People have always been searching for ways to do things more efficiently. This search for greater efficiency has led to some of the most innovative inventions in history: the automobile, the printing press, the airplane, etc.

This search for efficiency has carried over into the realm of fitness and bodybuilding in the past couple of decades. Those desiring to build muscle as fast as possible are turning to steroid use (and other supplements) to help them build mass as fast as possible.

Those interested in fat loss are turning to diet pills and other fat burning supplements.

The dangers of steroids are common knowledge after the baseball scandals and premature deaths of wrestlers and football players. But diet pills and other supplements used for the sake of accelerating fat loss are also dangerous!

While it could be convincingly argued that a steroid user wouldn’t be able to build the same amounts of muscle mass without them, the same analogy can’t be applied with diet pills.

Diet pills may enhance a person’s rate of fat loss, but through the proper implementation of diet and exercise the same end result can be achieved in a similar timeframe, without the use of dangerous and largely untested diet pills.

The Misuse of Diet Pills

The common problem with diet pills is that they’re seen as a primary means of fat loss, not a supplementary one.

No supplement or pill can replace proper nutrition and exercise, period.

This over-reliance on diet pills takes an individual’s focus off of where it needs to be, which is on developing healthy eating and regular exercise habits.

This is a primary reason why diet pills can be so addictive. Men and women take them for several weeks or months and lose a certain amount of fat.

Then, when they stop taking the pills the fat comes back before they know what happens.

This creates the feeling that the only way they can get closer to a healthy weight and maintain it is by continuously taking diet pills.

This stems from the statement I began this article with: people are always looking to do things more efficiently. But we don’t just look to do things more efficiently, but also more easily.

We want results, but don’t want to have to work for them. So instead of changing their unhealthy habits, people simply take a handful of pills everyday as a substitution for hard work and dedication, which they can never be.

When a person realizes the only reason they were losing fat was because of the metabolic enhancement the diet pills were providing, and not integrating healthy lifestyle choices into their daily routine, they are doomed to lose all of their results as soon as they decide to come off the pills.

This creates an unhealthy reliance on diet pills that is incredibly difficult to break.

I don’t know about you, but I certainly don’t want to have to pop a half dozen diet pills every day for the rest of my life.

Diet Pills are Mostly Unnecessary

Ironically, many of those spending their hard-earned money on diet pills are already relatively close to their ideal weight.

They want to lose those final twenty or thirty pounds of fat, and instead of restructuring their nutrition to include fewer daily calories, or doing an extra thirty minutes of exercise throughout the week, they instead turn to diet pills to get them over the hump.

The point is that most individuals using diet pills month after month really don’t need them and are unnecessarily compromising their long-term results by relying on them instead of diet and exercise.

That being said, there are exceptions to every rule and I have to concede that diet pills are a necessary evil in certain situations.

As a general rule, diet pills should be avoided. Nevertheless, people that are morbidly obese and struggle to even walk at a decent pace are an exception.

If a person is too big to even move their body with enough intensity, or for a duration of time that will elevate their heart rate and keep it there, they are going to struggle to lose weight.

Although, dietary changes alone will usually work wonders for such people. So diet pills really aren’t even a requirement for obese individuals. You see, fat loss always comes back to the tried and true principles of exercise and nutrition.

If an obese man or woman ultimately decides to use diet pills as a means of getting down to a more manageable weight, they should only view diet pills as a temporary, secondary fat loss implement that needs to be combined with the primary means of fat loss being a healthy diet combined with regular exercise.

Supplementing with diet pills should only be implemented until they get down to a more functional weight and can then shift their focus to their diet and exercise plan and wean themselves off the diet pills.

Don’t Rely on Diet Pills for Your Results

Like any other supplement, diet pills are nothing more than an aid.

Supplements, including diet pills, can help to accelerate a person’s results under certain conditions, but the benefits they provide will be negligible compared to those induced by proper training and nutrition.

So why risk your health taking unnatural and potentially dangerous pills with the hopes of losing fat faster?

Is reaching your fat loss or weight loss goal a few weeks faster really worth risking your health over? Of course it isn’t!

All-Natural Diet Pill Alternative

There is some good news for those who want an all-natural “supplement” that will help to suppress their appetite and accelerate their fat loss. In fact, it is one of the main components of many of the most popular diet pills being sold today.

I’m talking about caffeine.

There are a few great sources of caffeine: black coffee, tea, green tea and caffeine pills.

Coffee and tea are also healthy for a number of other reasons, including being rich in antioxidants that attack free radicals in the body. There is one precaution of using caffeine that needs to be considered, though…

You’ll want to avoid drinking caffeine within 4 or 5 hours of going to sleep for the night because it will inhibit your ability to fall asleep.

If you’re set on supplementing your diet with a fat loss aid, don’t risk the negative side effects of untested fat loss supplements or diet pills. Instead, I recommend supplementing with caffeine – a 100% natural alternative that will produce similar results.