3 Diet Pills That Didn’t Work For Me

In the interest of staying honest I suppose I have to admit I’ve tried diet pills. I haven’t tried very many, mostly because my experiences with the ones I did try were negative, but I have sampled from several of the major “genres” of diet pill – namely, the fat blockers, the carb blockers, the acai berry, the appetite suppressants, the “superfoods,” and the colon cleansers. I will admit I have wanted to experiment with the stimulant branch of diet pills, like Phenphedrine and so on, but I kind of figure that if I ruin my heart and die because I want to get skinny, that would probably be worth a Darwin Award.

I wanted to do a quick run-through of my experiences with each of the diet pills I have tried and the reasons I believe they did not work for me personally – that way you can take my information and see whether it applies to you before you decide to shell out a lot of money on questionable pills. This will actually be the first post of two, so check out “3 More Diet Pills That Didn’t Work For Me” if you like this one.

1. Alli

General Info:

Alli belongs to the “fat blocker” category of diet pills. You take the pill with your meals and it will block about 25% of the fat you eat from being digested. This means that you do not absorb and digest the calories in the fat that has been blocked. Note that it only blocks fat, not all calories, and even then it only blocks a small percentage of fat. If you stuff yourself on pizza and alfredo, the pill will gently remind you to stop eating that way by giving you uncontrollable diarrhea, but it will not counteract the huge amount of calories that you just consumed. I have written a more detailed post on Alli before, if you want to check that out for additional information.

Weight Loss:

Weight loss with Alli was negligible for me, if I lost any weight at all, but I believe that is mainly my fault. At the time I was taking it, I had absolutely terrible eating habits and zero exercise habits, neither of which I really made a concerted effort to change.

Side Effects:

Everyone thinking of taking Alli is always very concerned with the possibility of encountering some of the famous “treatment effects.” Thankfully, the side effects I experienced were more along the lines of minor hair loss than uncontrollable pooping, but it still wasn’t a very pleasant experience. And, while I didn’t experience the traditional intestinal issues, I was paranoid enough that I made a note of nearly every bathroom I passed and occasionally found myself running back to them, just in case. If anything, I should have lost weight because of all the running to the bathroom I did.

After a while of taking Alli, I noticed that I was losing hair. I didn’t develop a bald spot or anything noticeable, but there was definitely more hair left in my hairbrush and in the shower. I asked my doctor whether it could be the Alli causing it, and he said it likely was – hair loss is apparently one of the unlisted side effects (though keep in mind this is only one doctor’s statement, I haven’t found actual documentation from Alli about this).

Reason I believe it didn’t work for me:

I was severely depressed at this point, and made a hobby of shoving the greasiest, fattiest, most nutritionally awful foods that I could find into my mouth at regular intervals throughout the day. Alli will NOT work miracles. Even the Alli product marketers, the people that stand to make money by tricking you into buying their pills, directly state that Alli is meant to enhance weight loss that you are already achieving through diet and exercise. For instance, if you lost five pounds by eating healthy and jogging, you might have been able to lose a few more taking Alli. Alli by itself probably will not lead to weight loss, and if it does it will likely not be enough to be a big deal.

Why it may work for you instead:

As I said, my diet and exercise habits were terrible. If you are fully committed to following the plan set out by Alli in their booklet that accompanies your starter pack of pills, you might have great success with it. It’s an awesome way for people who only feel comfortable trying FDA-approved products to try and enhance weight loss. Plus for some people, the threat of treatment effects is more than enough to keep them eating healthy in the first place. Just keep in mind the amount of commitment to your regular weight loss routine that it will take, and do not expect, as I did, that it will work by itself.

2. Leptovox

General Info:

I am fairly certain that nowadays this is one of those known-scam products, but I tried these back when they were first released. According to the bottle, Oprah and Doctor Oz just about had a fit over how fantastic these “superfoods” are for weight loss, overall health, clear skin, and everything in between. So, the pill manufacturers crammed about as many powdered extracts of superfoods into a capsule as would fit, and then added a double or triple dose of caffeine, green tea, and then more caffeine for good measure.

Weight Loss:

I experienced a smidgen of weight loss with these pills, but only because I was too nauseous to eat for several days. By a smidgen, I mean maybe two pounds – nothing worthy of the superfood-gasm that apparently rocked the daytime television circuit. That said, I only took them for about a week, so who knows what might have happened if I had taken them longer. I might be thin, or I might be dead…

Side Effects:

Firstly, the nausea and bloating was ridiculous. I bloated so badly that I felt like the blueberry girl from Willy Wonka, or Harry Potter’s Aunt Marge at the beginning of the third book. I also couldn’t sleep for three nights in a row, and I couldn’t nap during the day either. The first day I was so hyped that I sprang out of bed at six in the morning and cleaned my house for a solid three hours until my shrink appointment at ten. I must have been acting oddly at my appointment, because she asked me if I had started taking any “medications” – but I think she thought I was on drugs. After the first day of extreme productivity, I crashed energy-wise because I couldn’t sleep and I was so bloated and nauseous that I couldn’t eat. I still couldn’t sleep, I just sort of lay there and rocked back and forth for a while. I think it was at that point that I decided to stop taking the pills.

Reason I believe it didn’t work for me:

I’m not positive that the whole “superfoods” idea really holds much water. I’m sure they are great for you when you eat them in their natural, solid “food” form, but powdered extract in a pill probably doesn’t retain much of the nutritional value. Plus, if there were foods out there that actually caused weight loss instead of just being nutritionally healthy, I am sure everyone would have hopped on that train years ago and we wouldn’t be in the midst of an obesity epidemic.

The caffeine was well on it’s way to giving me a stroke, but the nausea it caused did a lot toward keeping me from eating. If I had been able to tolerate it better, maybe I would have lost some weight because of that. Then again, if I had tolerated the caffeine levels better, then I probably wouldn’t have been nauseous in the first place and would have been eating as normal.

Why it may work for you instead:

If you are the kind of person that downs three Red Bulls when you need a little pick-me up, caffeine-based pills might not bother you so much, but you will probably already be so adjusted to the extra stimulant that it won’t cause you to eat less or burn any extra energy. I’m actually really scratching my head about answering why this may work for you instead.

3. Carbohydrate Blocker – White kidney bean extract / Phaseolus vulgaris / “Phase 2″

General Info:

This is pretty much the same idea as the fat blocker I described above, only it is supposed to block carbohydrate digestion instead of fat digestion. Again, only a small portion of the carbs you eat will be blocked by this pill, leaving the rest of your spaghetti dinner happily resting around your waistline.

I am supposed to be eating low-carb because I have PCOS and was diagnosed as pre-diabetic several years ago, but I just cannot seem to give up my precious carbs. One of the things that drew me to this pill was a series of reviews by women with PCOS who use carb blockers to allow themselves a “cheat” meal now and then. Since I cheat all the time anyway, I figured with these carb blocker pills I could at least feel slightly less guilty about it.

On the plus side, these pills were a fraction of the cost of most other diet pills. I’ve been used to seeing diet pill prices upwards of $70 USD for so long that when I saw these at only $12, it was the deciding factor that made me buy them.

Weight Loss:

I actually give some credit to this pill – it might have been responsible for keeping me from gaining more than a couple pounds throughout Thanksgiving and Christmas, a feat which I never would have dreamed possible. No actual loss, however.

Side Effects:

I had absolutely no side effects from this pill, though most of the reviews I read before buying the pills complained of bloating and gas. That was one of the listed side effects from the manufacturer as well, so I have a feeling that is a fairly common reaction.

Reason I believe it didn’t work for me:

Like Alli, I think if I had committed myself to following a sensible diet while on these pills, they might have really worked for me. Technically, I am not sure they didn’t work for me, because, as I mentioned before, I only gained a small amount of weight over the holidays despite all the cookies, pie, and mashed potatoes.

I am actually tempted to order another bottle – they were so inexpensive that I don’t feel too bad about spending the money to do another test. The fact that I had no side effects is also a hugely refreshing change after the jitters from Leptovox and the hair loss and “restroom distress” from Alli.

Why it may work for you instead:

All of the above reasons, really. Plus, you may have actual willpower and restrain yourself from gobbling down everything in sight. I have not yet mastered that trick.

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