I feel like a year ago, Raspberry Ketones were the hottest word on everybody’s lips, I can remember everyone on my Facebook talking about them, did they work, didn’t they work and I went back and forth with looking into them. All the hustle, bustle and noise eventually died down and it was something that slipped into the back of my mind. When T&N Health offered me the chance to pick out products to try*, after having such a fantastic experience with their hair supplement tablets, now would be a great time to try their own Raspberry Ketones.
Those of you who have been reading my blog for a while, will know that at the start of the year I had been doing the 5:2 Diet, I lost 1.5 stone over 6 weeks. I’d started doing it to loose a bit of weight in preparation for next year, as I was due to be bridesmaid and didn’t want to feel like “the fat one” – let’s just say that wedding isn’t happening anymore, my motivation for loosing weight disappeared and since March/April the weight has just crept back on. 5:2 is a great diet, but you have to have the motivation to do it, and I’m having a hectic and busy period of life at the moment, and I’m struggling to jump back on the dieting wagon with it. So this was a solution which required no effort from me.
So let’s dumb it down, because I didn’t know – what exactly is a Raspberry Ketone?
Raspberry Ketones are naturally occurring compounds in raspberries which are responsible for the aroma of a raspberries. They increase a hormone in your body called Adiponectin, responsible for regulating your body’s metabolism.
People with less fat naturally have more of this hormone. When people gain weight, the ability of this hormone to function is inhibited. As the Raspberry Ketones produce more of this hormone, your body begins to behave as if it’s thin and starts to naturally break down the excess fat in your cells.
These tablets are designed to help surpress your appetite, help the breakdown of fat, increase energy levels & increase brain power. Taking 2 tablets daily, on an empty stomach – I tended to take these first thing as I woke up – a good 30 minutes before eating breakfast, and as I got in from work, usually 45 minutes to 1 hour before having my evening meal. These are 1000mg tablets which looking around seems to be a more intense dosage (Holland & Barratt’s are 100, 250 or 500mg). These are capsules so the plastic casing means that there is no taste to these tablets – just pop them in and swallow!
I’ve looked up similar ‘easy weight loss’ products like these before, such as teatoxes – but I’ve been always put off because of the adverse effects they have on your digestive system. With these there is no difference at all.
I was asked to try these out for 3 weeks to see what I thought, and kept a little diary of each week so you know what I was eating etc. Diaries run Tuesday to Tuesday.
Week 1 Diary
I didn’t eat any differently to how I would normally eat – so it was a true representation of what these would do by themselves, I’d eaten out with colleagues at lunch (at kfc) and eaten a pub meal with friends in the evening – I didn’t hold back at all.
Adding new tablets in my routine is certainly a challenge to remember, and I missed 4 (so 2 days worth) over the week from being out and not having them on me. I don’t do much exercise other than walk the dog – blogging takes up most of my free time as I have a long commute to and from work that eats in to every other bit of free time I might have.
I didn’t feel at all like I had any increased energy at all, in fact I felt more tired – I dip in and out a lot between feeling like I have energy and feeling like I have none, so I wouldn’t say it’s specifically down to the tablets. The biggest difference I noticed was in my appetite, I would normally start feeling hungry mid morning (as I have to eat breakfast early due to commuting), but I wasn’t getting hungry until past 12. I’m usually hungry by the time I get home, but my Boyfriend doesn’t get in until 30-60 minutes after I’m home, so I take my second of the day as I walk through the door and this does suppress my appetite after about 15 minutes of taking = no more biscuit/chocolate snacks before dinner.
I saw my mum after only 6 days of taking this (and my mother is the least complimentary person on my weight – thanks mum) and she said “are you still dieting, you look like you’ve lost a lot of weight!” I hadn’t weighed myself at this point so didn’t know but was certainly feeling like I was losing weight but held off until I’d officially completed a whole week before stepping back on the scales.
Total Weight Loss: 5lb
Week 2 Diary
Week 2 marked “that week of the month” for me – and this is when I was most interested to see how they worked. I’ve known (and noticed!) that my weight tends to fluctuate by up to half a stone more during “that time”. Week 2 was another week where I wasn’t behaving myself fully when it comes to food – I went out for an indulgent meal on Friday night after work with work colleagues, and went out for an even more indulgent 3 course meal for my parents anniversary on the Saturday. Sunday we were out and about running errands all day and the options for lunch were KFC or McDonalds, so another KFC too = 1 unhealthy weekend of food. I did jump on the scales Saturday and had lost 3lb, but my Tuesday morning it was just 1lb. I’m not surprised, but I’m grateful I didn’t put on weight or lose anything!
Total Weight Loss:1lb
Week 3 Diary
Week 3 was a pretty well behaved week in terms of proper meals, no eating out at lunch time with work and just having salads, I had a chinese takeaway one evening (of which I wasn’t particularly hungry so kept myself restrained from eating everything on the menu). I did however snack a lot in my work afternoons as I had a drawer in my desk full of chocolate and biscuits and once I remembered and found that they were there, I couldn’t leave them alone. There were a few days where I didn’t remember to take the tablet until I was mid way through eating , so whether this effected their performance I’m unsure but I still lost weight at the end of the week.
Total Weight Loss: 2lb
So initially first week there was a hell of a lot of loss. I still have a weeks worth of tablets left, and I think I may keep going with these until my holiday at the end of September. But 8lb weight loss in 3 weeks for doing absolutely nothing is pretty good in my book. Some of my clothes which I bought at the start of the summer are a little bit loose (especially my skinny jeans which are now more like slouchy boyfriend jeans).
Have you tried Raspberry Ketones?
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Email: helplesswhilstdrying@gmail.com
*product sent for review but views are 100% reflective of my experience with the product.
Deffo considering these!!
I haven’t tried these but my husband (of all people!) bought some and he felt that they worked for him and he was less hungry. I know we have some leftover. Yours look so pretty in the picture. (If a pill could be pretty!)
that is great, I tried these a while back and despite my hours of research I had side effects, I guess you could say it was jitters but it felt like my head was 10 times larger then my body and it just bounced around on my shoulders and neck. I could only take it for a few day and had to stop. I was disappointed because I really wanted them to work!