Has anyone tried weight loss supplements, and if so, what was your reaction/experience?

Nope, you won't find any success stories outside of their website & the hired hands reading scripts.
Nothing sold on the shelves of a drugstore for "weight loss" will help you lose weight.
They might have caffeine, which you can get elsewhere for lower cost, and would give you a little more energy.

There are prescription appetite suppressants which do work for some people, but they have side effects and you'd need to be supervised by a doctor and either obese (by BMI) or overweight (by BMI) with other health problems.

And there are actual scientific studies which have found that people who take (for example) a multivitamin lose weight faster & are more healthy, but IIRC it's only a correlation/association, not a proven causation. I quote from & link to 2 of those studies in this blog post.

When I first started trying to lose weight I tried Hydroxycut. The only thing it made me lose was money. I had more luck just lowering my cals to a reasonable deficit and logged everything that I ate. Hope that helped- Good luck OP.

My experience was,










They Didn't work

Nope.
They can actually be very dangerous.

I don't know about recent versions of Hydroxycut, but in 2009 the FDA was warning people to stop using the products. It was apparently causing liver damage.

Most "weight loss" supplements contain high dosages of caffeine and other stimulants. They tend to leave out exact amounts of what is in there on the label and just say there "blend" is so many mg's.

Best to just avoid stuff like that.

Multivitamins aren't a necessity and I don't know if they aid in weight loss. I do know that I feel better when I take one, but that could easily be from the fact that I probably don't get all my micronutrients in through food. I currently take a vitamin called "One Source Women's" (found at walmart for like $5) and that's the only supplement I take.

Heart paliptations... It was quite scary actualy... No weight loss at all...

No thanks. I like my liver and kidneys.

In the past, they were relatively harmless--didn't work, but were reasonably safe. Now, because many of them are sourced from China or other countries, where manufacturing standards can be somewhat to very "lax", they could be downright dangerous. Some have been tested and a fairly large percentage should have been excluded from being sold here. They have been shown to often contain amphetamines, others are loaded with heavy metals, steroids, etc.--and the list goes on and on.

The only FDA approved weight loss supplement in the US that I'm aware of is Alli. It's not some miracle drug. It's only for people who are severely overweight and it only works in conjunction with a fairly strict and low-fat diet program. It prevents a portion of the fat you eat from being absorbed which helps you lose small amounts of weight. I used to know someone who was on it, the key is really the diet and it helps you stick to it. If you happen to eat a cheeseburger while you're on this, plan on spending the rest of your day on the toilet...

As far as everything else out there, it's not worth it.

In my experience:

If you find something that works it will either be banned soon or will lead to tolerance which means it will stop working, probably within a couple of weeks. Then backlash sets in and you devour everything you can get your hands on and end up right where you started.