Diet pill craze anyone?

I'm just curious if any of you have ever found a decent diet pill or if they really do work?!  I have no intentions on going on one, but I am a summer student who wants to write her cause and affect paper in an English class on the use of diet pills.  Anyone care to help?  You would be cited, of course.

simply stated, they don't work. only thing that ever got thinner was my wallet.:P

I'll agree with choco here. Never found a diet pill that worked better than simple plain calorie counting. Plus, the advantages of calorie counting is... you understand the process and can learn how to keep it off, once you reach goal!

Back in the day before we knew it was so dangerous, I tried serveral of the different types of ephedra products.  I would try them for a couple of weeks, get tired of being jumpy all the time, then quit.  A couple months later, a new brand would come out and I'd give it a shot with the same results. 

I agree too - a big scam.  I am trying l-carnitine; however, but that's more of a supplement than a diet pill.

Not that I take them either but I believe there is a web site that rates them... which ones are the best.  If you Google "hydroxycut" you may find some info.

i used ephedra back in the day-- loved it.  but i love that jittery high feeling so....

and it worked.  i dropped 20 lbs pretty quickly and easily.  and kept if off for about-- 6 months or so after i stopped taking the pills (there were intervenening circumstances, i think i would have gained weight anyway).

mom did fen-phen-- had to be on a heart monitor for a while after they figured out the fen part was bad.

ive used about everything you could get otc-- PPA and ephedra were def. the best.

(edit: spelling/typing mistakes)

Here's the question, though, drea.. once you stop taking the pill, you gain it all back, right?

I tried one with green tea and hoodia. I can't remember the name though. It was a patch that you wore for three days and a pill you took every morning. I liked it, it was more for helping you feel full so that you didn't eat too much than for actually burning fat (which is a claim of some of the manufacturer's of diet pills). It might have just worked because I beleived that it would work. I think the name of it was Zoeta, I had to quit taking it because it was too expensive. I've tried a couple of other since then (actually about 4 or 5 of them) all in just pill form, Slim Quick, Carb Enders, Xantrex 3, LipoBurn, TrimDay, etc. None of those did annything but make me high on caffeine and then drop me until I couldn't stay awake. Or they didn't do anything at all. Not forgetting that if they did work even a little bit, I'd gain back plus more any weight that I lost while taking it. And I did do the reccomended "to be used in combination with diet and exercize."

I've tried several.  I did Lipoban first, and I lost 15 pounds quickly.  I think it worked so well because I quit drinking all sodas and at the time I was drinking 5 or more a day.  I also started walking 5 miles a day every day.  So how much of the weightloss was actually due to the pills?  Probably not much?  Then I tried LipoSvelt, Release, SlimTek, and TrimSpa.  None of these caused any weight loss.  The Release gave me the runs (sorry, tmi *lol*), and after I bought the SlimTek I realized it's active ingredient is an anesthetic (Should've read the label before ordering).  All it does is kind of numb your tongue.  I'm not sure what that is supposed to do, numb your taste buds?  It sure didn't suppress my hunger.  Also, it came with a 'diet' to follow.  It said you were only supposed to eat the foods on the list, which were mainly meats, or you probably wouldn't have success with the pills.  It was pretty much Atkins.  None of that was in the ad, of course.  In desperation, I googled low-calorie foods, found this website, and have lost 10 pounds since June following a healthy diet and exercise regimine.

hk-- well i havent tried any of the new lacking ephedra pills so i dunno how those would be, but with the ephedra pills, like i said, i started to gain it back about 6 months later but I honestly think that it was due to stress and the other stuff going on rather than going off the ephedra pills.

when i was using them, i drank a lot of water, ate mostly vegetarian, and kept strict calorie control-- i just had the ability to stop myself from eating (especially the binges) when i was on them and had enough energy that i felt like exercising.  as one who is chronically depressed and lets face it, lazy, that helped a lot.  it wasnt as tho the pill was magic but it gave me the extra boost i needed.  sniff and now its illegal ;)

that being said, ephedra and phentermine and all of those, from what i have read, never work quite as well as they did the first time.  even when you are using them, your body develops a tolerance to them and they stop working over time.  i dont think we have a pill that is a major cure all, but clincally, ephedra worked better than anything else we have on the market both prescription and non-prescription.  except speed.  hmm amphetamines anyone? :-p

A lot of them work, but they have real bad consequences.  If you actually read the proper usage, on many of them you are suppose to limit your diet to only certain kinds of foods or else it will counteract the drug.  Most of them are beta-blockers which, put extremely bluntly, because all the fat in your food to not get absorbed which means it comes out at.... ahem... 'Anal Seepage'.  Sounds fun, right?

I am all for supplements, but when it comes to all out chemicals, I hate them.  I am not one of these people that claims they donâ??t work because for a vast majority of people who use them correctly, they work wonders.  I just donâ??t think it is worth the chemical compromise to attain your goals.  To me, half of the rush of looking in the mirror and seeing my progress with toning is knowing that I worked my ass off (literally) for it.

you know wolfpack-- you are right-- the thrill of working so damn hard for this is a great thing.

and most pills they sell on the market are either dangerous or dont work or impossible to use correctly. (i still miss ephedra tho :-p)

i just was answering cuz ya know-- the girl asked for it-- and i thought id be nice ;)

i never tried a fat blocker cuz um the side effects always sounded way too bad to me.  xenical is going to be put on the market tho otc.... interesting.  should be out this fall.  i still dont wanna deal with the side effects, heck gotta go out in public. =)

ok gtg a 90 min bike ride awaits....  and good luck with ur paper msanchez!

I loved metabolife way back in maybe 98 99, it was a great appetitie supressant, and I never got the jitters, but I didn't change my lifestyle, I just ate alot less of the bad stuff.  So yup when I stopped taking the pills I gained all the weight back.

I have been taking the lean system 7 fat burner ephedra free.  I am chaning my lifestyle this time though.  I am eating better food, and adding exercise to my daily schedule.  According to the  calories eaten vs burned math I should be 3.8 lbs lighter.  According to the scale I have lost 5 lbs in the past 9 days.  So... is it the pills or just normal weight fluctuation, or maybe my scale needs new batteries?

DO NOT TAKE ANY DIET PILLS!!! Some can have worse effects on you than coke or other drugs like PCP. BELIEVE ME.

Sometimes you don't know the things your body is sensitive too, and even though many coffee-drinkers think it's alright to use a diet-pill with harmless caffeine in it (since they figure they would react fine to it) it can give you intense heart palpalations, major jitters, HUGE DEPRESSION, anxiety attacks, dry mouth, diarrhea, the need to vomit, and you may end up in the emergency room.

Don't take the chance, and follow a sensible diet and exercise regimen. Diet pills are on the market to fool you and to make money. Don't put your health up for grabs, those few water-weight pounds aren't worth it in the LEAST.

wolf- diet pills aren't beta-blockers. beta-blockers are for high blood pressure and arrhythmias. I think what you are looking for is "lipase" blockers, which the drug Xenical is. It inhibits the amount of fat broken drown by enzymes in your gut, so some of the fat does leak rectally. Most diet pills are amphetamine derivatives (phentermine, bontril, tenuate). Some "diet" pills are other medicines that utilize weight-loss side effects (Wellbutrin, Topamax, Metformin). Hope this helps. I think that amphetamine-related diet pills will work for a short period of time, but eventually your body becomes used to the stimulant effect and they stop working. Then you gain weight when you go off of them.

drea, oh, I wasn't refuting anything you said, just giving my 2 cents.  I know everything you say is pretty rock solid :)

hahah wolfpack...i think saying that it comes out your bum sounds a lot better than "anal seepage" SICK. haha

Cow - thanks for the correction... I was thinking more of drugs like orlestat...I don't know what the Hell I was thinking.

But yeah...Orlestat is a good example of the kinds of drugs I was talking about that basically reduces your body's ability to absorb fat.  This is a good example because it is really extreme...orlestat will reduce your body's ability by 1/3.  The down sides is that it strips your body of vitamins and even gives the user a high risk of breast cancer.

......getting thinner at the expense of losing your life.  Sounds like a plan.

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And I know...'anal seepage' isn't even fun to say...much less have.  I'm just trying to discourage the use of the drugs. :)

My friend that I hadn't seen in a while lost a ton of weight (20-25lbs) and she told me she used Zantrax 3 diet pill. She took it before working out for energy. So when we went to the gym one day I tried some of hers. I took 2 pills before working out and wow did it really give me the extra energy. The only problem was after the work out I was REALLY nauseous for a while. My friend said that when she first started they made her a little nauseous too but that it stopped after she had been taking them for a while. But I was seriously sick and don't think that I'll be trying them again anytime soon. I usually work out fine on my own.
But I guess the reality is its not truly the pill that helped her lose weight but more working out and diet. Using the pill gave her an extra boost to work out though I guess, and if thats what she needed then I say good for her. Although I am not sure of how safe they truly are.

Could someone fill me in on what Zantrax is and does?  I would google it but when it comes to heavily opinionated things like weight loss pills, you get all kinds of weird stuff...