Wake up call from the weight loss dream

Wake up call from the weight loss dream

Carb and fat blockers are not a ticket to healthy slimming, expert warns

SOCIAL & LIFESTYLE
Wake up call from the weight loss dream

A27-year-old woman was in the news last week after it was revealed she had made around 500 million baht in just three years from selling diet pills.

The woman’s rather ordinary life took a dramatic turn upon discovering how well the pills could sell online and from a small business, she now has almost 4,000 representatives nationwide. According to the interview on Manager online, she made 30 million baht a month.

A few days following the interview, however, the woman made the headlines again, after her storage house was raided by the Department of Special Investigation (DSI), and most of her stock was confiscated. Her products, according to the news, contained sibutramine, a banned ingredient that can be fatal. The substance is designed for weight loss, but is now prohibited in many countries — Thailand imposed a ban on it four years ago — because of the serious risk of cardiac dangers.

Her slimming products, some of which have been confiscated on grounds of carrying fake FDA registration numbers, claim to block carbohydrate and fat uptake, so you can eat whatever you want and still lose weight. It apparently works by absorbing the fattening things, so it hypothetically leaves your body without any calories being absorbed. They also claim to help speed up metabolism, so you can burn extra calories without exercise. In other words, with these magical pills, you can eat and sleep all day and still lose weight, for only 2,000-3,000 baht a month.

This is not the only brand that makes such bold claims. While it may obviously sound too good to be true, there are many people who do fall victim to such promises and hope to lose weight by doing virtually nothing different. Judging from how much money this brand makes, let alone the countless others, it seems like Thai people seriously need a wake up call when it comes to weight loss.

Carb blockers and fat blockers are a dime a dozen these days, especially on the internet where authorities have very little control. Dr Wanwimon Wannarak, weight loss specialist at Romrawin Clinic, said such pills can actually be dangerous.

“There is no such thing as effortless weight loss. If you don’t exercise and cut back on what you eat, it is impossible to lose weight,” she clarified.

There are such things as carb blockers and fat blockers, however, these pills are usually reserved for patients with severe obesity. Fat blockers block the digestive enzymes that process fat, while carb blockers have a natural chemical called amylase, which helps digest carbohydrates. When amylase is blocked, the carbohydrates pass through the body undigested, so you don’t absorb the calories.

Dr Wanwimon explained that everyone should first understand that fat and carbohydrate are not enemies and our body needs them. The fat-soluble vitamins, A, D, E, and K, cannot work without fat, and some fats are actually crucial for good health.

“These fat blocking pills cannot discriminate between good fat and bad fat. They just block everything and your body can end up malnourished. It is also an unhealthy mindset to think that you can eat whatever you want and let the pills do all the work. In the long run, such eating habits will ruin your health,” she warned.

Worse yet, many of the pills sold online are not even really carb and fat blockers. Sometimes they are illegal diet pills in disguise with fake FDA approval numbers. In that case, although they might help you lose weight, they can be fatal.

“These businesses have many tricks up their sleeves these days. Sometimes they submit one set of pills to the FDA to verify and sell something entirely different after they are granted the FDA approval numbers. Sometimes they just entirely make up the numbers. You have to be very careful with what you buy online,” said the doctor.

Bussarin, 32, used to take fat-blocking pills because she felt they would help her lose weight. She bought an imported brand that she felt was reliable enough. “I think the pills worked in the sense that the fat did get flushed out of my body through the digestive system without being absorbed. That meant there could be embarrassing accidents when I went out, because the leak was not controllable. However, I didn’t lose any weight. After a while, I just gave up,” she said.

Wilai, 30, said she tried fat blockers, but together with exercise. She lost a bit of weight, but could not really say whether it was a result of the pills, the workout, or both.

“Looking back, I can’t believe I did something like that do my body. I didn’t think it could be dangerous. In a way, it made me more careful about what I ate, because if I ate something too oily, the leak could be really inconvenient. That could be why I lost weight, too,” she said.

Prae, 30, was on prescribed diet pills for a month and lost a lot of weight. She lost about 4kg a week, but once she stopped taking pills, she gained them all back.

“I was very weak because I didn’t eat much while I was taking the pills. I got sick quite often. I felt dizzy and my head was throbbing. In the end, I decided to stop taking them,” she said. After that, she started having problems with her liver, gallbladder and her immune system. Her doctor said it was a result of both the pills and her starvation. Dr Wanwimon concluded that there really is no magic pill that helps you lose weight without trying. Even if there was, it would not be a sustainable solution.

“A healthy lifestyle goes a long way, not just to control your weight, but also to improve your health in general,” she recommended. “Relying on pills is not conducive to a good lifestyle. When you rely on pills to do all the work, you might end up training yourself to get used to bigger portions of food. Even the most effective pills won’t be able to help you when that day comes.”

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