Losing weight is the number one criteria for most of the people in the world. We are never satisfied with the way we look and we always feel that we could do with loosing just a few extra pounds. The over weight epidemic in the United States alone is enormous. It is so bad that it affects more than 1/2 of the United States population.
To be quite accurate the statistic according to the National Center for Health Statistics in the United States is that 66.3% of Americans are either overweight or obese. Another survey was done in the U.K and the result was that more than 1.7 billion people around the world are considered over weight.
The forecast for what the weight loss industry is going to be worth in 2008 is $63 Billion dollars. It is absolutely staggering to think how much money is spent on weight loss products each end every year and then of course the exponential growth that comes with it.
Due to whether we need to loose weight or not we have all had these unrealistic expectations on what we should look like and how much we should weigh. Whether it is justifiable or not we jump from crash diet to crash diet, popping pills, trying patches and then on to trying everything and anything to just loose that %26ldquo;extra weight%26rdquo;. More often than not the result is that these diets just don%26rsquo;t work and we are left feeling cheated, frustrated and that we are just never going to achieve our desired goals so why should we even bother? Then we get tired again of not fitting into %26ldquo;society%26rsquo;s standards%26rdquo; and so we buy into the next best thing and the cycle starts all over again.
Assuming now that you have taken into consideration your bone structure, genetics and whether or not your weight gain may be a hormonal problem, let us have a look at what our options are.
First and foremost have realistic expectations of yourself. It is so easy to buy into the adverts that promise miraculous weight loss over night, well as tempting as that may be just consider for a moment how such a feat could drastically hinder your health in the process. It is not natural to loose so much weight so quickly and then the chances of you putting on that weight all over again just increases more than before.
Once you have had a baby it takes your body 6-9 months for your body to get back to what it was pre pregnancy. I am not talking about that extra weight. I am talking about your bones and muscles. They have been stretched and pulled to such a degree during the pregnancy and now when it is all over, it takes almost the SAME amount of time for your body to get back to where it was before you were pregnant.
Taking this into consideration and the way the body slowly adjusts itself, why do we so crazily want a miracle cure to shed all those pounds off over night? Well as mentioned earlier, to a large degree it is the fault of the media, society and then us.
We cannot control the media into portraying a more realistic and HEALTHY body image but we can control in ourselves what we will and will not allow in our own thinking. I cannot stress enough, be REALISTIC. The biggest deterrent is when we do not reach our desired goals in the specified amount of time (which is normally set by ourselves), we give up.
I%26rsquo;m sure we all know the health benefits of loosing weight. When doing so you reduce the risk of heart disease, strokes, certain types of cancer, high cholesterol and of course diabetes.
The problem is that there are so many %26ldquo;natural weight loss products%26rdquo; out there that we just can%26rsquo;t deal with all of them at once. So to begin with let us first take a look at the highly controversial topic of Hoodia Gordonii.
Ok so what are the PROS and CONS of Hoodia Gordonii and why has it become so controversial?
Hoodia Gordonii has taken the weight loss world by storm. Firstly what is it? Hoodia Gordonii looks like a cactus plant (even though it is not) and was first discovered and used for many years by the San. The San are a tribe that live in the Kalahari Desert and are otherwise known as the Bushmen.
What does Hoodia Gordonii do? Well it wards off hunger pangs. You see the Bushmen used it when there was no food, as you can imagine living in the desert that happens to them quite a bit. Some times they would go on extensive hunting trips and Hoodia Gordonni would be what they would consume to effectively ward off the hunger pains. It wouldn%26rsquo;t stop there however, reporters that have gone over to see for themselves what this plant is all about and have confirmed that you get a natural energy when eating this plant and you %26ldquo;just feel good%26rdquo; for awhile. This energy comes without the normal jitters and nausea that you do get with most diet pills.
Inside Hoodia Gordonii is a molecule that has been labeled P 57. What P 57 does is it tricks the brain into thinking that the stomach is full, when you haven%26rsquo;t eaten anything and then to top it off, you no longer desire eating. In some tests that have been done, after two weeks people eat up to 1000 calories less than what they did before the Hoodia Gordonii trial.
There have been no known side effects to Hoodia Gordonii and as mentioned before it has been successful for thousands of years in helping the San combat hunger. Both the young and the old in the San have eaten this plant and have not suffered from any sicknesses due to Hoodia Gordonii. In fact in South Africa it is not considered a drug and has been labeled as a dietary supplement. That having been said, tests are still being run to cover all bases, which is great as we would rather be safe than sorry.
The problem with Hoodia Gordonii and what has caused so much controversy is that so many different companies claim that they have 100% guaranteed Hoodia Gordonii and the fact is they don%26rsquo;t. Due to tests that have been done on these products they just do not deliver as they said they would. This is due to all the exposure Hoodia Gordonii has received and then of course coupled with the great success stories it has become a high in demand product. Manufacturers have tried to meet this demand by supplying products that do not contain 100% Hoodia Gordonii. There is a restriction on the exportation of Hoodia Gordonii due to the fact that the plant is an endangered species.
Understand better now why some people have a raging success and others see no difference at all?
The thing to remember is just because some companies are giving you an inferior product does not mean that all companies are following suit. Many of the legitimate sites may have a back order; it is not due to poor planning but rather as explained above Hoodia Gordonii may not be exported out of South Africa in large amounts. If the product is pure the company offering the Hoodia Gordonii product should be able to provide an authentic certificate that proves that it is the real thing. Don%26rsquo;t go for the %26ldquo;cheap stuff%26rdquo;, there is a reason it is so cheap. Make sure that it also comes with money back guarantee that way you know the manufacturer believes in the product, no one will just offer a money back guarantee without having faith in the product first.
Last but not least, go to a little bit of effort and just check and see what the ingredients are, if the company won%26rsquo;t disclose that sort of information readily, alarm bells should go off in your head.
After all is said and done, do not throw the idea of Hoodia Gordonii and its effectiveness out the window as a %26ldquo;pie in the sky dream%26rdquo;, do the necessary homework and you will find that the extra work pays off.
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