I need to lose 100 lbs over the next year or so and need an appetite suppressant to get me through the day until dinner. I know I have to exercise etc, but an appetite suppressant would help out a lot too.
who can recommend?
A qualified physician or nutritionist, I imagine.
Appetite suppressants are any foods that are rich in fiber and low in calories.
Luckily, these things grow right out of the ground. Think of all the green veggies and brown grains that you might find on supermarket or farmer market shelves and you have the best appetite suppressants around, and they are going to provide nutritional benefits. A neck and neck runner up to all these veggies and grains would be fruit.
If your doctor or nutritionist don’t answer this way, find another one. So, go to the doc/nutritionist, and then leave immediately for a second opinion if this minimum am’t of information isn’t part of their answer.
Cigarettes?
Or, what Philster said (also, lots of water).
Veggies and fat-free broth fill up your stomach, enabling you to squeak through until it’s officially Dinnertime. And you can have as much of it as it takes, as they’re extremely low calorie.
There is no OTC “magic pill” that you can take that will shut off your hunger pangs without potentially harming you. Acutrim and Dexatrim, which is probably what you were thinking of, contain PPA which has potentially life-threatening side effects (stroke), and the FDA strongly recommends that people don’t use it.
If it was hoodia you were thinking of, the Mayo Clinic says it doesn’t work.
Anything else, you need to talk to your doctor.
Recently studies have shown that people who undertake high-protein diets (30% calories from protein) eat less food when told to “eat all they want”
"The results, they said, “suggest substituting protein for fat in the diet may lead to greater weight loss than can be obtained by substituting carbohydrate for dietary fat.”
I’m in no way endorsing a low carb/Atkins diet (can do horrors to some people’s digestive tracts), but I’ve heard quite a bit that eating lots of meat, cheese, etc. makes some people slightly nauseous, discouraging them from eating frequently.
zeno, I’m looking to lose a bit more than you (123 pounds altogether, I’ve lost 13 of them in the last 4 weeks) and I really, really recommend Weight Watchers online. I’ve always had an enormous appetite. You know those annoying people who get their plates at a restaurant and go, “Oh! I’ll never be able to eat all this! Tee-hee!” while you’re thinking, “Hmm…kinda skimpy on the fries,” while looking at your own mound of food? Yeah, I hated people like that. A pint of Ben and Jerry’s after a full meal? No problem. Never met a slab of ribs I didn’t find room for.
I spent 13 years chasing the appetite suppressant panacea - and really all that’s available OTC now are caffeine variations and hoodia - and while it would work for a few days, in the long run it was just a joke. Miss a dose - starving. See something yummy - I’d eat it even if I wasn’t hungry. And as time goes by, you develop a tolerance, and need to take more and more to keep from eating your shoes. Soon you’re taking so much that you’ve got constant burning stomach upset and heartburn, with a lump of something in your throat (the Chinese call this “Plum-Pit Chi”, which is the best description I’ve ever heard - it feels like there’s a small, slightly sharp plum pit stuck in your throat) all the time, and then the headaches and nausea start.
I was shocked, really and honestly shocked to find that on Weight Watchers, I’m not hungry. No, really, I’m not! I guess it’s because I’m eating more of those “appetite suppressants” Philster’s talking about - things high in fiber and low in calories. If you weighed my food, I’m probably eating more food now than I was before, but because I’m eating better foods, they satisfy me more.
I know you’re probably going to dismiss my post anyway. I always did, when well-meaning people told me the same exact thing. But I’m discovering now that they weren’t lying, they weren’t blessed with some small appetite gene that I don’t have. They were just eating better food that gave their body the nutrients it needed so their brains stopped telling them to eat all the time. A whole bag of potato chips may feel like a lot of food, but your body still recognizes that it hasn’t gotten a lick of protein in it, and demands more food as a result.
Trust me, I’m an herbalist. If there really was an effective herbal weight loss supplement*, I’d be all over it like white on rice. But there isn’t, so my rice is now brown. 
*ephedra was really, really close. But it’s impossible to find now that the FDA banned it (and then rescinded the ban under a judge’s orders).
Are you really sure you want to take a drug to help you lose weight? Do you want to be the stereotypical lazy person that wants all his/her answers answered by drugs?
Besides not being effective, what kind of message are you sending to the children around you?
There is something much more powerful than taking hyped up weight loss drugs: change your lifestyle. Ask yourself, why are you overweight? Do you eat just because you can and not just because you are hungry? Do you know which foods are especially high in calories? Are you an emotional eater? Do you have any athletic interests? Do you sit around all day? Do you drive a car when you can ride a bike? Do you have any athletic friends that you can go running/biking/swimming with?
You should address the fundamental issues that are affecting your weight instead of tackling it superficially. It’ll save you a ton of money on gimmicks and you won’t develop a drug addiction.
A good dietician should put you on the right track, but you have to follow his/hers instructions.
These are all good questions, but for some of us, the answer really, truly, honestly is, “I eat because I’m hungry. Duh.” Yes, it is physiologically possible to be hungry all the time. It just is. Trust us when we tell you this. Again, I think it’s because we’re not getting the nutrition from the food that we eat. Even though my diet before was 90% better than most Americans, it took these last few weeks of tweaking to make it really work for me. “Pretty good” isn’t good enough for my body. I have to eat really, really well*, or I’m hungry. I’m incredibly jealous of people who can eat kinda sorta well and not be hungry. I’m not one of them.
*That’s not to say every *meal *is 100% perfect. The thing I like about WW is that I can still have my ice cream every night. Yes, really, every night, and a whole cup of it, not some skimpy diet bar popsicle sized serving. I just have to make sure the rest of my day is focused on veggies, protein and fiber or my body isn’t satisfied.
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zeno, am I right in thinking that you were planning to just try to eat one meal a day? Because that’s a really bad plan.
Go with Weight Watchers. I know at least two people in my home meeting that have lost what you want to lose in that amount of time, and they were all eating three meals a day plus snacks.
Ok WW is sounding good. What’s involved? The price looks doable, but what exactly do I get for that?
Speaking only for myself, hell yes. I would be all over being that first lazy fat person who magically lost weight by laying on the couch. Unfortunately, the only thing that ever works for me is moving more and eating better.
:: Snort :: I bet that’s what s/he’s thinking. I need to lose over 100 pounds. What method can I try while also THINKING OF THE CHILDREN?
FYI, this is easy to say but very hard to do.
zeno, Weight Watchers is the only thing that has ever worked for me. I lost 40+ pounds on the program. If you want to take a pill while on it, you can have a multi-vitamin. 
(WhyNot, you go, girl. )
For me meeting were key, so maybe WhyNot can tell you more about the on-line program. For the IRL program, you go in, pay your money, they weigh you (no one else can see the number and they don’t say it), and they write your beginning weight in a booklet that you bring to every future meeting. The meeting has a leader and every week you discuss a different aspect of the program, milestone achievements are celebrated, and problems can be discussed. For the first 10 meetings (I think it’s 10, might be 12), you get a booklet to read to help you with the program. The first is “getting started.” Then there’s one on exercise, one on eating out, I can’t remember them all.
Weight Watchers now has two programs, the Core Program, where you can basically eat all you want, but of a large but limited list, and the Points Program, where you can eat anything you want but you have to keep track of the “points” you eat in a day and hit an assigned points target. Points are calculated by the amount of fiber, calories, and fat in a given food. You are given a points calculator – a chart or wheel that tells you the points once you line up the fiber, fat, and calories. Your points allowance might range from 18-22 points a day (for a slender woman) to 28-32 points a day for a very heavy man. (Points targets are set by your weight.
For me, going to meetings made me accountable. Keeping track of what I ate (so I could figure points for it) made me more aware of what I was eating. And knowing that I could literally eat ANYTHING I wanted, so long as I wrote it down and was responsible for it (“owned” it) kept me from feeling panicky and deprived.
If you know the cost, I’m sure you’ve seen the website, so let me know what else you’d like to know.
I see I will have to do battle with the devil.
I go to the live meetings. For the price you get their materials–point calculator, recipe booklets, materials that outline the mental tools you can use to help you stick with it. You also get a membership book where they record your weekly weigh-in. There are also little incentives like a key ring where you get to add little charms as you reach various interim goals.
At the meeting, which goes for about half an hour, the leader has certain set topics for everyone to discuss–for example how to survive a vacation without gaining a lot and so forth, and everyone trades ideas and celebrates each other’s progress.
Also, when you reach your goal and maintain it within two pounds for six weeks, you no longer have to pay the meeting fee. Then, as long as you weigh in at your goal once a month, you stay what is called a Lifetime Member and never have to pay.
It is a business–every meeting will have stacks of “extras” for you to buy if you want–but there’s no pressure. It’s run by people who’ve been through the program themselves and know what it’s like.
Not to get into a big Atkins argument with Cat Fight , but I lost 125 pounds on Atkins back in 2002 and kept it off, and I’ll stack my digestive tract next to anyones. God, what a disgusting metaphor that is.
What annoys the Atkins eaters more than anything is someone saying, “I went on Atkins, ate nothing but bacon and eggs for three weeks, and it made me sick as a dog.” I’m not accusing Cat Fight of saying this, but the people she/he spoke to might have.
An Atkins diet does suppress the appetite (not through nausea), but if you are lazy, or uninformed, you can miss out on a lot of essential nutrients. It’s like vegetarianism that way. If someone says that vegetarian diets make you sick, because after eating nothing but peaches for five days they got really sick, you’d think they were stupid. You can be perfectly healthy eating either a vegetarian or an Atkins diet, but you have to pay attention to what you eat, and you might need a daily supplement to cover all the bases.
You have to remember that whatever diet you settle on, if you eat the way you used to eat, you’re going to weigh what you used to weigh. A crash diet to drop 100 pounds so you can then go off it is not going to be healthy. Whatever you do to lose the weight will have to be for the rest of your life.
As said before, not eating when you are hungry is a bad thing, when you are trying to lose weight.
If you want to lose weight and keep it off, you need to eat more, not less. That doesn’t mean you eat more in quantity, it means you eat what you already eat, except divided into smaller portions over the duration of the day. Maybe 5 or 6 small meals vs 1 or 2 big meals a day (note this is not about grazing, which is bad.)
Once you get used to the routine, you need to take a look at what you are eating and how you can improve your diet. If you are eating high fat/ high carb/ high sugar snack foods, you need to try and slowly replace these foods with healthier choices. Slowly transition into fruits, nuts and veggies as snacks. When you eat meals, unless you have a condition that requires it, do not eat low/no fat. It only serves to make you hungry later on.
If you are generally over eating, it will be easier to cut into your smaller meals rather than cutting out a large portion out of your single meal. Always drink water with your meals and snacks. You should never be hungry, so if you do need a little something, feel free to grab a snack.
So, exercise (weight training as well as aerobic,) eat regularly, get good sleep and drink lots of water. Go to a professional, whether that is a doctor, dietician or trainer. They will be able to give you specific help without having to resort to pills which will probably force you into an unhealthy yo-yo cycle.