Friday, December 10, 2010

Weight Loss Supplements

by Nelson - Dr. Christopher's Herb Shop

Earlier this week in the Herb Shop we got a question about weight loss and what supplements to use for it. Weight loss is the number one topic in the wellness industry, so this shouldn't be very surprising. But our herbalists don't often use many supplements when someone wants to lose weight.

Whenever these products are endorsed, you always hear "I lost weight when I used this supplement with diet and exercise." The truth is a lot of these people could be saying "I lost weight with diet and exercise". One reason that we don't often use a lot of supplements with weight loss is that we are already using diet with most of our programs. Weight loss is often a side effect of the dietary programs we have people follow for things like arthritis.

We often work with the Mucus-less diet. We are also fond of Dr. Fuhrman's Eat to Live diet. The reason we like these for weight loss is that the weight is lost at a healthy pace, it nourishes the individual and it stays off. Some people will have short term success with some of the fad diets out there. I consider the HCG diet to be one of these. This diet involves taking a hormone while eating only 500 calories a day for two weeks. I know people who have lost a lot of weight on this program and were much more comfortable with how they looked. I met some friends of mine who had happily finished this program some months ago. I asked them how they felt. They told me that their weight was starting to go up again, so they were thinking of doing the program again.

These are my three chief complaints about diets like these: 1) If you only eat 500 calories a day, you will lose weight with or without the supplement. 2) The weight will come back when the individual returns to old eating habits, and the diet is not healthy for long term use. 3) The weight is lost at an unhealthy rate. The individual starves on the diet. Then months later the program needs to be repeated. When did anorexia become a doctor sponsored method for weight loss?

When weight is lost too rapidly in this manner, it strains the pancreas and upsets the blood sugar levels. If this is repeated enough, the adrenals will be so shot that you won't lose weight even if you starve yourself. This is one of the few times we think supplementing is necessary. If the thyroid or endocrine system is shot, you can exercise heavily, eat healthy and never lose weight. We have seen this. Under these circumstances, we have used the Thyroid Maintenance formula or Adrenal formula. Some lucky individuals with a low thyroid only need kelp (this only works when it is low). Usually after 2 months the individual can then lose weight if they stay on a good diet. We consider a healthy rate of weight loss to be 20 pounds the first month, and 10 pounds every month after.

Dr. Christopher did have a formula designed to assist the body with weight loss. Assist is the key word. You aren't likely to lose weight just by taking it. Dr. Christopher looked at weight loss as a massive cleanse. Sure, he put herbs in there to boost the metabolism (Brigham tea is where the drug ephedra was derived from), but it’s mostly herbs for the bowels, urinary tract, liver and bloodstream.

We are happy to hear from one person who has followed the mucus-less diet to gain greater health. This individual, Greg Wood, has successfully lost over 100 pounds and overcome many health related challenges with the mucus-less diet. You might be interested in seeing his blog here: (http://woodstrongliving.blogspot.com/).

But the mucus-less diet can be unbalanced, even keeping all the rules Dr. Christopher outlined. Next week we will discuss some common health complaints on an unbalanced plant-based diet, and the solutions for them.