My friend, Alex, a homeopath and supplement supply shop owner, has a relatively simple prescription for weight loss.

Chromium picolinate. Second, you might try the supplement Chromium picolinate. This is the "magic ingredient": Chromium picolinate, 200mg tid (three times a day).

Chromium picolinate is the discovery, or invention, of Gary Evans and you can read about it in his book "Chromium Picolinate", Avery Publishing Group 1996.

Cells respond more effectively to insulin when Chromium is present.
Insulin is the hormonal agent that takes sugar out of the blood when you eat carbohydrates. As we slowly (or quickly) weaken under the stress of the Standard American Diet our insulin response becomes maladaptive, leading us towards hypoglycemia, and our cells respond more and more poorly to insulin leading us towards adult on-set diabetes: and we put on weight. Insulin is also necessary for the utilisation of fats. As cells become insulin "impotent", fats stay in the cells, and we can only accumulate, and can not utilise, fats.

Chromium "streamlines" insulin, allowing it to work. But… the body can not easily absorb metallic Chromium...

Picolinate is an amino acid (though not one of the 22 amino acids that are strung together to form the various proteins). It is a breakdown product of tryptophane (which is one of the protein’s 22amino acids) and it is a wonderful "chelating" agent for Chromium and Zinc: that is, it binds with these metals, cloaks them, and makes them both absorbable and biologically available.

It has been observed that Chromium picolinate helps people loss weight, and helps them tone their muscle mass (and, when taken with high doses of B3, niacin, it helps reduce cholesterol).

Evans recommends an adult maintenance dose of 400mg of Chromium picolinate and a therapeutic dose (for weight loss) of up to 600mg (200mg three times a day).

Calcium Carbonate (Oyster). Dr. DeLamar Gibbon, in his book "Colitis and other IBS", says that some individuals "hyperabsorb" fats and bile salts (which strictly speaking are "reabsorb") and that this leads to a type of obesity. Gibbon says that you do not become fat by eating carbohydrates, but by eating fat. (Which just goes to underline that there are a thousand diets and a thousand opinions.) He points out that farmers can’t fatten hogs with wheat (low in fat), but fatten them on corn (much higher in fat).

Gibbon observed that calcium binds fats and bile salts. If you take 1 gm of calcium (1000 mg) with each meal it will bind fats and bile salts (which are cholesterol based) and stop their absorption. Note: that this will only work if there is fat (for instance, salad dressing) in your diet. If there is no fat (e.g. salad without dressing) the calcium can not "work" to bind fat and, in any event, you are not going to put on weight if you don’t eat fat. Also, this is not a license to eat megafat. 1 gm of calcium binds 14 of fat, and one gram of calcium per meal is pretty close to the maximum healthy limit.

Gibbon, and Alex, recommend Calcium Carbonate derived from Oyster shell as the cleanest (least toxin laden) source of calcium.

I have two observations to add relating to the fact that one of the problems people often face around weight loss is coping with sugar cravings.

Licorice root (and I don’t mean the black anise flavoured candy, I mean the root of the Licorice plant that you can find in Chinatown for a dollar or two an ounce). Licorice is not only extremely sweet in itself, but it also will bind glucose so it may "buffer" blood sugar levels, keeping them steady. So when you crave sweetness, try chewing on some Licorice root as you would chew on gum (that is to say, spit out the fibre when the taste is gone. Don’t swallow the "cud"). A caution though! There is some concern about Licorice raising blood pressure so if you have high blood pressure seek medical advice before using Licorice, and use it cautiously.