What about the short term methods of Weight Loss?

The fact that a plethora of ‘quick weight loss’ Web sites, books, and magazines are flourishing goes to show the preoccupation of people trying to lose weight with these ‘quick’ plans. Let me show you how these short-cut methods are just short-term plans and do not show any positive results in the long run.

Diets: Most women go on a diet with a desperate hope to lose weight quickly and easily. Basically each of these diet types swears by the method of cutting out nutritious food and sticking to just one type of food. The fact that these diet types are not endorsed by any major medical association goes to show that one needs to tread cautiously in this path.

Supplements: A big-buck business today, these weight loss products use award-winning marketing strategies to attract gullible people who are obese and overweight. The reason why most Americans buy these products is because of their modern lifestyle, which is a combination of erratic food habits (not to mention junk foods!) and less exercises. However, there have been just two outcomes of this weight loss method – one is you lose your money and the other is they damage your health.

Cleansing products: The latest fad in the weight loss business, cleansers, work by the philosophy that good health begins in the bowels. These cleansers stimulate your colon and digestive tracts to get rid of all the bad bacteria. However, most people who swear by this method also confess that an increased dependency on the cleansers have made their intestine to lose its ability to perform its natural function. This has resulted in other complications like an imbalance in electrolyte levels, which in turn affects our brain and heart.

Prescription tablets: Some ray of hope when it comes to prescription drugs or slimming tablets. Doctors prescribe specific medications to lose weight, only if the patient shows some efforts to supplement it with planned eating and exercising. This weight loss method is generally advised to people who are extremely obese, aged, physically incapable, or bedridden. But again, these drugs are to be used cautiously, because they basically restrict your hunger pangs and forcibly increase your metabolism.

Surgery: A last-resort and an expensive method to lose weight, surgery is generally recommended to extremely obese patients. There are two categories of surgeries– gastric restriction and intestinal malabsorption. In the first kind, a small neogastric pouch is created to decrease food intake. The second kind rearranges the small intestine in order to decrease the functional length or efficiency of the intestinal mucosa for nutrient absorption. The second kind is considered risky as it leads to metabolic complications, such as vitamin deficiencies and protein–energy malnutrition.


Though all these methods show how to lose weight, none of them give any priority to maintaining the ideal weight. It has been proven by many researchers that these short term methods have resulted in other health complications and have left irreparable damages in certain cases. So, one should be very cautious in choosing an ideal weight loss method.