Fat Loss Lie #11:

“If all else fails, then steroids, growth hormone, weight loss drugs or surgery will help me lose this stubborn fat for good and regain my youthful look”


To many people who are frustrated with little or no results, despite their best intentions, physique-enhancing drugs or hormones appear to be a panacea or “miracle cure.”

Steroids have been around for a long time. So have obesity drugs. Lately, there’s been a huge push – especially on the Internet - for the use of Human Growth Hormone or estosterone under the harmless sounding auspices of “anti-aging medicine” and “Hormone replacement therapy.” This sales pitch is being made mostly to the baby boomers, who desperately want to regain their youthful looks and vitality.

Dramatic short-term results in body composition can be achieved from use of weight loss drugs, steroids, thermogenics, thyroid drugs, growth hormone and other chemicals.

However, appearances can be deceiving. The road of drug use can be a wild ride in the beginning, but in the long run, it doesn’t lead you anywhere – it’s a dead end street.

Regardless of whether we’re talking about illegal steroids and performance enhancers, prescription obesity drugs, hormone replacement therapy, or even over the counter “fat burning” drugs like ephedrine, these are all really one in the same:

(1) Billion dollar money makers, and
(2) Feeble short-term attempts at treating effects, not causes.

Lets take weight loss drugs, for example:

What would happen if the pharmaceutical companies finally came out with a “safe and effective” obesity drug and brought it to the marketplace on a massive scale?

Here’s exactly what would happen:

THE OBESITY PROBLEM WOULD CONTINUE, AND THE PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANIES WOULD GET RICHER!

Think about it: Did Xenical cure obesity? How about Phentermine? Meridia? Adipex? Bontril? Didrex? Tenuate? What about Ephedrine? Did that solve the obesity problem? How about gastric bypasses? 60,000 were performed last year. Did that solve the obesity problem?

In a few extreme cases where someone’s health is at stake, and when time is of the essence, the benefits of drugs clearly outweigh the risks. However, even in these cases, you have to concede that it’s a short-term treatment. Here’s the problem with thinking that any drugs will be a long-term solution:

We live in an orderly universe where everything happens for a reason (by “law”). For every effect, there is a cause. There are no accidents.

A lean body never happens by accident. An overweight body never happens by accident.
A lean body and an overweight body are effects. Both of these effects have causes. If you’re overweight, you can create lasting changes 100% of the time if you find the cause of the overweight condition and remove it.

The cause of body fat in most cases is inactivity, poor nutrition and often a negative self-image. Taking drugs is only treating the effect (the fat). Even if the fat (the effect) is temporarily removed, it will always come back if the cause is still there.

You can’t merely take pills or drugs that only treat symptoms/effects and expect a permanent change.

The idea that some people were born to be fat is ridiculous and terribly disempowering. Equally disastrous is the belief that any pill will ever be a long-term solution to the obesity epidemic.

Depending on your genetics, you may never look like Mr. or Miss Olympia, but you always have the power to improve your body and your health above and beyond where you are today.

How? By accepting 100% total responsibility for your situation and then taking positive action every day for the rest of your life to improve it. You simply have to change your lifestyle!

Try to fight the law or shirk hard work by looking for short cuts if you want, but in the end, you’ll always lose. Try to ignore the law if you want, but ignorance of the law does not excuse you from its operation.

"Whatever it is you seek in the form of rewards, you must first earn. All attempts to sidestep this law will end in failure, frustration and, if maintained long enough, ultimate demoralization. All over the world there are millions of people who are being hurt, confused, frightened, and whose lives are turned upside down because they don’t understand the principle law on which everything in the universe operates - the law of cause and effect."
- Earl Nightingale

Lifelong health, fitness and a perfect body weight do not come out of a bottle or needle and NEVER will - no matter what new concoction they cook up in the lab. Those who think otherwise may gain temporary relief from health woes or enjoy some short-term benefits, but unless they change their lifestyles, they’ll have some hard lessons to learn in the long run.

I envision a day when both the medical and fitness communities will join together to help stop this monumental error in thinking, and begin to teach people how to improve their lifestyles and alter their mental attitudes instead of writing prescriptions and selling “magic” pills.

Dr. Joseph Mercola said it well:

"It is my vision to transform the existing medical paradigm from one addicted to pharmaceuticals, surgeries and other methods that only conceal or remove specific symptoms - with morbid results to our health and economy -- to one focused on treating and preventing the underlying causes."

Taking ANY kind of drugs to lose weight is never more than a desperate, fear-driven, short-term solution to a problem with deeply rooted and often unseen causes.

To permanently become lean, you must identify the causes of excess fat, which can include poor nutrition, inactivity, unhealthy lifestyle, and negative self-image, and treat those. Only when the source of your problem is removed, will the unwanted effects disappear for good.