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Diet Pills That Speed Up Metabolism

Metabodrin, Lipro Diet Pills, Extreme Diet Burn, Ballistic, Tight: these are just a few of the diet pills on the market that purport to speed up metabolism and help you lose weight fast. Many people who struggle with their weight are lured into the promise of big results in a short period of time, but most diet pills that make big promises either don't deliver or pose serious health risks to the consumer.

  1. Metabolism

    • The Mayo Clinic defines metabolism as "the process by which your body converts what you eat and drink into energy." The body is constantly converting energy in order to power both obvious and less obvious feats, an example of the more obvious being physical movement and an example of the less obvious being liver function. Thus, your body needs energy all the time. Just how much energy the body needs and how much is superfluous can be estimated by determining your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) and factoring in your level of physical activity and the amount of energy required for digestion. BMR is the amount of energy (number of calories) your body burns while at rest. There are a number of BMR calculators available online which will approximate the number of calories you should be burning based on your height, weight and gender.

    Diet Pills

    • Many diet pills promise to boost metabolism, meaning that the body will burn more calories than the suggested number determined by the BMR, which, in turn, promises weight loss, or, more specifically, fat loss. However, none of these pills has received Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval, which means none of them has been proven both safe and effective. In fact, as of 2007 there is only one over-the-counter diet pill that has been approved by the FDA--Alli--and that pill doesn't promise an increase in metabolism but rather a decrease in fat absorption. (Be warned, though, that while an effective supplement to eating healthy and exercising, the side effects of Alli can be messy; MSNBC's Melissa Dahl reports that consuming more fat than the recommended allowance can and does result in unexpected and uncontrollable bowel movements.)

    Other Supplements

    • There are more natural approaches to speeding up your metabolism, though these re not endorsed by most medical professionals, either. For example, WebMD says that green tea does elevate the metabolism a little bit, but not enough to result in weight loss. The same is true for hot peppers, which contain capsaicin. Caffeine does increase your metabolism, but studies haven't conclusively proven its efficacy in weight loss.

      Rather than taking chances with pills or loading yourself up with coffee, WebMD suggests that you instead increase your omega-3 fatty acids and exercise.

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