A fitness coach ponders the weight loss industry and the promise of quick losses with minimal work.
This from Newton Daily News: She’s fed up with being overweight! It’s time for a change. The ad says lose 20 pounds and drop two dress sizes (just like the celebrity). She walks through the door of the weight loss center and is greeted by the diet counselor. The counselor weighs her, discusses current nutrition habits and puts her on the 1,000 calorie per day plan and tells her to walk/jog everyday. She is informed that her food intake will come from the packaged foods and delicious shakes sold by the center, and she will lose weight.
A week later the woman returns to the diet center after following “the program” and the first thing they do is direct her to the scale. She lost five pounds! In a week! She buys more packaged food. The second week, two more pounds! The third week,the scale doesn’t move. But the counselor is ready for this and explains she has hit the dreaded plateau. The counselor cuts her back to the center’s 800 calorie plan.
Sure enough, the woman loses weight again. The only problem is her cravings are getting the best of her. Her body is telling her to eat more; she believes it’s lack of willpower. She gives in and has some ice cream. She gets back on the scale. She’s hit her second plateau. She gives up, she quits and goes on an all out cookie binge. She gains all the weight back! She blames herself! Sound familiar?
. . . We see this same scenario day in and day out. Weight loss is a $44 billion dollar industry with a 99 percent failure rate, and obesity is at an all time high. We are on a mission to get the right information out to maximize people’s lives, not shorten them with fad diets, magic pills, surgeries and infomercials.
The truth is, the above scenario had nothing to do with willpower. The lack of quality nutrients (from processed, packaged food) and calorie deprivation made this a no-win solution. Her body was telling her to eat to survive. Her body doesn't understand she’s trying to lose weight. Protective mechanisms in her body told her she needed the nutrient she can survive off the longest, fat, and the substance that provided the quickest energy, sugar. The binge was caused by the diet.
The counselor failed to tell her the majority of her weight loss came from water and muscle tissue. Losing water means nothing with long-term weight loss, but it’s a great trick for the diet centers. They put her on the scale after a week to prove the diet was working. More significantly, she lost muscle due to such a low calorie intake. Muscle is metabolically active tissue, meaning it burns calories! By sacrificing muscle, she slowed metabolism. Muscle is also the site where fat is burned. Less muscle means reduced ability to burn fat. The result of her diet center choice: a slower metabolism, a hormonally-induced appetite, a reduction in fat burning ability and a guarantee to accumulate fat faster than previous to the diet.
Worst of all, she blames herself and plans to go back to the center and try again. After all, in her mind, it worked until she caved. . . .
Read the entire article. There is no industry more the progeny of the con men of yesteryear than the snake oil salesman who make up today's diet and weight loss industry.
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