USING FAT-BLOCKERS TO ACCELERATE WEIGHT LOSS

Along with good nutrition and weight loss, there are some additional strategies that you can use to speed up weight loss while keeping cravings at bay and allowing you to eat more of the foods you enjoy without guilt. One of these strategies involves the use of “fat binders,” which usually consist of supplements like chitosan fiber that help prevent fat from being absorbed from food during digestion by binding to fat molecules, making them too large to be absorbed into your system. Instead, they simply get flushed out as waste.

Fat-binding supplements also act as appetite suppressants, since the fiber they contain makes you feel full faster after eating. This in itself can help with portion control, discouraging overeating. Although suppressing appetite is not their primary purpose, they have been shown in some studies to actually be more effective than some other supplements specifically marketed for their ability to reduce appetite, like hoodia.

Whereas some appetite suppresants simply “trick” your brain into believing that you are full when you are not, which can lose effectiveness quickly, the fiber contained in fat blockers directly reduce hunger by satisfying cravings. Other sources of fiber can have the same effect, if not quite as pronounced, which should encourage you to get the recommended daily allowance of dietary fiber (30 grams).

However, do not assume that fat blockers give you an unlimited license to eat fatty foods and not gain weight – after all, it is not only fat itself that makes you gain body fat. Fat blockers do nothing to prevent the absorption of refined carbohydrates, which are easily stored away by the body as fat when they enter your system. In addition, many fatty foods, particularly fast foods and other “junk food,” contain toxins that may not be able to be flushed out of your body immediately and will end up being stored in fat cells.

Fat-blocking supplements should not be used constantly – there is some risk that in addition to binding to fat molecules, these supplements can also bind to other substances in the process, robbing your body of nutrients. This is not so serious a problem that you need to worry about using fat blockers in moderation, but they should definitely not be used with every meal every day of the week.

Preferably, you should rely on fat-blockers only when “cheating” is unavoidable and you want to simply blunt the effects of a high-fat meal. If used judiciously, fat blockers can give your weight-loss efforts an extra boost.