With all the great weight loss information available on the internet today, I am amazed to see the popularity and high rankings of diet pills on the search engines.

A quick search on Google shows over 9 million pages related to diet pills either directly or indirectly and using the Seobook’s Keyword suggestion tool it’s estimated that there are more than 2300 searches a day for the keywords diet pills.

For someone that promotes healthy weight loss without using pills, I find this very disturbing. The more I see the ads on TV and the internet the more I ask myself why? Why risk your health? Why waste your money? Why are they so popular?

The Most Popular Diet Pill

By far the most popular diet pill has got to be Alli (AL-EYE). The first over the counter FDA approved “weight loss aid”. With sales of more than half a billion dollars since it was introduced in 2006. It costs $50- $60 a month and claims to block 1/4 of all the fat that you consume in your diet.

I know quite a few people that have tried this pill and actually had some good results. But, was there weight loss a result of the pill or the fact that they started eating better and exercising more often?

I asked 2 of my online friends (Kim and Maria) who took Alli for 3 months a few questions as to their results and why they decided to try it in the first place. Here are their answers.

Question#1

How much did you lose in the 3 months that you were taking the pill?

16 pounds and 25 pounds, mostly upper body (chest) but a good amount from the hips and butt area.

Question#2

What changes did you make to your diet and exercise routines?

Kim – “I didn’t change much other than watching what I eat a little more closely.”
(Note that she was already working out 3 days a week at the gym)

Maria – “A complete change for the first 3 weeks then I went back to a modified version of my former diet. I averaged about 2 days a week of scheduled exercise and I was walking a bit more too”

Question#3″

What made you actually the cross the line and buy the kit?

Kim – “The promise of easy weight loss. I read a lot of testimonials and online blogs saying that people were seeing results. Plus my gym partner didn’t want to do it by herself.”

Maria – “I was just tired of not losing weight. I tried the Zone, Atkins, and South Beach but I couldn’t stick to them. That and Alli was said to be safe other than the side effects. The promises were definitely a factor too”

Question#4

What were the side effects?

Kim – “Burning lots of calories running to the bathroom. That and I would also get stomach cramps every now and then”

Maria – “Yeah, it seemed like I was going to the bathroom all time and the claims about “leakage” are true and gross.”

So Why Are Diet Pills So Popular?

My first conclusion was that people are just lazy and are looking for the easy way out. While that is true to a certain extent, I don’t think that is always the case. Most diet pills are fairly “new” meaning that odds are the generation before you have never tried the same ones that are popular today.

The claims they make are incredibly appealing. They are marketed very well and do deliver some results, which makes them all that more difficult to resist.

The bottom line is that no matter how much you educate people on the risks of taking diet pills there will always be a rather large percentage of them that want those quick results. But they aren’t necessarily lazy; in fact many of them will workout even harder while taking them.

It’s like anything these days, as long as there is a demand in the market for them and money to be made they will be supplied regardless of what you and I say or do.

Long Term Side Effects

When it comes to the issue of long term side effects I’m left with more questions than answers.

Who really knows what kind of long term side effects any diet pill will cause?
What is an appropriate length of time to determine that a product is safe?
Are the potential results really worth the possible risks?

The fact is that we just don’t know the long term effects and that alone should be enough to make you steer clear of diet pills.

Final Note

Both Kim and Maria stopped taking Alli for the same reasons. Which were the cost, the side effects and the fact that their results had slowed dramatically.