Xenical is a prescription drug designed to help significantly overweight people lose weight. It is a version of Alli, the only diet pill that is approved by the FDA.

According to the manufacturers, Xenical is different from other diet pills because instead of suppressing your appetite or speeding up your metabolism, it blocks about one-third of the fat you eat from being digested. The undigested fat cannot be broken down and is eliminated through your bowel movements.

However, Xenical is not a magic pill.

"Xenical is a weight-loss drug that can have significant side effects and in blocking the absorption of fat to encourage weight loss, may also block the absorption of important vitamins, minerals and healthful fats required by the body," says Marissa Lippert, RD, of Nutrition Counseling & Communications. "Weight-loss drugs are temporary fixes, rather than lasting solutions. It's important to remember that in order to healthfully lose weight and sustain it, fresh food in the appropriate portion sizes should be the primary focus."

The American Heart Association agrees and recommends reduced-calorie diets that typically allow for no more than 30 percent of your daily caloric intake to come from fat.

Possible side effects include uncontrollable bowel movements, gas and oily discharge.

If you think Xenical may be right for you, speak to your doctor.

At That's Fit, we've got great food ideas, exercise plans and more to help you lose weight.

Apple cider vinegar is made by fermenting apple cider and is considered by many alternative health practitioners to promote overall health and well-being. Traditionally, apple cider vinegar has been thought to help with a variety ailments including gout, acne, arthritis, allergies and high cholesterol, but it came to be especially popular for its medicinal properties thanks to a bestselling book published in 1958, "Folk Medicine: A Vermont Doctor's Guide to Good Health" by D.C. Jarvis, M.D. In the 1970s, many started to believe that apple cider vinegar could help speed up weight loss as well by increasing metabolism.

Several small studies have shown that regular doses of apple cider vinegar can help lower blood glucose levels, offering promising potential to those suffering from diabetes. Additionally, apple cider vinegar is used to restore alkaline acid balance and is a popular home remedy for zits and acid reflux. Apple cider vinegar is believed to have a positive impact on high blood pressure and cholesterol but more research is needed.

Apple cider vinegar can be ingested or applied to the skin in its natural form, though there is a small chance that it can cause burning. Subsequently, many users tend to dilute the vinegar with water and mix it with honey.

Check out AOL Health for more about Natural Weight-Loss Aids. Plus, stay up-to-date with Diet and Fitness News from That's Fit.

Photo: Mike Baird, Flickr

Obviously, exercise is good for you, but just how much it benefits you depends on many factors, including your gender and your race, according to a long-term study led by the University of Northern Carolina.

Researchers have been tracking exercise and cholesterol levels in 15,000 African American and Caucasian men and women since the late 1980s. In all groups, adding an hour of mild exercise or a half an hour of moderate exercise a week increased levels of 'good' cholesterol, the heart-healthy HDL kind. However, the increased activity lead to lower levels of LDL ('bad') cholesterol only in women, not men. Additionally, the only group to exhibit improvement in all cholesterol levels were African American women. Caucasians who exercised more saw a decrease in harmful triglycerides, but African Americans didn't show the same result.

The reason for the differences? Researchers aren't sure, but they suspect it has something to do with hormonal differences between the sexes and genetic difference between races. Furthermore, the method of research -- questionnaires -- means the results might not be entirely accurate.

If you're a woman, this is even more motivation to step it up, because it's evidence that even a small change can make a big difference. But regardless of your race or gender, regular exercise is vital to your heart health and overall well-being -- so get moving!

Need more motivation? Find out how Michelle Obama sculpts those smokin' arms.

Photo: Darren Hester, Flickr

Some weight loss drugs help you slim down but may cost you your health -- and other products don't even work at all. But there is some promise in a new drug in development that can not only help you lose weight, but can also help treat serious complications of obesity, specifically diabetes and high cholesterol. In recent studies on mice, fatostatin, as it is currently known, led to weight loss of 12 percent, reduction in blood sugar levels of 70 percent, reversal of diabetes and lower cholesterol. According to the findings from Chemistry & Biology, "Fatostatin blocked increases in body weight, blood glucose, and hepatic (liver) fat accumulation in (genetically) obese mice, even under uncontrolled food intake."

As for how it works? In a nutshell, Fatostatin stops the body from producing fat -- it's released as energy instead. It works by effectively 'turning off' proteins that help control fat synthesis.

OK, it's one thing to help mice lose weight -- past experience has proved that what works on a mouse doesn't always work on a human. So can it do the same for us? "I am very, very optimistic," lead author Sahil Wakil tells MSNBC. So are we -- but I'm hoping most of us are taking steps to change our lives today instead of holding out for a so-called miracle drug that's years away.

Wondering how to slim down? Find out how Phylicia Rashad did it.

Photo: Joao Paulo Esperanca, Flickr

Heredity is not on my side when it comes to cholesterol. So once my "bad" cholesterol hit 285, I backed off on saturated fats almost completely. (The "almost" is Phish Food.) It helped: My LDL now hovers between 225 and 235. But new research shows my exercise routines might also be helping to keep the level less high.

In the first study to find a link between fitness and dips in levels of LDL, an hour of moderate or a half hour of vigorous activity yielded a decrease of almost 4 milligrams per deciliter of LDL cholesterol in white women, and more than 10 milligrams for black women. And for those past menopause, the benefits were even greater: 5.9 milligrams for whites and 14.68 for blacks. The study was conducted over nine years and included almost 9,000 people between the ages of 45-64. The decrease wasn't found in men.

Besides working out and limiting your intake of saturated fats, you can also eat more of some foods that are known to reduce LDL levels such as walnuts, salmon, oatmeal and flax seed. You might also consider taking an omega-3 supplement once a day.

High LDL isn't the only factor associated with cardiovascular disease. Click here to learn more and find your risk score for a heart attack.

Eggs are rich in protein, nutritional powerhouses and considered superfood. While relatively high in cholesterol (about 212 mg in a hard-boiled egg), in moderation, they won't do any harm. In fact, research has shown that eating up to seven eggs in a week doesn't increase your risk for heart disease.

A hard-boiled egg is a convenient and energy-boosting snack. But how many calories are in a hard-boiled egg?

Photo: jupiterimages

Are you ready to fight the battle of the bulge? Arm yourself with these eight new research-backed diet solutions. One new find: Swapping dairy and the occasional steak for plant-based proteins like tofu can lead to weight loss and a lower "LDL" cholesterol (the bad kind). Learn more about this "Eco Atkins Diet" approach, plus seven other slim-down tools.

Health in a pill. It's the old miracle cure that so many people wish for. The newest cure-in-a-pill is the tomato pill, which is said to help beat heart disease. More testing and trials are needed to determine the efficacy of this pill, but the main ingredient -- lycopene -- is a naturally-occurring antioxidant with many health benefits.

Lycopene is thought to help reduce LDL cholesterol (the bad kind), and it might also be beneficial for diabetes, osteoporosis, eye health and even male infertility. In addition, lycopene may help reduce the risk of certain cancers.

Rather than popping a pill, why not include plenty of lycopene-rich foods in your diet? When looking for lycopene, just see red; lycopene is the natural pigment that gives many red fruits and vegetables their color. Tomatoes are a great source of lycopene, but guava, red bell peppers, watermelon and pink grapefruit are too.

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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has thrown a stern warning in the direction of General Mills. Cheerios is not a cholesterol drug, they remind the cereal maker in a letter on May 5, so it should stop acting like one on the yellow box.

The little toasted O's stepped over the line with the claim that a regular diet of Cheerios could "lower your cholesterol 4 percent in six weeks." The FDA is not thrilled that Cheerios is marketing itself as a cholesterol drug on its box and website, and sent a detailed letter letting the company know it had waded too far into drug territory.

With an ever expanding list of claims made by food manufacturers, from flavored water claiming to be equivalent to eating a piece of fruit, to cereal lowering your heart numbers -- Cheerios is just one example of a growing trend of health claims on processed foods.

So many of us diet hard for two weeks, lose five pounds, then splurge ourselves right back up the weight ladder. But splurging on our food favorites every day won't keep the weight off, right? Not true for Mark Bittman, who lost 35 pounds eating vegan all day and then splurging on dinner.

A splurge every day -- sounds more appealing than a strict diet. "FitSugar" has the full vegan scoop on this author of "Food Matters: A Guide to Conscious Eating With More Than 75 Recipes."

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Nuts and olive oil are clearly good diet choices. But ever wonder which one is better? RealAge names nuts as the healthier option.

In a year-long study, people who ate a Mediterranean diet and added an extra ounce of nuts (a small handful) had a lower rate of metabolic syndrome compared to those who ate the same diet but upped their olive oil intake by four to five ounces per day. The theory behind this finding is that olive oil is extracted from olives, but nuts are a whole food and have more fiber, protein and minerals. Olive oil is still important -- just like nuts do, it helps reduce abdominal fat more than low-fat diets do.

A healthy diet, exercise and regular physicals can help prevent metabolic syndrome, a cluster of conditions that occur together, increasing your risk of heart disease, stroke and diabetes. Conditions include obesity (mostly the "apple shape"), elevated blood pressure, elevated level of blood fat (triglycerides), a low level of good cholesterol (HDL) and resistance to insulin.

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When I was cleaning up my diet more than a year ago, I bid a fond farewell to cheese. It wasn't exactly my favorite food or anything, but I was no stranger to it either. I ate it on pizza, tacos and crackers, and I liked it. It was an easy cut from my diet, though, and I'm pretty sure I lost a few pounds when I nixed it.

Cheese has slowly crept back into my diet in small amounts, which is a good thing. Well, Reader's Digest says it's good, anyway, and reports that eating cheese can be heart healthy. Women in one study who ate a serving a day (think the size of about four dice) had higher good HDL cholesterol and lower bad LDL cholesterol than those who ate less. Men didn't enjoy the same benefits -- sorry, guys -- because they tend to pick cheeses higher in salt and saturated fat.

If you're a fan of cheese, by all means, have some. Just have it like this:

• Pick part-skim. Less saturated fat but just as much taste. Still bunches of calcium and essential fatty acids too.
• Skip fat-free. Too much sodium to cover for lost flavor, and the texture can be rubbery.
• Get gourmet. High in fat but rich in taste so you won't eat too much.

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The Mediterranean diet has long been touted as a healthful way to eat. Now, new claims suggest that pairing a Mediterranean diet with a small snack of nuts daily boosts the health benefits.

Metabolic Syndrome is a combination of heart-disease risk factors such as high blood pressure, excessive abdominal fat, high cholesterol, and high blood sugar. The Mediterranean diet is thought to reduce some of the risk factors involved in metabolic syndrome. A new study separated 1,224 people into three groups: one group received advice on a low-fat diet, the second was instructed on the Mediterranean diet plus were given one liter of virgin olive oil each week and the third received the Mediterranean advice plus 30 grams of mixed nuts each day.

Over the course of the one-year study, the prevalence of metabolic syndrome was reduced in all three groups: The low-fat diet group saw a two percent reduction in metabolic syndrome, the olive oil group reduced metabolic syndrome by 6.7 percent, and the group that followed a Mediterranean diet as well as eating nuts reduced the prevalence of metabolic syndrome by a whopping 13.7 percent.

AOL Health has more information on the Mediterranean diet.

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Stephen King's new book Just After Sunset is a collection of short stories. In the story Stationary Bike, King covers extreme diet and fitness in his signature spooky style.

When artist Richard Sifkitz learns from his doctor that his cholesterol and his weight are a little too high, he's concerned. His doctor explains that his metabolism is like a work crew, and when Richard pours fast food down his gullet, the crew has to work overtime. They get grumpy and tired, and sometimes they even quit and go home, which leads to weight gain and health problems. Sifkitz goes home and draws a picture of his "metabolism" -- four guys in a road crew, employed by the company "Lipid."

He puts a stationary bike in his basement and draws a mural on the wall. Pretty soon, he's biking two hours a night and curtailing his eating habits to the extreme, but strange things start happening. He ends up riding in the mural, and let's just say his work crew is less than pleased that he's taken their livelihood away from him.

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Apparently, millions of Americans -- including those at a low-risk of heart attack -- should be on the cholesterol-reducing drugs. In my opinion, this is scary. Don't get me wrong -- statins are a wonderful thing and have helped many, many people. But we are a very medicated society and the fact that the medical community feels the need to medicate the low-risk population is frightening. Especially when healthy living could solve many of the same problems.

People with high cholesterol aren't the only ones who should be paying attention to their numbers. Even if your cholesterol falls in healthy ranges, you should still be taking proactive measures to manage it:

• Exercise regularly. Aerobic exercise increases your HDL cholesterol. HDL (high-density lipoprotein) is the "good" cholesterol because it helps carry the bad cholesterol out of your blood stream. Your HDL levels should be greater than 40 mg/dl.

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