Weight loss pills can boost your results when combined with a proper diet and a safe exercise regimen. Many are very effective in an overall plan to lose excess fat. The mere fact that you have made up your mind to "do something" about being overweight is the first step in slimming down.

Because you have obviously gotten out of the habit of controlling your diet and have slowly stopped exercising, your metabolism has also slowed. If you seem to have no energy and have become lethargic, perhaps weight loss pills are the answer. Taking "diet pills" can be an advantage by encouraging you to stick with a diet because some of them suppress your appetite. Others are designed to "speed up" your metabolism and motivate you to exercise.

But a word of caution: Some weight loss pills can be quite harmful and some can be a waste of time and money, according to the Mayo Clinic. Over-the-counter diet pills seem to run the gamut from ineffective to dangerous, so you MUST research the intended product to find out what side effects may occur.

There are many herbal supplements that are purported to be effective as weight loss aids, such as: Bitter Orange (supposed to increase the number of calories burned), Chitosan and Guar Gum (touted to block the absorption of dietary fat), Chromium and Conjugated Linoleic Acid (promoted to reduce body fat and build muscle), Country Mallow and Hoodia (purported to decrease appetite and increase the number of calories burned), Green Tea Extract (used to increase calorie and fat metabolism while decreasing appetite), and Ephedra (decreases appetite but is dangerous because it can cause high blood pressure, heart rate irregularities, sleeplessness, seizures, heart attacks, strokes and even death). All of these do have side effects and long term usage of some of these may be harmful, but in the short term they may give you just the boost you need.

In addition to these herbal and dietary supplements, weight loss pills have come a long way since the addictive amphetamines of the 1950s. But, while these weight loss pills offer hope for trimming America's ever-expanding waistline, experts caution that there's no miracle potion out there to automatically make you lose weight. "These diet drugs work only if you also change your lifestyle, and that means following the same old advice of dieting and exercising," says Caroline Apovian, M.D., of the Nutrition and Weight Management Center at Boston University Medical Center. The medications may also come with some real health risks, so be sure to read and follow the instructions on the package of the weight loss pills you choose to take as an aid in losing weight.