What are some safe and effective weight loss supplements?

The only safe ones are diet and exercise.
The math is simple. If you are burning more calories than you take in, you will lose weight. Something is wrong with your “diet” or your exercise program, or both.

@josie your theory may be true but I really have no idea. I have been trying for 2 years now. I am on a few medicines that may be not allowing my body to shed the pounds. I am just frustrated with no results!

@kb12345: Have you addressed this issue with your prescribing doctor? What does he say?

I’ve had a little experience with a couple of them, years ago. They did nothing but lighten my wallet.

I agree with @gailcalled, you need to ask your prescribing doctor about this issue. There may be medications that will be equally effective without the inability to lose weight.

Make sure that you’re eating enough and sleeping enough.

Don’t take supplements.

Do you count calories? If you haven’t been counting calories I recommend trying that. Write down all the calories you eat, then cut it by 500 calories a day, and you will lose at least a pound a week for 5–6 weeks. To continue losing weight you will have to increase your exercise and or cut more calories. Basically a certain amount of calories equals a certain weight. If you eat 2200 plus light exercise that might mean 140 pounds for you. Just throwing numbers out there. If you want to weigh 130 you have to get down to the calorie count and exercise that equals 130. Then to maintain the 130 you have to maintain the lower calorie count, or you will go up to the weight of the higher calories count.

How much do you weigh now?

My psychiatrist says that a new combination that includes Welbutrin and some stimulant is helpful to a small number of people. But if you are on many other drugs, and some of them are antidepressants, then you need to be very careful about this, since you could have some unfortunate interactions. If you want to use drugs to lose weight, do it under supervision of a doctor.

@kb12345 : Are you taking steroids? They are notorious for triggering weight gain. Your doc will have the only sensible advice.

When you hit a heart rate of 160–180 BPM your body will look for anything it isn’t using for fuel. Since you’re exercising it will not use muscle, it will move on to readily available carbohydrates. If those are unavailable, it will go for fat. Not only that but once your threshold is broken, it will use the source it has found until the recovery phase is over, which can be up to two hours depending on your workout and metabolism.

What this boils down to: FIRST, consult your doctor and make sure that you are healthy enough to start this type of course. Then, change your work out. When I go on a cut phase I do fasted AM cardio. What that means is that I will wake up and work out before breakfast when the stomach is empty (thus, no carbs). Start with a warm up, a light jog or something, then do wind sprints at about 80% of your ability. I can’t tell you how hard that is since I am not you, don’t go all out, but make sure it’s difficult. When you start getting winded. Do 2 more, at 100%. Give it everything you have for those last 2. Your heart rate will peak. From there, do a cool down then go home. Eat before you shower, but eat smart and light. Grab an apple and a light protein shake (guys and girls alike, we work the same). The simple sugars in the apple will give you energy to burn for the time being and the protein will help you build muscle (contrary to popular belief, this will not make you muscular so don’t try using that excuse). After your light breakfast, take a shower and get ready for your day. This gap will maximize the amount of stored fat your body will draw from. From there eat a high fiber breakfast and go about your day as normal.

I gave my father this advice. He weighed just under 300lbs and is 48 years old, well 49 now, this was last summer when doctors said he needed to lose weight for a diabetes scare. He lost 20 lbs in 3 months with an elliptical. Now yes, some of this was water weight, but of the weight he lost then (he has since quit the program) he has kept 20 of the 45 lbs that he lost off.

Outside of this. Be active. You don’t have to worry as much about what you eat as long as you’re burning more calories than you’re consuming. THIS DOES NOT MEAN THAT YOU STOP EATING AS MUCH. Eat normally, just go play, take a walk, heck wash your car. Just do something for 30min to an hour outside of your work out.

Source: 5 years of weight lifting and “working out”, advice from many exercise forums, input from people I have worked out with, as well as advice from my Aunt, who has been a professional body builder for decades.

As far as supplements go, don’t waste your time. 9 times of 10, they don’t work.

People who don’t have enough food to eat are not overweight. It doesn’t matter if all of the food they do eat is carbohydrates or whatever, if you don’t eat too much you lose weight. Cut back on your food intake until you start to lose, then adjust your eating habits depending on how much weight you want to lose. When you have reached your target weight, add back in calories until you see your weight level off. If you start to gain again, you know you are eating too much.

The problem with eating less is that it sets your body up to want to store fat since it thinks that food is getting scarce, so the next time you go and cheat on your diet (one of the tricks to dieting is to have a cheat day once every two weeks or so) you will really feel it. This is why starvation diets don’t work.

In the end it’s your decision. Do you want to eat less, or do you want to play more? That’s what it boils down to, plain and simple.

Some friends and I started taking supplements earlier this year, I’m down 25lbs, and my doctor approved for one year.

Supplement Superstores DB Goddess Fastpacks (shakes, pills). It’s basically an energy booster and appetite suppressant that works in concert with exercise and diet. Almost all supplement stores have this kind of product.

@Deshi_basara – tell that to these[term]=starving%20children&filters[primary]=images&filters[secondary]=videos&sort=1&o=2 people.

@rooeytoo Broken link, try again. But if it has anything to do with people in a third world country then just stop because that is apples and oranges.

I will say this one more time, Starvation diets do not work. As soon as you stop them, the weight comes back. But if you want to shrug off things that have been proven time and again simply because there are easier and lazier ways, then go for it. I promise you the results won’t be what you wanted and you will feel no better.

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Diet and exercise is a good strategy for taking off weight. The problem is that less than fifteen percent of people who try to use that strategy are successful over the long run. In that sense, you can say they don’t work because the vast majority of people can’t stick to them.

You could say the “medication” works, except no one is willing to keep taking it. Therefore, the “medication” is ineffective.

For people to have long term success taking weight off and keeping it off, something else is going to be needed—probably a medication that makes it easier to eat less on a long term basis. Until we have such a thing, we will probably continue to have an epidemic of obesity in the US (and other countries, too, for all I know).

@Deshi_basara – people who eat less don’t get fat, now there are always medical exceptions, but they are just that, exceptions. And there is a difference between starvation diets and eating less, that is definitely apples and oranges.

@wundayatta says the truth, if you eat less for a while and exercise, you lose weight. Then you get bored and fall off the wagon, weight comes back.

Not rocket science.