If you belong to a gym and attend regularly, you no doubt come across people every day who are on a quest to lose some weight. Nearly everyone you meet these days seems to be struggling with weight loss issues and obesity has become the number one problem in North America today. So many people are desperately trying to figure out how to lose weight that it is no wonder the fitness and weight loss industries have become such big business. Once people know that someone is trying to lose weight, they will invariably be full of all kinds of advice on what to do, what to eat, how to exercise and what kinds of foods to avoid.

The first thing to remember when embarking on any kind of diet is that if you want to lose weight effectively and keep it off over the long term, you need to not diet. Rather you need to change your eating habits. Most people who have a weight problem have it because they have an unhealthy relationship with food. They were likely brought up in an environment where food was always an issue or it may have been used as a reward or as a mother’s way of expressing and showing love. So, most people who really want to lose weight and keep it off would do themselves a great service if they can take an honest look at how they view food and try to figure out what the triggers are that cause them to overeat.

The next step is to incorporate some exercise into your daily routine. This can be any type of exercise as long as it raises your heartbeat for a period of at least 30 minutes. Any exercise program that is undertaken needs to be done a minimum of three times per week for about a half hour at a time. Exercising regularly is one of the biggest pitfalls for losing weight but it is a very simple and easy thing to do and does not require any financial investment. You may wish to purchase a good pair of walking shoes if you are going to embark on a walking program but a vigorous workout can be done in your living room so a gym membership is not even needed.

It will not take long before you start to feel much better after you begin your exercise program. Exercise is a wonderful and natural way to release endorphins, our body’s original “feel good” hormones.

The thing to remember is that going on a fad diet is probably the worst thing a person who is trying to lose pounds can do. Not only will their diet be filled with foods that contain poor nutrition but any type of dad diet usually sets up a scenario where the dieter goes from one yo-yo diet to the next. They shed the weight but as soon as they begin to eat their normal diet again, it quickly comes back. When it comes to changing your eating habits for life, a good solid healthy eating approach has to be taken. This means that you should incorporate a large number of fresh fruits, vegetables and fiber into your diet and limit the number of carbohydrates that are ingested. Many people have a great deal of success with a diet program in which they count the carbohydrates rather than calories. Another thing to keep in mind is that it is important not to completely eliminate certain foods from your meal plans. It is much more important to learn to eat all foods in moderation.

Orlistat is a weight loss drug that has been a part of physician-supervised efforts to combat obesity for quite some time now. The drug is also known by the trade name “Xenical” in certain parts of the world or by its more scientific name “tetrahydrolipstatin.”

The weight loss drug helps reduce fat digestion but it is meant to be used in conjunction with – not to the exclusion of – a low fat diet plan. You should not be taking Orlistat to allow you to eat more fat as that is not how the drug is meant to work.

How Does Orlistat Work?

Orlistat works by preventing consumed fat from being absorbed into the body from the digestive tract. Since fat is high in calories preventing it from being digested can help lower the intake of calories from the digestive tract quite significantly.

A more detailed look at how Orlistat works focuses on the drugs relationship to the enzyme lipase. Enzymes are proteins that play important roles in digestion and lipase is the enzyme that breaks down consumed fats.

What Orlistat does is render lipase inoperative and this in turn prevents some fats or lipids from being digested as they normally would. Instead the fats or lipids pass undigested through the digestive tract and they exit the body as part of bowel movements.

Importantly, people who use Orlistat must limit their fat intake and low fat foods are therefore recommendable when using this drug and when trying to lose weight in general. If, for example, you eat a lot of french fries from fast food restaurants while using Orlistat then a lot of the fat in those fries will remain in your digestive tract.

Orlistat Side Effects

If you have an excessive amount of fat in your digestive tract then that can increase your chances of experiencing some of the side effects that using Orlistat can cause.

Those side effects can include steatorrhea, fecal incontinence, and urgent needs to use the bathroom. Steatorrhea refers to very oily stool that smells much worse than normal waste matter while fecal incontinence describes the loss of voluntary control of the bowels.

Orlistat has also been mentioned as a possible factor in liver damage.

Recommended precautions when using Orlistat include taking a multi-vitamin pill daily.

If you are considering buying the Orlistat 90-Count Starter Pack or using the Orlistat 60mg Capsules then you should speak to a physician first. They are the ones who are most likely to know whether or not you should be using this weight loss drug.

Some of them may even speak to you about Alli, a weaker version of Orlistat. Alli and Orlistat are very similar however the former can be described as reduced strength.

If you are looking for more online information on Orlistat then you can try the mayo clinic website. But in all cases people who are either considering losing weight or taking a diet pill should talk to a physician first.

Be sure to provide him or her with your personal health information and any other medical information that you think might be relevant. That could include your allergies, your medical history, and also mention medications that you may be using. Regular interactions with your physician while losing weight is recommendable as well.

There are so many different weight loss pills available to the market nowadays. All you have to do is turn on the TV late at night and you’ll be subjected to several infomercials all pandering the same message: You’re too fat! So, what can you do about it? If you believe anything the TV says, all you have to do is take a magic pill that will help decrease pant sizes. For most people, non-prescription pills are the drug of choice.

The ordinary consumer isn’t interested in buying pills that are limited, hard to access, and frankly, quite expensive. Voila, we have over-the-counter weight loss pills at our disposal to fight this obesity problem. But now comes the trouble of deciding which ones work.

OTC weight loss pills come in so many different forms, some more natural than others. There are appetite suppressants like Alli and Ephedra (also known as Ma huang); natural, more familiar, herbs like Dandelion, Aloe, and St. john’s wort. There are stimulants like Yerba mate and Guarana; lesser known natural products like Glucomannan, Garcinia, Guar gum, and Chitosan. Finally there are man-made products like diuretics or Metformin; and lesser-known remedies like Pyruvate, Chromium, and 5-htp. As you can see, there are several options available, but which one is right for you?

Alli is a more popular weight loss drug targeted at people with a BMI over 28. It’s approved by the FDA, but problems arise when you find out the “treatment effects.” You can expect soiled pants, ruined chairs, destroyed bed sheets; all due to orange, smelly, anal leakage and uncontrollable gas. It has worked for several people, and it might for you, as long as you can tolerate the effects. Metformin is also specialized, typically given to diabetics, but specialists have begun giving it to diabetics for the purpose of weight loss or weight management, by decreasing appetite.

Ephedra or Ma huang is a common plant that has been used in many diets around the world. It was historically used for illnesses, but has become popular as a weight loss supplement due to its ability to suppress appetite. Chromium acts in the same way, decreasing your cravings for sugar and carbs. It also helps to burn calories, but there hasn’t been much proof that it aids weight loss.

There also hasn’t been much proof of effectiveness for quite a few of these supplements. Dandelion (used as a diuretic), Cascara (used as a laxative), and aloe (used as an antioxidant) which are all plants found in nature, are generally used to help boost weight loss along with other methods. Supplements like Glucomannan and Guar gum also do not really increase weight loss, but act as fillers to make you feel more full after a meal, thus intaking fewer calories.

5-htp (5-hydroxytrypophan) is a supplement that helps increase serotonin levels which boost feelings of happiness and decrease food cravings. While not a fast weight loss, it does help, but it also comes with many caveats. There are a number of side effects and interactions with illnesses, as well as drug interactions. For this reason, you should speak to your doctor first. On the other hand, Garcinia is still being researched and it’s still unclear as to how it helps people lose weight.

Though some supplements weren’t mentioned, it is important to talk to your doctor about your diet plans. Even though a supplement is “natural,” isn’t technically a drug, and seems relatively safe, there are several interactions that could happen between them. Always do your research before undertaking any new weight management plans or major health changes.

What is Xenical?

Xenical is trade name of the prescription form of a drug called Orlistat, and is made by Roche. An over the counter version name Alli is also available in the US and the UK from GlaxoSmithKline. The chemical name is tetrahydrolipstatin, and is meant for treament of obesity. It’s main purpose is to prevent the body from absorbing fat from ingested foods, which cuts down calories. It’s meant to be used alongside side a doctor supervised diet.

Xenical has a definite, but not huge, benefit in weight loss. Clinical trials have shown that the drug, in conjunction with changes in lifestyle (exercise and diet) can lead to a loss of 5 or 6 more pounds per year than those lifestyle changes alone. There is also some reduction in blood pressure, and some correlation with reduced chance of the onset of type II diabetes. In one trial, the drug reduced the occurrence of type II diabetes in obese people by almost forty percent.

Side Effects of Xenical

As for side effects, Xenical is known for producing gastrointestinal symptoms such as oily and loose stools. This gets better over time, however, and is the most reported of the drug’s side effects. Other side effects include increased flatulence, incontinence and increased (and more urgent) bowel movements. To cut down on side effects it is good to avoid high fat food, and to be on a low calorie, low fat diet. If a user keeps fat content down to around 15g a meal, oily & loose stools and excessive flatulence can be controlled. Documentation for Xenical’s sister drug Alli states that this is a sort of aversion therapy, pushing the user to eat lower fat foods.

Another important thing to note is that in 2010 the US FDA approved a new label for Xenical which included information about rare cases of severe liver injury that came about from using the drug. In another study, this time of 900 Orlistat users, triple the amount were found to have serious kidney problems than those who didn’t use the drug.

For the most part Orlistat has been only available in prescription form (Xenical). This continues to be the case in Canada. In the EU, Australia and the US, some formulations of Orlistat (such as Alli) have been approved for over the counter sale. Roche started recruitment in Russia in 2009 for a trial of Xenical with obese tweens/teens between twelve and fourteen years old.

In New Zealand and Australia you can now get Orlistat over the counter in a 120 milligram capsule. At first it was prescription only, but eventually it was changed to a “Pharmacist Only Medicine” In 2006 there were complaints from the Australian Consumers’ Association that Roche was marketing the medication to teens, and those ads were withdrawn. They then filed more complaint with Australia’s regulatory body in charge of health products, hoping to get Orlistat’s over the counter availability revoked. The attempt failed, but Roche was no longer allowed to market Xenical directly to consumers. It is only recently that this restriction has been lifted.

In 2007 the US FDA approved the sister drug of Xenical, Alli, allowing it to be sold over the counter. Alli was the first weight loss medication to be allowed to be sold over the counter by the US government.

Alli provides more weight loss pills available to the huge market to lose weight. It requires the users to consume no more than 15 grams of fat per day with the 3 pills you take each day, especially to avoid the side effects mentioned later. The pill promises to remove about a quarter of the fat from your body. This loose weight is lost via bowel movements. It contains orlistat which is the active ingredient that suppresses the digestion of fat. Alli does not claim to be a weight loss or diet pill, but is an aid that, when taken following their suggestions for diet and exercise, is supposed to help you shed weight. So, does Alli work?

If you do the math (and follow their 15g fat allowance per meal for 3 meals a day), you will, supposedly lose about 11.25g of fat per day. That is 101.25 calories lost. Each pound of body fat contains 3500 calories meaning it takes 35 days to lose a pound of fat. But along with low carbohydrates and exercise (burns more calories), it is possible to lose more than this. Research done on Alli claims that for every 2 pounds of weight you lose, the weight loss diet pill helps you lose an additional 1 pound.

A review of alli mentions some unpleasant side-effects including diarrhea and excessive gas especially when a fatty meal was consumed, and the coup de grace: smelly, oily leakage that stained their clothing and chairs. Another noted that the pills didn’t work as quickly as they had hoped or that they didn’t notice as significant a weight change as they expected even though they followed the directions.

Those suffering from Type II diabetes and currently taking Metformin are often encouraged to practice weight management and maintain a healthy weight to help them control their diabetes. It’s not uncommon for Metformin diet pills to be prescribed for losing weight, but this may not be enough for some people. Alli and Metformin can be used together without any contraindications and are not known to have any drug interactions. This does, however, mean you must take extra caution in what you are eating (low sugar and low fat diet).

Last year, some auction sites were selling Alli diet pills but bidders were not getting the actual pills. The ones they did receive were fakes containing the active ingredient from Meridia diet pills. Meridia diet pills have been in trouble for being linked with increased heart disease and obesity especially in those who have a history of heart disease.

Unlike so many other weight-loss medications and weight-loss drugs, the Alli diet pill is the only one that has been FDA approved, is one of the few that are considered diet pills that work, and can be purchased over the counter in most countries where it is available. To purchase Alli, a form must be filled out which determines if you are a suitable candidate (usually those who are overweight into the realm of obesity). Is alli safe? Alli is generally safe and the only known side effects are abdominal cramping, gas, leakage, and diarrhea.

Of course, every individual body is different and the pills may end up working for you, however, the unpleasant Alli side effects seem to be pretty universal. If you don’t mind wearing a pad to catch the oily fat leakage you’ll experience, the pill may workout for you. Some claim that the side effects of Alli are a great motivator to reduce your fat intake.