Weight Loss Pills, Supplements, and Drugs: Are You Making a Deal with the Devil?

Chances are some of you may spend thousands of dollars on weight loss pills or other pills annually whether it is for diseases, fat burning, or muscle augmentation. In America alone there are $35 billion, yes that was with a “B”.

All of that spent on diets and weight loss products annually, and that number is rising each year. $13 billion is spent specifically on supplements.

Weight Loss Pills: The Easy Way Out

So are weight loss pills safe?  I apologize prematurely for getting on the soapbox here, but I think the weight loss pill is the epitome of our society. We look for quick fixes because we want it to be easy and fast. In our attempt to make it easy, we actually make it worse and more complicated thinking we have safe weight loss pills.

We live in a fast paced society where we are taught to look for ways to cut corners, but with nutrition it doesn’t work that way. You can’t fight millions of years of existence and evolution with a weight loss pill. It goes back to the basics: water, protein, healthy fats, fruits and vegetables. Most “natural weight loss pills” have negative effects, or at least not all of the positive impact you need in order to be healthy.

Often the confusion comes in that people don’t know where to find the right answer. It took me a good 25+ years before anyone gave me truly sound health advice. Even then it has evolved a lot as I have studied more and have measured my results to see what works well for my body.

This type of confusion and frustration with being overweight is what often leads people to taking drastic measures by popping a pill or starving themselves. By eating correctly you save yourself years of being counterproductive to your health and a lot of anxiety and depression that comes with it.

As I mentioned in one post, I save about 730+ hours a year by eating healthy. With exercise it is the same thing. If you worked out 20-60 minutes a day for four to six days a week, that is often all the exercise you need. Sometimes you can get away with even less as shown by Tim Ferriss.

By working out an hour a day, that is less than 5% of your day! By working out 6 hours a week, that is 3.5% of your week! Think of how much time you spend working, watching TV, or other hobbies? Yet proper nutrition and fitness seem to be so challenging for us to incorporate compared to popping a weight loss pill.

Do Health Corporations have Your Best Interest in Mind?

Listen I am all about the free market, but let’s be honest here. Companies have made a killing off of the need for the pill. Corporate America sells weight loss products to over 100 million people each year. People are bombarded with so many offers on the latest fat loss drug or the next steroid-like pill that will magically build that perfect physique. There are well over 25,000 different products offered by over 1,500 manufacturers.

It becomes hard to know who to trust with all of the weight loss pills side effects. When the desperation and depression kicks in, it gets easier to trust anyone with a shallow promise of the next best natural weight loss pills. I am sure you have felt it. I have.

Then when you go to “trusted sources” for help on all of these bamboozling offers, you look at what are supposed to be reliable magazines, journals, or other publications. You think you are getting an honest, educated opinion from them, but are you? Unfortunately, that isn’t necessarily the case.

These are corporations that want to make money as much as their competitors. Commercial corporations have mouths to feed and bills to pay. Many have to be accountable quarterly and annually to stockholders. When push comes to shove or they see potential dollar signs, these large corporations will slap in a few comments from doctors and other industry thought leaders to solidify their pill pushing agenda.

Now let’s say they are doing all they can to avoid promoting harmful pills. Let’s not forget that if they don’t create these drugs, then they have advertisers that often do. The advertisers foot the bill to their success. Corporations have to please them or else the advertisers will pull their ads.

So the bottom line is the bottom line. These are capitalistic companies trying to make a buck. I don’t think it makes them evil, but not necessarily objective or looking out for your best interest.

You need to make sure to take anyone’s advice with a grain of salt…just not a grain of refined carbohydrates. (OK that was cheesy, sorry.)

Next Post

The next post we will talk about some things in you can take in pill form that will be helpful to you. We know these little guys as supplements.

About Cade

Cade is the founder of Know My Body. Sorry...no doctor degree, fancy gym, multi-million dollar fitness program, or label as a self-proclaimed health guru of biblical proportions. He is a common guy just like you. Maybe that helps him get you a bit better.

He has worked the past several years trying to get a grasp of "health knowledgeries" from the perspective of a person working a 9 to 5 job and dealing with the normal and not-so-normal challenges that life gives. Visit our About Page to chew on some more knowledge about Cade and how we want to help you at Know My Body.