drugs.

The 3 Weight-Loss Strategies That Actually Work

Leta Shy — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 13:20:52 PDT

A recent study from the American Journal of Preventative Medicine found that there are tried-and-true strategies to losing weight - and yes, they are exactly what you expect.

The report tracked 4,000 obese adults for one year to see what worked and what didn't on their quest to lose weight. After a year, 40 percent of those on the study had lost over five percent of their weight, and 20 percent had lost over 10 percent of their body weight.

So, which strategies worked and which ones didn't? Read on to find out the three that worked for the study participants and how you can employ the right weight-loss strategies in your own diet.

5 Fears About Raising Little Girls

BabyCenter — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 10:55:08 PDT

Here's a post from our partners at BabyCenter! Every week, we bring you the best parenting and lifestyle stories from the experts at BabyCenter, including this post from Erin Lane about raising girls.

Last week I wrote about the five things that worry me about raising my son. This week I’m spilling my guts about what scares me about raising my daughter. There is definitely some overlap. Let's face it; parenting is scary whether you have a boy or a girl.

With my daughter, I think I find it more worrisome because I know exactly what I did growing up…and I want her to just skip all that. Pretty please? In reality, I was a pretty good kid, but I drank in high school and that alone has me screaming oh no she won't.

So here it is…the top five things I worry about raising my daughter.

Body Image: First off, I want to point out that I know boys have body image issues too, but I do worry about it more with my daughter. Fake perfection permeates the media and I know how much she's going to be exposed to. I want her to love her body as it is and to not feel that it's too big or too small. I remember feeling fat in early high school and taking diet pills just to see what they would do. I don't want that for her. I want her to be comfortable in her own skin and will do my best to help her feel that way.
Puberty: Oh lawdy me! I read Are You There God, It's Me, Margaret in 4th grade so I know what's coming at me. The whole first menstruation, buying a bra, shaving her legs, needing deodorant, skin problems era is taunting me already and E. just turned one. I worry that it'll happen too early or too late. I worry about the hormones and the impending attitude. I worry about boys (or girls!) taunting her if it doesn't happen exactly along the lines of everyone else. I worry about the icky men who started cat calling me when I was in middle school. It all just plain frightens me. I don't know how my mom did it alone with two of us.
SEX!: Puberty inevitably leads to sex - learning about sex, talking about sex, thinking about sex and (god forbid) having sex. While I prefer to believe my daughter will stay chaste forever, I know that is simply not the case. I pray that my husband and I do a good job in teaching her self-respect and understanding the consequences of her actions. I pray she only encounters nice boys, who will respect what she wants and doesn't want. I pray that if she has questions and is ever unsure, that she feels safe enough to come and talk with me. I pray that whenever her first time comes, that it's on her terms and is based purely on love.
Mean Girls: Uggggg! This may be my top worry. I've been here. I think every woman alive can associate with being both a mean girl and having experienced a mean girl. I have certainly been both. I don't know why it happens, but it seems to be happening earlier and earlier. I thought mean girls started in middle school but a friend today actually said she's seen it with six-year-olds. A best friend suddenly doesn't like you anymore. You're ostracized from the school lunch table with no warning. A group of girls deems you unworthy. I hate that this is coming. I just want to wrap my arms around my sweet girl and tell her she will always be loved, she will always be beautiful no matter what anyone else says. I wish what I said was all that mattered, but we are quickly coming upon the days when that won't be true. I want her to stay sweet, to be friendly to everyone. I'm being unrealistic I know, but one can hope.
Peer Pressure: This one encompasses all of the above. No matter the situation my daughter finds herself in, I want her to be comfortable enough in her own skin to stand up for what she believes in. I want her to feel OK being the odd ball out (that's a tall order, I know!) I definitely caved to the pressure on a few occasions and know she will too. But I want her to know that most of her friends will be just as uncomfortable as she is..no matter the situation. And sometimes, it just takes one person to say "no thank you" to give the rest of the crowd permission to say the same. I hope I raise that child. If not, that's ok too. She'll live and learn, but I hope that I can give her that confidence in herself.

BabyCenter has some great tips for raising a confident girl. Check them out and tell me what worries you. We can commiserate together.

More great posts from BabyCenter:
Was Your First Baby a "Good" Baby?
10 Cute Carrot Crafts For Easter
5 Ways to Dress Your Bump For Spring
Separation Anxiety For Mom
10 Cute Gifts to Make For Baby Boys