If you are one of many who are using a pure source of Hoodia, you know first hand how powerful it is. Initial trials indicate that it can make you feel full for up to twenty-four hours. Some studies have shown that people who have used pure Hoodia have drastically reduce the amount of calories they take in on a daily basis by up to 1,000 calories a day within 15 days or so.

When you look at figures like that, it certainly gets your attention, especially if you are trying to lose weight. After all, most people would absolutely just love it if they could just take a pill, sit back and watch the pounds falling off them. And that's what these results from Hoodia get you think. If you look a little deeper though, you'll find that its not all that simple. There are drawbacks to the effectiveness of Hoodia.

The reason behind this is all because of something called your starvation response. As a human being this is a built in function of your body. Everyone has one.

Let me explain this in a little more detail for you:

You see, your body has a very good idea of how many calories, on average, you're going to take per day. It has accumulated this information over years and has become used to your eating and exercise habits.

When you suddenly decrease the amount of calories you consume, your body notes it. Initially it may not react, thinking it is just a one-off. That's why you will start to lose weight in the first few weeks.

But the fact is, your body is not just going to sit still if you continue to eat much lower amount of calories then you were previously. It is going to adjust, because it thinks all of a sudden it is not getting the nutrition it was before. It basically thinks you are starving, so it's survival instincts kick in.

For example, back, many thousand of years ago, when we were hunter/gathers, this was the key to survival. You may hunt down a big animal, be able to feast on it for a day or two, even a week, but then have nothing substantial for days on end while you went hunting for the next kill.

So how does your body adjust to this massive decrease in calories?

It slows down how quickly you are burning your existing calories, including your fat. That way it believes it gives you the greatest chance for survival (remember it thinks you're starving to death).

The rate at which your body burns calories is commonly called your metabolism rate.

The slower your metabolism rate, the slower your body burns the stored calories you have (including fat). As your metabolism rate decreases, your body utilizes less of the calories you eat, and stores more of it as fat. So you have a double-whammy effect. First it slows down how quickly it burns your existing calories, and it slows down how quickly it burns new calories you just ate.

By having an extremely low metabolism rate, our forefathers (the hunter/gatherers) were able to survive for days without eating. Their bodies were used to going into what's called 'survival mode' or coping with the 'starvation response' (as I mentioned above).

So the lower your metabolism, the more calories you will store (including more fat cells), and the fewer calories you'll burn off, no matter what activity you do.

So now, let us bring this back to taking Hoodia and how it affects your metabolism rate.

I hope you see here that Hoodia is going to decrease your metabolism rate, the better it works. That's because it causes you to feel full, and so, you will most probably decrease the amount of calories you eat on a daily basis. When you do this, your body automatically responds by lowering your metabolism rate. So if you even eat a little bit over your new daily calorie level in the future, you will put the weight on far quicker than you lost it. That's a big negative.

So when you do decide to take Hoodia or any other weight loss supplement make sure you understand how it works, and how that will affect your body. You want to make healthy, effective changes that will give you a long term impact.