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The Nation’s Quick Fix for Fat Loss
by Scott White
Here we are in
2006, spending billions of dollars on products such as Slim-Fast, the
Atkins Diet, Ensure, Dr. Phil’s nutritional products, vitamins, Weight
Watchers...and the list goes on. After spending all this money and
consuming all these products, why does our nation continue to lose the
fight against obesity, which will soon be the No. 1 killer in America?
Let’s take a
look at these products that supposedly work miracles for our waistlines.
Slim-Fast
Well, let’s see
— early ads for the product said something like, “Drink this Slim-Fast
shake for breakfast, eat a sensible lunch, and have one more Slim-Fast
shake for dinner.” What they should have said is, “You’re better off not
drinking the worthless Slim-Fast shake and not eating anything at all,
because this Slim-Fast program just prepares your body for starvation.”
Using meal replacements like Slim-Fast, you’ll lose a little weight at
first, but soon you’ll lose muscle because your body isn’t getting
enough energy or nutrients to maintain its mass.
Losing the
muscle will make you lose weight quickly, but it also will slow down
your metabolism significantly. Muscle maintenance is very important for
sustaining a high metabolism. When you lose muscle, your metabolism
drops, meaning you use energy more slowly. Eventually, you will have to
go off the diet because with so few calories and nutrients, your body
won’t be able to function regularly. You must either start eating more
or suffer potentially serious health consequences.
Another
possibility is that because you’re now looking good, having reached your
goal weight, you will begin eating more food. The truth, though, is that
you’re now just a smaller fat person, because you have lost all
of your fat-burning machinery (muscle). Now, you eat just a little and
quickly stack the pounds back on — and, in fact, soon you’re heavier
than you were before you lost all that weight. And, because you haven’t
been working out and haven’t gained any muscle, all you’re gaining now
is fat. This cycle causes your metabolism to slow even further, making
it increasingly more difficult to lose weight each time you try to
resume your Slim-Fast diet plan.
Slim-Fast works
— for a short period of time. Don’t blame yourself for not being able to
follow it over the long term. This program sets your physiology up for
failure. You have no choice about it — your body’s will to survive will
force you to eat. And since you have destroyed your metabolism, you will
start gaining more fat than you ever imagined.
Ensure
Here’s another
one: “Ensure, the great drink for your health.” What a joke! Marketing
companies tell you lies to sell their nutritional products: Well, let’s
examine this great Ensure shake. Ensure has only 12 grams of protein,
and low-quality protein at that. Low quality protein comes from animals
that have been mistreated, malnourished and fed hormones in order to
produce more. High quality protein comes from animals that have been
corn fed and allowed to roam freely, not locked up inside at all times. Now for the nutrition
portion: Ensure protein drinks are loaded with 20+ plus grams of sugar,
which is way too much sugar for anything that labels itself a health
drink. In fact, the first ingredients listed on the Ensure protein drink
are water, sugar, and more sugar. Protein is the third to fifth
ingredient listed.
How can anyone
tell me this Ensure drink is actually healthy for you? These companies
spend millions of dollars on marketing, but spend very little money on
the actual ingredients of their products. Ensure protein drinks do not
provide quality nutrients — so why are you buying them?
Instead, spend
that money on quality organic foods. If you really need a food
supplement, try great protein powders and multivitamins like Jay Robb's
Living Fuel and Super Nutrition's Perfect Blend APP Full Spectrum, which will benefit your body far more than any
low-quality product Ensure makes. Purchase the high-quality products,
and you will feel far better — not to mention look better!
Remember, no
supplement will beat Mother Nature’s quality organic food. But if you
are going to buy protein shakes and drinks and take a multivitamin,
Jay Robb's Living Fuel and Super Nutrition's Perfect Blend APP Full
Spectrum are the high-quality nutritional products I
recommend.
Dr. Phil’s
Nutrition Shake
Next, we have
Dr. Phil’s Nutrition Shake. What this amounts to is just another
celebrity trying to influence us to buy his product. It is amazing how
celebrities can sell just about anything because of their status,
prestige, and mystique. We’re so ready to listen to celebrities’ advice
about health and fitness — and many of them aren’t even in the best
shape or health.
Listen, folks.
Companies pay Dr. Phil, Oprah, and other celebrities a lot of money to
advertise their products on the celebrities’ TV shows. Large companies
give celebrities a paycheck for getting you, the naive public, to
purchase these so-called great health products.
Dr. Phil is not
a fitness buff. He looks like most middle-aged men — someone who could
stand to lose a few pounds, not someone who should be giving health and
fitness advice. I read Dr. Phil’s book, and when I got to the portion on
exercise and nutrition, I wondered why he didn’t hire a professional
personal trainer and nutritionist to help bring some actual fitness
knowledge to his book. Dr. Phil has so much influence over the American
public, and here he is selling these low-quality products and offering
sub-par advice on nutrition and exercise.
Come on, Dr.
Phil, get off of your star status and stick to psychology. Only the best
certified nutritionist and/or personal trainer can offer an unfit,
out-of-shape person qualified guidance about what’s best for their
health. Dr. Phil’s products are made with low-quality ingredients. As a health professional, I cannot recommend his products
for losing fat or helping you look great.
Dr. Phil — or
any other celebrity, for that matter — shouldn’t be speaking about
nutrition and exercise. Our role models and spokespeople for nutrition
and health advice or products should be the professional personal
trainers and nutritionists who know how to achieve optimal health.
Clearly, it’s a bad idea to buy a pill or nutritional supplement that is
of questionable quality. How can you know for sure? Consult a
well-trained professional who has the proven certifications, expertise,
and qualifications to qualify them as an expert. In the meantime, buy
fresh, organic food, nutrition that will help you feel great and look
even better.
The Solution
Stop consuming
Slim-Fast shakes, Ensure, or Dr. Phil’s products!
Start eating
sensibly and exercising regularly. If everyone ate sensibly and got
regular exercised, obesity would lose the battle of killing us slowly.
We will be infinitely better off if we can, as a society, eat healthier
foods and stop spending money on so-called “nutritional” products like
Slim-Fast, Ensure, the Atkins Diet, celebrity diets like Dr. Phil’s
Weight-Loss Plan, and Weight Watchers.
All of these
programs are geared to set you up for failure, especially if you don’t
exercise. I hate to say it — hell, no, I don’t! I love to say it!
The big “E” word. You MUST exercise. You can’t just hope to eat well and
avoid exercising with weights. The fact is, the less active we become
during the day, the more time we must spend in the gym, either working
with a personal trainer or on our own. Learn how to exercise correctly.
Don’t waste time or money as you battle the bulge of your belly.
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