Dangers of the Diet Pill
Diet pills are all the rage for losing weight, but are they really safe to use? Read through this article to learn why diet pills shouldn’t be used for losing weight and what the better alternatives are.
Dieting vs. Diet Pill “Dieting”
The idea behind diet pills is definitely appealing. Most, if not all, claim that a person only need to follow the directions on taking the pill without changing their normal routine and they’ll eventually lose weight. Almost every diet pill comes with an exercise routine and even a meal plan for people to follow while they are on the pill to burn pounds fast. The problem is, though, that the pills themselves often do nothing.
If anyone buying these diet pills took the time to look at what the ingredients were, they’d see that they are simply glorified multi-vitamins with way too much caffeine packed in. When people lose healthy amounts of weight from the pills, it tends to be due to the exercising and proper eating, not the pill. Truthfully, the pills are actually really dangerous. Excess amounts of caffeine can dehydrate the body and create an addiction, leaving those taking the pills taking more and more or developing a dependency on them. The dehydration leaves people’s bodies feeling fatigued and making it harder to work out. In fact, many people who use diet pills have admitted to taking an extra one for the burst of energy to get through the workout because otherwise they’re too tired and hungry. Ultimately, it becomes a vicious cycle.
Recently, it was discovered that one of the very popular brands of diet pills that is still on the market today actually caused liver damage so sever it was the direct cause of some users’ deaths. While cases like that might be on the extreme side, injury and death is a possibility that comes with taking any diet pill. Taking a diet pill along with a multi-vitamin can put people at risk for getting too many of the same vitamin in their system. As an example, vitamins A, B, and C are quite common for both diet pills and multi-vitamins, but taking too much of any of those can actually hurt the body more than help it. Even just the caffeine found in diet pills are in such high doses that anyone who has high blood pressure or any other type of heart disease is immediately at risk of a heart attack just by taking the pill.
There are many other ways taking a diet pill can have a negative impact on a person, but rather than focus on the bad things that dieting the wrong way can cause, it’s much easier and healthier to focus on the right ways to lose weight. Many people think that dieting means they can only eat healthy food, but it is actually recommended that people make a slow transition to the healthier eating and high volume exercise because it’s less likely they’ll “fall off the wagon.” Rather than focus cutting all bad things out, most doctors will recommend cutting one bad habit out of the eating routine, such as sodas or chips, and adding one positive food like celery (which has good vitamins and burns calories while eating). They also recommend starting slow on the exercise with low impact routines such as going for a walk after lunch, or swimming.
As times goes by, it becomes easier to leave out more bad food and increase the exercise regime. Even with just those small changes the body adjusts and gets healthier a little bit at a time, meaning another small change can be done on top of the change already made. Not only does the slow and steady transition prevent people from suffering effects like those taking diet pills, it also makes the body feel better along the entire ride keeping the regular healthy eaters and exercisers from gaining the weight back in the future.
One site we found that offers trusted information on this topic is the Mayo Clinic site.