Can unwanted body fat really be lost permanently through pills as suggested by popular "before and after" commercials? How can one lose excess weight fast?

There is so much information about the subject but there is really only one tried-and-true formula: Exercise + Diet = Fat Loss. But this formula, as old as it is, has been followed by many only to experience frustrating failure.

The problem is not in the inadequacy of the formula itself but, rather, in the inadequacy of approaches to the excercise and diet factors. To appreciate this proposition, it is necessary to have a basic understanding of what body fat is and how it is lost.

Why Diet Alone Doesn't Seem To Work Well

We get energy from the food we eat - carbohydrates, fats and sugars basically. When we eat more than what we can actually spend as energy for physical activity, the excess fuel is stored as fat or fat cells. How fat one can be or how those bulges appear in one's body depends on several factors including genetics.

Whatever makes one overly fat, there are only three ways to reduce the extra baggage - stop producing those fat cells, spend away those fat cells, or surgery.

To stop producing excess fat cells, we have to control the intake of food that eventually turn into them. This means diet. The problem with dieting is that it's hard to stick to. More often than not, once one stops dieting, the bulges return with a vengeance. Besides, dieting the wrong way also deprives the body of other essential nutrients. Yeah, diet can work, but you have to be very disciplined like vegetarian monks. And many of them are fat as well.

Have you tried dieting, avoiding this and that food? It can be very stressful.

Why Exercise Seems Not To Work Well Too

As a martial artist teaching part-time at health clubs and fitness gyms, I have had the opportunity to exchange information with a lot of fitness experts. The common prescription for fat loss training was to engage in mild activities for longer periods, or shorter periods of such activities but with more frequency. Apart from the popular gym aerobics, suggestions narrowed down to running, cycling and swimming.

Perhaps related to exercise in as much as it consumes energy, manipulating energy channels that raise the body's temperature to "fat-burning mode" is common practice in acupuncture. I was able to witness the raising of temperatures in such manner because one of my teachers was also an acupuncturist, but there wasn't enough time to tell if there indeed was fat loss happening.

I have no problem with fat loss but I have done intense physical activities for long durations and with considerable frequency for years. Fat colleagues did the same activities along with me. They didn't seem to change much even in the long run. It appears that very little fuel or energy is consumed by such activities. Exercise works, yes, but you have to be consistent at it and incorporate a realy good diet.

In short, the formula may be tried-and-true but it is also very very hard to follow.

So, what is the best remedy, the easiest way to lose unwanted fat?

In my opinion, it is by introducing a unique twist in the diet aspect of the formula.

There are pills, so-called fat-binders, that can suppress our appetite and reduce the absorption of food that turn into fat cells. Some common products on the market are Adipex, Ephedra, Reductil and Xenical to name a few. Most of these are prescription drugs and, when checked with the Physician's Desk Reference, appear to have side effects much worse that being overly fat itself.

HOW TO STOP DIETING AND ACTUALLY LOSE EXCESS WEIGHT? 

We should be looking for what is considered safe enough to be non-prescription, with no harmful side-effects, like Proactol which is a patented fibre complex that is a 100% natural, 100% organic fat binder made from the nutritious cactus "Opuntia ficus-indica".