Taking Laxatives to Lose Weight

Taking Laxatives to Lose Weight

Fast on the heels of a report from the Untied States Surgeon General’s office which estimated over two thirds of the US population to be overweight, the weight loss industry is booming, new diets and “no work” weight loss schemes are sprouting all over the media. Taking laxatives to lose weight is one of the least recommended and least productive of them all.

Laxatives do serve their use in human lives and as a medication. To help those who may have become constipated. If abused laxatives can damage the body’s waste elimination system making it difficult or impossible for waste to move through the colon as it should.

Laxatives specifically targets the last stage of the digestive system, where digested food is waiting to be expelled. We know that the body has already taken all the calories it can from a meal before it gets to this point.

The bowel has openings at both ends, so it only has space for a specific amount of waste. Colonic irrigation itself is limited in how much waste it can clean out. Since laxatives generally will have an effect exclusively on the lower one half to one third of the digestive tract, there is no potential to flush out more weight than a colonic.

There is only one truly successful and healthy way to lose weight, and that is to alter the way you live. Creating a calorie deficit, burning more calories than one takes is the only way to create weight loss.

Long term lifestyle changes must be made at a base level. One can not ‘go on a diet’ and starve oneself until the desired weight is lost, then resume the same old habits. If you did, your efforts would backfire. The lost pounds would return and one would be back where one started from, if not worse off. Not only is taking laxatives to lose weight ineffective, it can also be dangerous to your health on a long-term basis.