The weight loss industry makes over $60 billion a year by telling you there's an easy way to shed pounds. One common approach is to sell supplements, including essential oils and diet pills, that manufacturers claim are tickets to fast, effortless weight loss. Although some of the promised results are possible, these supplements alone are not sufficient for healthy weight loss.
Weight Loss Basics
Losing weight is a matter of applied physics. Your body takes in energy in the form of calories, and burns that energy through activity. If you eat more than you burn, you store the excess and gain weight. If you burn more than you eat, your body accesses the stored energy to make up the difference. You burn fat and lose weight. Any diet plan must address this basic equation to achieve effective weight loss.
Essential Oil Benefits
Essential oils, such as plant oils and omega-3 fatty acids, are a foundation level of the Harvard food pyramid. Plant oils have been demonstrated to improve cardiovascular health, while fatty acids are essential for proper brain, muscle and nervous system function. According to both Walter Willett of the Harvard School of Public Health and "Superfoods Rx" author Steven Pratt, essential oils can make a big difference in your overall health.
Essential Oil Drawbacks
According to Willett, there are no health drawbacks to essential oils. From a weight-loss standpoint, essential oils are high in calories, with nine calories per gram, as opposed to the four calories in a gram of protein or carbohydrates. Also, essential oils carry little in the way of other nutrition.
Diet Pill Pros
Diet pills have a proven track record of helping people lose weight, sometimes at a dramatic rate. The pills do this in one of two ways. Many diet pills contain stimulants such as caffeine or guarana. Stimulants increase your activity level and metabolic rate, resulting in more calories burned. Other diet pills contain a diuretic or laxative, literally pushing your body to excrete the extra weight.
Diet Pill Cons
Fitness coach Ben Cohn warns that stimulant-based diet pills can be habit forming, and some users report sleep problems when taking the pills. Laxative and diuretic based diet pills are contraindicated. They produce weight loss through dehydration, a practice that is not only dangerous, but that results in gaining the weight back as soon as you return to a healthy level of hydration.
Expert Insight
Health counselor Maya Paul reports that healthy weight loss addresses the habits that resulted in weight gain in the first place. Although diet pills and essential oils may work as an adjunct to a broader weight-loss program, they do not address habit change. If you're serious about losing weight, keeping it off and staying healthy, you should not rely on essential oils and diet pills to lose weight.
References
- "Eat, Drink and Be Healthy"; Dr. Walter Willett, et al; 2006
- "Superfoods Rx"; Steven Pratt & Kathy Matthews; 2005
- HelpGuide: Healthy Weight Loss and Dieting
- Ben Cohn; Fitness Coach; Hillsboro, Oregon
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