A Chinese woman recently decided to have a stomach reduction operation after seven years of taking weight loss pills and actually putting on 100 pounds more than when she started taking them.

25-year-old Xiaoli (pseudonim) started taking weight loss pills seven years ago, after watching a convincing commercial on TV. She weighed around 100 pounds at the time, but felt like she needed to lose a bit of weight, and if some pills could help her do that, than why not?

The young woman recalls that the results were encouraging at first, but as soon as she stopped taking the pills, she not only put on all the pounds she had lost but added a few extra as well.

Little did she know that this was the beginning of a vicious cycle that would see her spend around 200,000 yuan ($30,000) on various weight loss pills and custom diet plans over the next 7 years, only to have her weight double during that time.

Xiaoli’s story was recently published by the Chengdu Business Daily newspaper, after the 25-year-old woman traveled from her hometown of Yibin to Chengdu, for a stomach reduction operation. She arrived at the Chengdu People’s Hospital and told the doctors there that after 7 years of struggling and nothing positive to show for it, the operation was her only chance.

The woman said that after her first experience with weight loss pills, she kept going online and searching for other pills and weight loss plans, but the results were always the same. She can’t even remember all the different drugs she has taken in the last 7 years, but what she does know is that none of them worked as advertised.

Yes, some actually helped her shed up to 29 pounds a month, but as soon as she stopped taking them, she soon ballooned back to her previous weight and even added on more pounds.

At one point, frustrated with the false advertising, she contacted the customer service of a certain weight loss program why they claimed their service prevented rebound weight gain when it really didn’t, and they just recommended her an even more complex plan and several weight loss pills. It didn’t work.

Xiaoli told the Chengdu Business Daily that she had spent around 200,000 yuan on weight loss pills and custom diet plans in the last 7 years, and showed reporters her online purchasing history as proof. The woman claimed she wanted people to be aware that advertising is very different from reality when it comes to weight loss products because she is a clear example of that.

Doctors at Chengdu People’s hospital said that while Xiaoli’s eating habits had certainly contributed to the weight gain, the drugs she had taken during the last seven years were the main cause. Wang Zhong, deputy director of the Department of Nutrition, told reporters that weight loss pills work by curbing appetite or increasing excretion to achieve rapid weight loss, but this effect is not stable and long-lasting. No matter how good the advertising for weight loss pills is, weight loss is a long-term systematic process.