The key to most diets is having the willpower to eat less, while maintaining physical activity to tone your body. Everyone on a diet wishes to eat more and still lose weight, but let’s face reality – that just isn’t going to happen! There are some diets out there that claim to help you by suppressing your appetite, thus making it a little bit easier to go through the struggles of decreasing your caloric intake. Here are a couple of different ways to assist you in weight loss, while suppressing your appetite, but you should always consult your doctor before beginning one of these plans. They will know what is best for you and your body type.
Gastric Bypass Surgery: This surgery has a very high success rate, (about 93% in obese or morbidly obese patients, and 57% in super obese patients according to this article.) Through a surgical procedure, a gastric bypass patient will have their stomach shrunk down to the size of a golf ball. This will only allow them to eat a couple ounces of food at a time. They will have to eat tiny meals throughout the day, and they will also have to take vitamins in order to get all of the nutrients that they need, since they no longer have the capacity to get the nutrients from the food they are eating. This diet plan isn’t a good option for everyone, because the surgery is very invasive and can be dangerous for some individuals. However, if you have tried everything else that you can and still haven’t managed to shed the pounds, it may be a good option for you.
HCG Diets: HCG is a hormone produced in pregnant women. The homeopathic HCG drops sold over the counter are now illegal because they are a complete scam. People who took these drops and followed the “HCG Diet” sometimes had success in losing weight, but only because the diet calls for a caloric intake of only 500-1000 calories per day. Essentially by starving yourself, you will lose some of your fat stores, but in the long run, the second that you increase your calories, the body will start to store fat again because it knows that it may need to draw from it in the future. Those who followed this diet under doctor supervision, using the injections of HCG tended to have a higher success rate, but it is still a controversial method to losing weight.
Diet Pills or Powders: Diet pills and powders used to suppress appetite are effective in some people, but not in others. Most of these diets are similar to the HCG diet, in that you must drastically reduce your calories in order to see results. Therefore, it’s nearly impossible to determine whether any weight loss is coming from the pills or powders, or if you are losing weight simply because of the drastic caloric decrease. Some of these use herbs which are known for their appetite suppressant abilities, so they are more likely to help you since you won’t be starving all of the time. On the Lemonade Diet FAQ page, they state that “Most of our customers who follow the diet strictly lose weight. We can’t guarantee how much a person will lose. Everybody is different and every person adheres to the diet differently.” So if you don’t follow 800 calorie per day guideline, then you will likely not lose weight on this diet, which means that the powdered drink mix isn’t there to help you lose the weight, but simply to suppress your appetite while you attempt to lose weight by decreasing your calories.
A tradition route of combining a healthy diet and exercise is always going to be your best bet for losing weight. Though you will have to practice some willpower, and may make a few mistakes here and there, if you can commit to this type of diet, you will be better off in the long run than many people trying to miraculously lose weight through some obscure diet plan.