But there are also trusted sources. Based on my investigation, there are only two sources of hoodia I currently recommend: (list recently updated)
Hoodoba - Hoodia Gordonii Diet Pills is now my top recommended source for hoodia capsules. This company has completed a successful lab analysis certifying that their hoodia is genuine. The company offers a 3-bottle price of $39.95 per bottle (plus shipping) for 90 capsules, each containing 400mg. They also use vegetarian capsules, which are expensive to source, by the way. In all, this is a fairly high priced product, but then again, when you're selling real hoodia, the price has to be higher. With all the counterfeit products on the market out there, Hoodoba is one you can trust, and I've got the lab results to prove it. (Note: just to repeat, I have absolutely no financial involvement with this company, and I earn nothing from this recommendation.)
More testing under way: We are now in the process of buying hoodia products from around the 'net and having them all subjected to rigorous lab analysis. This is a very expensive proposition (believe me), which will cost more than $6,000 to conduct. This is difficult because we don't actually sell any hoodia products, and so we have no way to recover those funds, but we're going to pursue it as a service to our readers nonetheless. The results will be shared here, and this list will be expanded to show the exact details of what we found. So stay tuned...
Throughout the day, I realize that I have to eat in order to stay healthy. I exercise and strength train, too, so I know that if I don't eat at least 2,000 calories a day, my body will start losing muscle mass (which I definitely don't want to happen). So I track my calories to make sure I get at least 2,000 a day. This way, I'm still gradually losing weight, but I'm not shocking my body and losing lean muscle mass, which would lower my resting metabolism and hamper my fat loss efforts.
Personally, I use a Palm handheld computer to track my daily caloric intake. Each time I eat something, I key it in. But I'm not a food Nazi about all this, I don't track every calorie and every minute of the day. I only eat when I'm hungry or after I've exercised. For the rest of the day, I just drink water.
I absolutely, positively do not drink soft drinks or sweetened drinks of any kind. Water is the only drink I take. I don't eat ice cream, and I don't partake in cakes, cookies, sweetened cereals or other foods that are loaded with sugar or fat. This is just common sense, and taking hoodia doesn't give me a license to eat junk foods. So I stick with healthy dietary choices while I'm on hoodia.
In fact, there's only one strategy I've ever found that truly turned off my appetite and allowed me to reduce my daily caloric intake without suffering from it. That strategy will be revealed in an upcoming book called "The Food Timing Diet" available at TruthPublishing.com, due out in late 2005. Sorry, I can't reveal it here because I'm still working on the book, and it takes some explaining to cover this. But it's not a drug, nor an herb. It's something truly revolutionary, and it works better than hoodia, in my opinion.
Hoodia isn't a bad choice, though. It helps with suppressing your appetite, especially if you take it in large quantities. But it wasn't the miracle appetite suppressant I was hoping to find. It just honestly didn't suppress my hunger enough for me to call it a miracle-class supplement.
Your results may be different. I have no doubt that some people are losing weight with the help of hoodia. But at the same time, I can assure you that nobody is losing weight with hoodia if they aren't simultaneously making better food choices and engaging in some form of physical exercise.
With that in mind, here are my tips for getting the most out of hoodia gordonii:
Use those exact words. "What is my level of hunger, if any?"
And if the answer to yourself is, "None or not very much," then just don't eat. You don't feel hungry, so why bother?
If your answer is, "I feel really hungry" then by all means eat. Your body needs food, after all. You can't starve yourself to improved health.
But the point is that you have to check your level of hunger each time you're about to eat. And never, never, never eat just because it's breakfast time, or lunch time, or dinner time. Don't let the clock control your future, you take charge. Only eat when you're really hungry.
Lastly, drink a lot of water. I know that some people think drinking an 8 oz. glass of water is "a lot of water." Get serious. I think people should drink an 8 oz. glass before every meal. Drink the entire glass of water before you touch a bite of food. Even without hoodia, this is a healthy practice.
Most people simply don't drink enough water to begin with. They're afraid of feeling bloated or having to go to the bathroom too often. Let me share this with you: if you're not going to the bathroom far more frequently than you think you should be, you're probably not drinking enough water.
Don't like the taste of water? Filter it. Refrigerate it. Make it ice water. Add some lemon. Do whatever you have to do, because nothing is more important to your health than drinking water. And, importantly, you won't lose weight if you're dehydrated. So take water with hoodia, and that will help your weight loss results.
In the next part of this investigative series on hoodia gordonii, we'll take a closer look at the clinical evidence supporting hoodia as a natural weight loss supplement.