Are you one of those people that have tried to lose weight over and over again only to have it come right back on the next time you are faced with a tragedy or you simply are exhausted from your hectic daily schedules?  Are you tired of feeling exhausted because of those extra pounds you are lugging around? 

Are you also one of those people that are nervous about trying the conventional “prescribed” medications that seem to end up in the news as dangerous to your health?  It seems like a never ending cycle that you cannot get out of.  Weight loss is very frustrating and when you are nervous about the side effects of those conventional medications, it almost seems that it is an impossible battle to win, especially when you have tried so many times before without medication.

Don’t give up!  There are other alternatives to those dangerous medications that you may not have thought of.  In this article, you will be introduced to natural weight loss ingredients that you can look for in a dietary supplement to help you win that weight loss battle once and for all. 

Before you are introduced to these natural ingredients, remember that dietary supplements are not to be a replacement for food.  You must have a nutritional diet and exercise program to help you create a healthy lifestyle.  These ingredients should only be used as a supplement to your daily diet routine.  Natural weight loss ingredients can be divided up into five major areas.  Finding a dietary supplement to cover all of these areas will surely be a great start to your weight loss plan.

Supplements to Burn Fat

Losing weight is not achieved by just eating fewer calories.  It is a matter of fueling your body to burn the fat.  It is important to consume the right mixture of ingredients to provide fuel and energy to help your body metabolize the food so that your cells can use that energy for growth and repair.  You need to consume the right ingredients to burn up stored fat, instead of your lean muscle.  The following ingredients not only help to burn up stored fat, but they also help transport fuel to your body’s cells where it is transformed into energy. 

Ingredients to Help You Burn Fat:

• Carnitine releases energy from fat.  It is an amino acid supplement for weight loss.  It turns fat into energy.  L Carnitine helps decrease levels of fat in the blood energy levels go up with l-carnitine. 

• Omega- 3 fatty acids –It is an essential fatty acid that is necessary to protect and keep our cardiovascular, musculoskeletal, GI and immune systems functioning optimally. It is necessary to eat fat to burn fat because there is a certain amount of fat that is needed for proper hormone production, which helps to regulate your metabolism. They help insulate our nerve cells and produce molecular messengers involved in immunity and the central nervous system.Flaxseeds and flaxseed oil – it is am omega 3 fatty acid.

• Makandi stimulates lipolysis, which is the breakdown of stored fat and prevents the formation of fat in fat cells. It counteracts the declining response of fat cells to thermogenic (fat burning) agents.

Supplements to Boost Your Energy Level

Supplements that contain ingredients that boost your energy are great in helping you to lose weight.  Taking supplements will give you more energy, which will help you to be more active, which will then help you burn calories, which will result in fewer calories being stored as fat.

Some Energy Boosting Ingredients Are:

• Vitamin B6 – is very important for cellular energy creation, see “Homocysteine, B Vitamins, and Heart Disease”.

• Astragalus increases energy and improves nutrient absorption.  Do not use when you have a fever.

• Ephedra has been used to increase energy levels.  However, according to the National Health Institute (NIH), the FDA has banned this due to its side effects, such as hear attacks, stroke, seizures, psychosis and even death.

Supplements to Help With Stress While Losing Weight

There is a lot of stress when trying to lose weight.  It is not easy passing up that birthday cake at a birthday party or that cheeseburger at a cookout.  The stressors in your daily efforts to lose weight can be extremely stressful and it would benefit you if you can find a supplement that includes the following ingredients to help calm you and reduce your stress levels.

Ingredients to Reduce Your Stress Levels:

• Kava is an herbal supplement to promote sleep, relieve stress and ease pain. It does have some pretty serious side effects, such as hypertension, reduced protein levels, blood cell abnormalities, muscle weakness, shortness of breath, dizziness, visual impairment and severe liver damage. Some patients who used kava products had liver failure and needed subsequent liver transplantation.

• Suma is commonly used to increase resistance to stress, and beneficial to the human immune system. It also is used as an adaptogenic, which means it increases the nonspecific resistance of an organism to stress, and is a regenerative tonic to the human body.  It is not recommended if you are pregnant or breast feeding.

• Valerian root – For more information see “Exhausted and Can’t Get to Sleep?”

• Arctic Root has the ability to lift the stress that causes your body to crave foods of comfort and store more fat.

 

To help with anxiety and mild depression, you can look for ingredients, such as:

• Schizanda has anti-bacterial, cardiac tonic, antioxidant, insomnia, irritation, palpitation and dyspnea.  It can also be used as a sedative to help with the stress of losing weight.

•  St. John’s Wort – For more information see our article titled “Consider a Mood Support Supplement for the Stresses of Every Day Life”.

• Ginseng – For more information, see ”Natural Treatment for Insulin Resistance"”

Supplements to Help You Lose Weight Quickly

Losing weight quickly is a great way to keep you motivated for the rest of the weight loss battle.  However, if you lose too much weight too fast, it will come back on even faster.  It will also make you weak and extremely sick.  

If you understand that you cannot lose the weight quickly for a long period of time, than it is okay to try and lose that first few pounds to give you a boost and a motivator lift.  It is okay to do this because you are mainly just losing water.  Just remember that you must go back to losing the weight in a slow and steady pattern.

Ingredients to Look For in Supplements to Lose Water:

• Dandelion – For more information, see our article titled “Immune System Support Supplements to Help Keep You Healthy and On the Go”. 

All of the above ingredients have a laxative effect that will help clean you out, which will help you feel lighter.  It is important to know that these types of ingredients should not be taken for long periods of time. 

Supplements to Curb Hunger

The worst feeling when you are dieting is the feeling of hunger, especially when you smell that hamburger frying or cookies baking.  Lucky for you there are natural ingredients that can help you curb these hunger pangs.  These types of ingredients send a message to the brain to block your desire to eat.  They help to control your food intake.

You would not believe the first and most effective ingredient in hunger inhibiting.  It is the most popular and most available drink – water!  Drinking six to eight glasses of water a day really does make you feel full, which will send the message to your brain that you are full, so you should stop eating. 

Here are some more ingredients for curbing those hunger pangs.

• L-tyrosine is a nonessential amino acid that the body synthesizes from phenylalanine, which is another amino acid. It suppresses appetite, helps to reduce body fat helps to give signals to satisfaction.  Tyrosine is also important to the structure of almost all proteins in the body. It is also the precursor of several neurotransmitters, including L-dopa, dopamine, norepinephrine, and epinephrine. 

• Hoodia is an ingredient that helps to suppress the appetite and helps with signaling receptors that you are satisfied.

You are on your way to creating a weight loss plan that is effective and will help you lose that weight for good.  Now that you are equipped with the natural ingredients available, and know how they can help support your weight loss journey, you can create a weight loss plan that will help you succeed!