Fat Binders are one of the modern day weight loss methods used as diet pills. The idea in using some supplement like this is to prevent fat eaten to be absorbed and used by your body as energy. That forces your body to use its own fat storages for energy and it also helps you to create a caloric deficit while eating the same amount as before.
Opuntia Ficus Indica
This one is actually just a cactus. It is a cactus which produces fruit. The fruit is called tuna and it is a very large sweet fruit. Opuntia Ficus Indica is grown mostly in dry areas like Mexico, Egypt, Morocco and so on. In Sicily it grows wild and can grow as high as 16 feet long. It is grown in the dry areas moslty because it has a specially good ability to turn water to biomass. It does not need a lot of water to make good use of all of it. The fruit tastes similar to watermelon, it is sweet and kinda mild in taste.
What About Opuntia Ficus Indica
Well I did not start writing this post to tell you about a cactus with a nice fruit on the top. This is a diet blog and that is what I shall write. What is there in Opuntia Ficus Indica that is worth writing here? Well recently they have started to grow it to feed the cattle because it is so easy to grow. But that is not it. Opuntia ficus indica is used as a natural fat binder. And when it comes to diet pills Opuntia Ficus Indica is a relatively new product.
The Opuntia fiber is a non soluable fiber that binds to dietary fat. When you eat a fatty meal it stays in your stomach for a long time because it takes a long time to digest in the small intestine. If you take some fat binder before you eat, or during your meal it binds to the dieatary fat during this long stay in the stomach. What is that good for? Well when it binds to the dietary fat it makes such a large molecule together with the fat molecules that it cannot be absorbed efficently.
Your digestion has only so many weapons to digest your food. For the purpose of digesting fats there are a few things. Firstly there are the enzymes produced by the pancreas called lipase and fosfolipase. These enzymes break the triglyserides to monoglyserides and free fatty acids. But in order for these enzymes to work efficiently tha hydrophobic fats have to be broken to smaller drops. Your liver produces a liquid which is stored in the gallbladder. The gallbladder empties its contents to the small intestine when a fatty meal enters the duodenum. It has some special salts in it which break large formations of fat in to smaller drops. This way the enzymes from the pancreas can work efficiently. When the triglyserides are broken in to monoglyserides and fatty acids they can be absorbed.
Triglyserides already are too big molecyles to be absorbed. When combined with the non-soluble fiber in Opuntia ficus indica the big molecules can not be correctly broken down by the gallbladder fluids and can not be efficently digested by the enzymes from the pancreas.
The opuntia ficus indica has been shown to actually prevent 28% of the fat eaten from being absorbed. That is quite a lot since orlistat which is, or well atleast used to be a prescription drug binds to about 30% of the fat eaten. That makes opuntia ficus indica as powerful fat binder as Xenical or Alli.
This is not all. Opuntia ficus indica fiber has also been shown to have treating capabilities to stomach ulsers. It seems that as it binds to the fat it either reducs the gatric acid production or neutralises the acids in the stomach.
But like almost all the natural diet pills opuntia ficus indica does not really have a lot of scientific studies backing it up a 100%. There are always the five studies that the manufacturers show or point you to. The five clinical studies in which there was significant difference between the groups and that the fat loss was increased 80%. Well if the fatloss was very low to begin with, then a 80% increase is not that much. They always tend to play with the statistics.
Opuntia Ficus Indica for the Dieter?
As it might seem I am not really impressed with the data I looked through to write this post. When I did my complete body transformation Opuntia Ficus Indica was not around yet. And neither were any other fat binders. The whole genre of fat binders are new to me and I really don’t have any first hand experience with them. But with my knowledge I can safely say that fat binders are not completely bogus. It doesn’t work with a similar mechanism as some free hoodia diet pills, but they do work.
If a product binds 30% of the fat eaten that makes a good dent in your daily caloric intake. Even if it does not work as well as it is advertised and binds to only 20% of the fat it still makes a difference. Nothing of the product is absorbed since it is non soluable fiber and can not be digested. That makes it a fairly safe product to use. There is also a potential side effect that comes in to my mind that has not been taken out in the open by the companies selling this stuff.
If 30% of the fat eaten is not absorbed where does it go? Well it comes out from your butt.That sounds a bit funny but it is a side of it that you might want to think. Since ”fatty-diarrhea” is not too cool especially if it happens three to five times a day every day for a month. Well if you are dieting it might help you to lose weight fast. Even though I don’t think that this type of reaction is going to be a very common one since it is only one third of the fat that is not absorbed. This might be the reason why they always suggest to have a low fat diet while using fat binder diet pills.
Basically a cheaper option would be to just eat less fat. But as opposed to the general suggestions I think that while using a fat binder like Opuntia Ficus Indica you should be on a low carb diet instead of the regular low fat diet. Think about it this way: If yo are restricting calories from carbs and eating high protein and medium fat. Wouldn’t it produce even better results to prevent the calories from the fat to be absorbed? Although this sould be tried out at the final parts of your transformation since going too low with your fat intake while on a low carb diet might make your body use proteins for primary fuel. That is not something you want to happen.
If you ask me, I would go with the carbohydrate binders instead of the fat binders. But I might give the fat binders a try also. I am more of a regular diet pill kind of guy anyway, but when I have to lose some weight again in the future. I might give the modern diet pills like fat binders a run for the money. Next on the list of supplements I will review is acai. So if you are willing to lose weight with acai then wait for my next post. All in all fat binders, and especially Opuntia ficus indica with its 28% binding rate are definitely a cheap diet pill worthy of trying!
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