Here is my question ~

Can you lose weight and keep it off with commercial diet drugs and products?

My niece is taking a product which I won't mention. She is swearing it helps her lose weight...10 pounds in 2 weeks...however...

here is the clincher....

When she started the product she also started back at the gym AND back to eating off the menu her personal trainer had given her...

she swears it is the product....I swear it isn't!!

What I want to know is have you lost weight and kept it off using "miracle drugs?"

It is a multiple choice poll...pick as many that fit

In my opinion...there is NO way 'miracle drugs' work..otherwise wouldnt the whole world be thin?

I think they are ridiculous and an excuse not to get off your butt and do the hard work you should be doing!

I have never tried it ( and never will), so i cant properly answer your question, but just wanted to let you know i agree with your swearing.

i agree with you EZ. it's possible that it might be boosting things to start with... but unless she's willing to keep up with the hard work and the good diet the miracle pills are eventually going to stop working.

In my opinion NO. And I tried quite a bit, all my life I've thought I should just try one more and it would work, and I was always down on myself, thinking that my weight and my fat was 'too old' and just 'wouldn't come off'.
It's FALSE. I see it now, after engaging in serious dieting and exercizing I see that there is no old fat and everything comes off just as you commit to having it coming off.
There is no magic pill for it, and just now, as the beach season approaches and the shops here get filled with slimming products and 'magic' pills I always get approached by someone trying to sell me that magic thing, my answer is always 'why? I don't need it!!'.
In time I have found that is the best answer for me and anyone around me. The shop assistant cannot say I need it or she may offend me and I may decide to complain to the manager, and any woman nearby who is staing beside and maybe considering buying that ****** is taken to think 'if she doesn't need it, I don't need it either'.

Well, EZ, from all of my time in the Maintainers forum, I will share a secret with you. You might look at the Exercise and Accountability thread and think, wow, those people plan and eat healthy and are consistent and exercise and still strive for health/exercise goals....but that is just a big cover and sham.

If you read our posts backwards and in pig Latin, you will see the truth.

The truth is that we all lost weight and are keeping it off because we inject HcG, snack on Little Debbies topped with phentermine, and wrap our thighs in saran wrap on a daily basis.




And, yes, I am joking!

I think 99% of the drugs are useless -- other than the fact that they do exactly what your niece is experiencing: motivate you to eat right and exercise because you're spending so darn much on the drugs that you might as well make it seem like they're working! The same thing happens for some people when they join a gym.. they could have done it without the equipment, but spending the $$$ every month is the kick in the butt that leads them to lose the weight.

I will say that commercial meal plans (mentioned in the poll) do "work" for most people, because it's just another way of controlling your calories. Of course, that's only if you follow them... if you eat a bag of chips alongside your Nutrisystem meals, of course you're not going to lose weight. I do think that they set people up to either ALWAYS stay on the plan or end up gaining some weight back because they haven't really learned how to prepare and choose the right amount of food. Yeah, you can look at the meals you're given and figure out how to do it on your own, but I think it's a minority of people who really DO that. So do they lead to weight loss? Sure. Do they teach you to manage your weight and health for the rest of your life? Not as much.

If by miracle drug, you include "vitamins" then yes -- studies have shown that people who have proper nutrients in their bodies keep weight off easier than people who are nutrient-deficient.

But I'm 99 per cent sure that's not what you meant.

I have never tried weight loss pills because I have a heart murmur and high blood pressure and there's no way I'm going to TAX my heart. That'd be ironic considering part of my reason for losing weight is to help my heart!

So if no one has kept the weight off from so called Miracle Pills...

has anyone benefitted from them at all? Like maybe a jump start to exercise or better eating habits?

Just curious....the results of the poll so far prove my point to my niece...thanks gals

I cannot think of any positive aspect to diet pills. At all.

They merely feed into the mindset that helps some people become obese in the first place -- the desire and desperation for quick-fixes and instant gratification along with addiction and lack of control.

I haven't taken any myself.. but I have a friend who tried taking them, and found them to be a quick and easy source of a caffeine boost. Significantly more expensive than just drinking some coffee/soda or even buying No-Doz or something... but in this case, they already had bought them, and had a big bottle left so at least they found a use for them.