I’m really struggling with my weight, and I feel like I’m running out of options. I’ve tried a bunch of different diets and a bunch of different workout regimens, but nothing seems to work. Lately, I’ve been thinking about trying out diet pills. My friends say that’s a bad idea, but at this point, I’m ready to try anything. Experts, what can I do? Is weight loss just impossible for me?

Weight loss is never impossible for people who are in reasonably good overall health. If you feel that you may have a medical condition that is keeping you from losing weight, you can and should consult with a doctor. But, most likely, the things that are keeping you in a constant battle with your weight are not due to any underlying disease. If you can rule that out, then you absolutely can lose weight – you just need a sustainable plan.

You’ve tried a lot of solutions, and that’s admirable. However, there are plenty of reasons why things haven’t been working out. Diets can, of course, work – but they very often don’t, and experts believe they know why. “Dieting,” in the sense that most of us use the word, refers to a short-term solution that is a big change from our usual lifestyle. That makes them very hard to stick to. And even if we succeed in making the diet last long enough to help us lose some extra pounds, we often find that we gain the weight back after the diet is over. That’s simply us reverting to our old habits – which we never actually changed, because we chose dieting over sustainable lifestyle changes.

Are diet pills your answer? Experts at NetNutri tell us that there are diet pills that can aid weight loss. Hydroxy elite, for instance, has helped some dieters shed pounds faster. Lipodrene is another product that may work. But diet pills are designed to aid your progress while working in conjunction with healthier lifestyle choices. They should not be used as a substitute for real changes in your diet and exercise plan.

Experts agree that the key to losing weight and keeping it off is making long-term lifestyle changes. That can be frustrating news to would-be dieters, who want to lose weight as fast as possible and then go back to enjoying their old lifestyle, minus all the extra pounds. But that old lifestyle is the cause of those extra pounds, and rapid weight loss can be as unhealthy as it is unsustainable.

Here’s the reality: you need to make exercise a habit, not a binge activity. You need to focus on sustainable nutrition choices, which means eating more whole foods and vegetables – not embarking on a fad diet. And you need to make these changes in such a way that you can stick to them. That may mean incremental changes and slower progress.

That’s not to say that you can’t cut calories or even use diet pills. But you need to be careful about trading long-term success for short-term weight loss. Losing a few pounds in a week may be thrilling, but losing a few pounds in a month and then keeping them off is going to be much more rewarding in the long term. Your path to a healthier body is real and sustainable lifestyle change.