In This Article
In This Article
Our verdict: I got rid of some unwanted weight gain (1.5 lbs) in my first 10 days and PhenQ really did lower my overall appetite, making the whole process easier.
However, PhenQ does come with some side effects. I occasionally had an upset stomach after taking it, and the high caffeine content had a tendency to increase my anxiety.
PhenQ, under the massive and trusted Wolfson Brands, is a weight loss assistance supplement brand that includes PhenQ, PhenQ PM, and the PhenQ Complete Meal Shake.
Compared to many commercial brands, the PhenQ line of supplements contains plant extracts and naturally occurring ingredients.
PhenQ is backed by a team of scientists, nutritionists, researchers, and other health professionals, all of whom work to help millions of people reach their body recomposition and weight loss goals—the natural way. After years of research and iteration, the experts at PhenQ created the current and highly successful PhenQ weight loss formula.
PhenQ sets itself apart from the many disingenuous weight loss aids on the market. Touted as a natural weight loss supplement, PhenQ is not your average batch of weight loss pills. PhenQ is just one part of a natural weight loss plan, but it makes it easier to lose weight.
If you’ve looked online, there are many testimonials for PhenQ tied to product pages and influencers who have something to gain by telling you about PhenQ and plastering their links all over the place.
While you will find links to buy PhenQ fat burner bottles here, you’ll also find my honest, no-BS opinions and the ugly truths that come with them.
Losing weight is hard.
After the pandemic (when most of my weight loss happened), I noticed myself getting more and more comfortable with the amount of weight I had already lost. I experienced immense weight loss benefits, but it was because I stuck to a strict diet that didn’t give me much wiggle room.
I missed socializing with other people, which normally involves eating good food. My diet, a ketogenic diet, didn’t really allow me to go out and eat with my friends–at least, not the kind of food that still fit within its parameters. I was constantly being nagged by friends and family that my weight loss was “unhealthy” and that I needed to enjoy myself.
After a few stressful life events, I found myself off the Keto train and in dangerous territory, eating whatever I wanted. Within eight months, I had gained about 40 pounds and was in serious need of a reset.
PhenQ weight loss pills are the first supplement specifically designed to prevent weight gain and help you burn extra body fat that I have personally taken. Call me a diet pills skeptic, I lost over 130 lbs doing it the “natural” way—by changing my diet and exercising slowly and consistently.
I’m going to tell you the honest truth: I lost weight taking PhenQ.
In fact, not only did I shed almost two pounds of excess body weight, I found that my mood and energy levels were through the roof.
KnowYourDNA is dedicated to providing readers with reliable information on products that help them achieve their health goals.
We pick products based on:
Our in-house medical experts ensure the accuracy of our information.
Unfortunately, I did experience some negative side effects from the high amounts of caffeine that are in PhenQ.
While caffeine may be good for burning fat, it also has a tendency to keep me up at night, especially with how much there is in PhenQ.
One proven benefit of using caffeine for weight loss is that it suppresses appetite.1 Besides that, for me personally, if I take caffeine in the morning, I can often skip breakfast entirely—sometimes even lunch.
Caffeine has also been shown to boost your metabolism, which will have a cumulative effect on burning fat. The longer you use caffeine, the more metabolic benefits you will see.
Caffeine has been one of those essential supplements for my weight loss journey. Not just for burning stored body fat and getting rid of excess body weight, but also for boosting my mood and energy levels. Caffeine helps keep me happy and my mind optimistic about maintaining a calorie deficit to shed excess weight.
Have a stomach that doesn’t react well to spicy pepper? Then PhenQ’s unique fat-burning process might not be for you.
PhenQ contains CapsiMax, a proprietary blend of spicy pepper extract that has been shown in some studies to decrease fat storage and reduce body fat.2 It’s also a common ingredient in diet pills.
Capsaicin is also notorious for being the component of spicy peppers you find in Mexican and eastern cuisines that can irritate receptors in your stomach lining and cause unpleasant side effects such as nausea, upset stomach, and diarrhea for those not used to it.
For me, this caused the most obvious side effect of PhenQ. There is something about high-heat peppers and extracts that rub my stomach the wrong way, whereas normal spicy food might not. I found that whether I took PhenQ on an empty stomach or not, I still woke up the next day running to the bathroom.
It became quite unpleasant for me. You will have to decide if the marginal benefits of burning fat cells and aid weight loss is worth it for you personally.
a-LACYS RESET is a potent stored fat destroyer with no negative side effects. It’s the perfect combination of Alpha Lipoic Acid (ALA) and L-Cysteine, a naturally occurring amino acid that has been shown to help people lose fat. Alpha Lipoic acid is a chemical that is good for controlling blood sugar.
a-LACYS RESET and its patented combination of Alpha Lipoic Acid and L-Cysteine has been shown to aid weight loss. While ALA alone can help with fat loss, the combination of these two ingredients only boosts its efficacy. They aid in sports performance and recovery by controlling free radicals and slowing fat production.3
Reduces appetite and sugar cravings.
Can aid in fat burning, body composition, and lower body weight.4
Reduces feelings of hunger, may help burn fat.
PhenQ PM is the nighttime counterpart of the PhenQ supplements system, designed to help you burn fat at night without keeping you awake.
How is it different from PhenQ diet pills you take earlier in the day? Well, it helps you lose weight but without the stimulating effects of caffeine. PhenQ PM contains fat-burning ingredients like essential amino acids that prevent your body from filing new fat cells.
L-Arginine, L-Lysine, and L-Theanine are part of the proprietary blend of amino acids that some studies have shown aid in weight loss. They slow the conversion of sugars and fat production, which can help you retain muscle mass and promote fat loss.
What is the PhenQ Complete Meal Shake? It’s a branded PhenQ dietary supplement perfect for fat loss because it is a filling meal that is low in calories and made with natural ingredients.
The main constituents of the PhenQ Shake are oat flour, whey protein, and pea Starch. It’s a low-fat food perfect for holding your appetite back and keeping your body weight in check.
What does it taste like? I’m biased in this area because the flavor I got was chocolate, and I find artificial chocolate flavors pretty unappetizing.
I did find the texture to be pretty smooth, and it mixed pretty well. I’d call myself somewhat of a meal replacement expert since I’ve pretty much tried them all. When it comes to meal replacement shakes, this is pretty run-of-the-mill.
There are essential amino acids and a digestive enzyme complex (amylase, protease, cellulase, Lactase, Lipase) that should make it easier to digest as a quick lunch or snack fix.
One shake kept me pretty full for 3-4 hours, but I’m not sure if I would say it would completely replace a meal.
We already talked about how things like PhenQ’s CapsiMax Proprietary blend can help prevent weight gain and aid in your weight loss efforts.2
Now, I’m not sure whether you would consider this a positive or a negative, but my personal hunch is that irritation of my stomach lining and a little bit of nausea made it SO much easier to wait for my next meal after taking my first dose of PhenQ in the morning.
That citation also talks about capsaicin’s role in the natural defenses of the plants that contain it. Capsaicin wards off many would-be plant munchers in the wild. Humans like me and you are not completely immune to ingesting it.
Caffeine is also a natural appetite suppressant, and I found that the increased daily dose of caffeine I was getting from the PhenQ supplement was helping me avoid excess weight by skipping breakfast.1
My final take is that PhenQ, while touted as a weight loss supplement by its makers, could also be advertised as an intermittent fasting aid. I didn’t get hungry until 3-4 PM in the afternoon each day while maintaining a good mood and energy levels throughout the morning.
Naturally, it becomes hard to overeat and ingest too many calories—especially if you eat a healthy diet and don’t ingest high-caloric density junk later in the day.
This is a natural consequence of the last point I mentioned, but if you eat less and have fewer food cravings, PhenQ’s ingredients can help you lose weight. This was the largest benefit for me.
I like to tell people that I have a superhuman appetite. For some reason, I’m always hungry. I do have naturally high muscle mass, but the urge to eat makes fat loss hard. But, hand-in-hand with a healthy diet, PhenQ helped me reduce unwanted weight gain by helping me eat less.
PhenQ Reviews all over the internet report substantial boosts in mood and energy. That’s true to my own experience too. Most weight loss supplements contain caffeine, but PhenQ contains ingredients that help with more than the fat burning process.
Caffeine is the first obvious ingredient that helps you stay awake, eat less, and generate feelings of happiness and alertness.
Besides caffeine, vitamin B3, also known as niacin, helped me in the past feel slightly more alert and wake up in the morning.
Sometimes, a particular supplement just doesn’t agree with you. And while I experienced some side effects on PhenQ, it wasn’t enough for me to discount the benefits. But I was comfortable knowing that if I needed to, I could return my PhenQ order for its full price, guaranteed.
PhenQ doesn’t contain any pharmaceuticals like amphetamines (one of the most common weight loss drugs, Phentermine, is a stimulant that is regulated) that can prove harmful if ingested in combination with other weight loss supplements or prescription drugs.
PhenQ’s ingredients are vitamins, amino acids, plant extracts, and other components already found within nature or the human body. This is why the PhenQ weight loss supplement is openly sold and unregulated.
This does not mean, however, that these powerful weight loss pills won’t help you achieve your goals and cause you to lose excess weight.
The PhenQ instructions instruct that you take your first dose in the morning with breakfast. Taking PhenQ with a meal minimizes the effect it could have, which may lead to burning lean muscle mass instead of stored fat, which is what we DON’T want.
Ensuring that you have food in your stomach when you take your first pill also reduces the main reported side effect: nausea and an upset stomach. Like many other medications and weight loss supplements, some of the natural ingredients will mess with your stomach and make you sick if you don’t have food in your belly.
Taking the second dose with your lunch will enhance the fat burning process and also increase energy levels throughout the rest of your afternoon, along with reducing your hunger levels until you need to eat dinner.
PhenQ is a natural supplement designed to help you lose weight and burn body fat without becoming dependent on serious drugs and medications that need to be cycled like SARMs or phentermine.
PhenQ can be taken indefinitely, but I would recommend taking short breaks from it because of one of its main ingredients, caffeine. Caffeine, while helpful with weight loss, can increase feelings of stress or anxiety in the long term and is also less effective when used for long periods.5
PhenQ weight loss supplement users should take care to avoid too much extra caffeine from drinks like energy drinks, coffee, or tea since a daily dose of PhenQ pills contains almost 300mg of caffeine already.
PhenQ can support weight loss efforts. However, fat accumulation will still happen if calorie intake is above what you burn.
PhenQ weight loss supplements WILL help you eat less, but they won’t magically get rid of new fat cells that might come from excessive intake of sugary sodas, desserts, fast food, and other extremely calorie-dense foods.
To decrease body fat, you still need to eat less than you did when you gained excess body fat, or nothing will change.
The health benefits of weight loss can’t be achieved with a dietary supplement alone. But PhenQ pills will make it easier to achieve a fat burning state, reduce sugar cravings, and lose fat you would otherwise gain from an unmanageable appetite.
Most users buy their PhenQ weight loss pills directly from the manufacturer at PhenQ.com
PhenQ.com hosts discounts for products purchased in multiple bottle quantities:
The more PhenQ diet pills you buy in one batch, the more money you will save. Keep this in mind if you plan to be on a weight loss journey for over a month, as one bottle will only last for a single month at the cost of over $2 a day.
| Weight Loss Supplements | Cost/Bottle | 60-day Money Back Guarantee | Contains Caffeine? | CapsiMax and Lacys Reset Compounds |
| PhenQ | $70 | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Hydroxycut | $20 | No | Yes | No |
| LeanBean | $41 | No | Yes | No |
| Prime Shred | $70 | No | Yes | No |
One of the many advantages of PhenQ over Hydroxycut is the proprietary ingredient system that it contains.
This is part of the increased cost behind PhenQ. Hydroxycut may be cheaper, but Wolfson brands, the creator of PhenQ, must pay the license holders for the use of these special blends. a-LACYS RESET and CapsiMax are two ingredient systems within PhenQ that you won’t find in Hydroxycut.
One of the other benefits of PhenQ is that it comes with a 60-day money-back guarantee if you are unhappy with the results. This applies to all of the other pills that help you lose weight I will list here.
One more thing worth mentioning is that Hydroxycut requires you to take more pills than PhenQ and contains more caffeine.
If you are sensitive to stimulants, you should be careful about using the PhenQ Fat Burner system and other supplements for burning fat in general.
Speaking of stimulants, one supplement that doesn’t contain caffeine or any other stimulant is LeanBean. If you’re sensitive to caffeine but still interested in using supplements to burn fat, it might be one to look into.
PhenQ also has a 60-day money-back guarantee compared to LeanBean’s 30-day money-back guarantee. Worth considering if you plan on testing it out.
PhenQ contains fewer pills than Prime Shred, with a 2:3 ratio. Prime Shred also contains more caffeine. Both of these factors are worth considering if you are sensitive to caffeine or taking many pills.
Prime Shred contains Capsaicin, but not in the same proprietary formula that PhenQ does. After trying PhenQ, I did some research online. I saw from user testimonials, reviews, and personal experience posts that the average user experienced better appetite-suppressing effects with PhenQ. Both contain appetite-suppressing ingredients, but PhenQ’s CapsiMax proprietary blend and other ingredients seem to be something special.
Also, if you’re taking PhenQ PM, the PM formula contains the same Amino Acid complex that Prime Shred has. If you take both PhenQ and PhenQ PM, you’re getting many of the benefits you would with Prime Shred.
One of the most important factors to consider before getting a bottle of PhenQ to aid in your weight loss journey is whether or not you can afford to buy it for however long you plan to lose weight.
I would say, as a weight loss supplement, PhenQ can be pricy. But even I, a skeptic, have to admit that it has some magic compared to most weight loss supplements. Its ability to fend off my hunger between meals, especially allowing me to skip breakfast and not be hungry until dinner if I so choose, is commendable.
Do you have a sensitive stomach? If so, PhenQ might not be right for you.
My experience with the weight loss benefits of PhenQ could be summarized as: towards the end of my trial, I had a few days where I debated whether or not today was a day I could handle some of the stomach discomfort that came with it.
In the end, though, I would choose avoiding weight gain and losing a little extra body fat over the small stomach-concerning symptoms I dealt with. On the one hand, I woke up most mornings with some degree of loose stools, combined with about an hour or two of mild nausea. On the other, It helped me burn a little fat, think about food less, and uplifted my mood.
I can’t understate how I started this trial as a “weight loss pills” skeptic. So, my telling you that the results were significant enough to warrant me continuing it for the rest of the month should mean a lot.
Note: I am not a doctor, I am an experienced supplements user coming to you with a word of caution about diet pills and their risks.
PhenQ does not contain ingredients that trigger common allergies like fruit or nuts. However, the PhenQ fat burner does contain a substantial amount of caffeine and other compounds like capsaicin that many might be sensitive to.
Please contact your doctor if you experience prolonged nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, racing heart, or problems breathing. Do not exceed (2) PhenQ weight loss pills per day.
For me, the nausea, upset stomach, and occasional diarrhea were annoying but something that I could deal with because I really enjoyed the positive effects I would get once the hour or so of feeling kind of poopy (no pun intended) were over.
I mentioned before how shocked I was at the ability of a single PhenQ diet pill to wipe the thought of food out of my brain for hours.
After all, that is the purpose of diet pills, isn’t it? Magic fat-burning pills don’t exist (yet), so something that makes uncomfortable weight loss efforts easier is totally worth it, in my opinion.
PhenQ retails for over $2 per day. This cost could be reduced if you use these dietary supplements only once daily, which, in the beginning, is a good idea.
These powerful weight loss pills definitely have the potential to make a smaller human throw up. The major downside of taking the PhenQ dietary supplements, for me, was the couple of times that I ran to the bathroom early in the morning or laid in bed praying I didn’t puke.
Try these fat burners at just one pill a day, and the cost per use seems much more reasonable. Otherwise, I suppose they cost about as much as an energy drink. Your mileage may vary, these are some of the most expensive diet pills on the market.
