Forever Fighting Fat: The Never Ending Weight Loss Journey

Newspaper Column: The 3 day diet to lose 10 pounds -- includes Hot Dogs!

Get ready for another diet rant! My column in the newspapers is about a diet that -- you won't believe this -- considers hot dogs as part of what one needs to eat! follow this link

Acai Berry Diet, Colon Cleanse and My Tired Old Soapbox

I'm down with the social networking (kinda). I've got four blogs. I'm on LinkedIn. I receive tweets on twitter and I can email my posts via posterous. I have a facebook account. I'm an "expert" on eons.com. I post articles on Helium, Wellness, Associated Content and Wellsphere. And I share my photos on flickr and my presentations on slideshare. For a guy in his fifties, I really need to get out more.

It seems the internet "knows" where I go. Because when I'm on my home page, reading my RSS feeds, and catching up with what's going on; the ads on the pages I visit seem to be related to weight loss. I'll see countless ads from Weight Watchers. Lately I've seen the manly ads from Nutri System.  (You can tell they're manly because the spokesmen are athletes and they're burly and they yell at you and there's loud music.) I am also inundated with banner ads that sell supplements.

So, today, I see this:

I'm kind of intrigued by the reference to Oprah because she's one who's credible and I want to know what the "one flat stomach rule" is. So, I click on the link. I'm taken to this page. On that page, I see this:

As it turns out, good old Melanie Thomas has created her very own blog to talk about how great she's doing on her diet, which she figured out by combining Acai Berry and Colon Cleanse (hopefully not in the blender; yich!). She has posted this blog and her history to show us what a wonderful job it's done and to encourage all of us to try it. She's a very thoughtful, warm person who only wants to help, I'm sure.  to support her statements, she provides "proof" of the changes she has made as shown in these photos:

Turn off your fat switch? Come on!

It's that time of year again, and if you've followed what I do for any length of time, you know one of my pet gripes is all slimy "I'll-sell-you-anything-to-get-some-money-from-you" types that come out of the woodwork (especially this time of year).  Of course, they wouldn't make a cent if it wasn't for the fact that people keep buying into it (literally and figuratively).

So, I'm looking at Newsweek and find this ad.

I am so tired of "do nothing" and lose all the weight you want scams! Now, of course, I am not saying this is a scam but I do find rather suspect for several reasons:

1) Do a Google news search for Irvingia and you find absolutely nothing.  Wouldn't one think that if a new ingredient came out that "turned off one's fat switch," it would have made some news somewhere?

2) Ditto fucoxanthin. Worse than that, read what another blogger wrote.

3) The add says it boosts fat-burning at the cellular level -- with a big ol' fatty asterisk next to it. A few comments here. First of all, where else would fat burning take place? The ligament level? The skeletal level? Fat is a cell. Any changes to fat would obviously take place at a cellular level. To me, that comes across as simply marketing hype.

Secondly, follow the asterisk to the bottom of the page where you will see "These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration." This basically means I can say anything because I've put the disclaimer on the bottom. Evaluate and then promote, not the other way around, please.

4) 28 pounds in 10 weeks is no big deal. A healthy, practical, natural weight loss would give you 15-20 pounds in that period and you would not have the added expense of this product. Plus, if you don't change your habits, no matter how fast the weight loss, you'll put the weight back on again anyway.

5) Footnotes 1-2 at the end of previous statement.

Footnote number 1 says "submitted for publication 2008" but it does not give any more information about that study. Footnote number 2 references the 5th International Conference for Chronic Diseases: Obesity and Related Diseases. I Google'd it. Couldn't find anything except information on the conference. No report. It doesn't mean it's not there, but -- just me -- I would be yelling this report from the rooftops.

And finally, the coup d'grace: Look under where it says, "Offer ends 3/31/2008" (which is weird because it was in a December, 2008 edition of Newsweek, but that could have been an error) and you will see these famous last words, "This supplement should be taken in conjunction with a healthy diet and regular exercise program."

Arrrgghgg! If one eats a healthy diet and exercises regularly, she won't need this!

OK, I'm done. You can remove the soapbox now. Thank you.

Pet Peeve About Waitresses

I'm out of town right now, specifically, I'm speaking at a foster parent conference in Yakima, WA so I'm eating out every meal. I do pretty well when I'm out of town. I've discussed that before. Anyway, I'm by myself and the waitress comes over to me. Overall, she was close to excellent. She was fast and very friendly. She got the order right. She even laughed at my jokes.

 Her: "Can I get you anything else?"

Me: "Peace in our lifetime."

Her: <chuckle> "My shift ends too soon."

Me: "Big tip if you can do it."

Her: <chuckle again>

However, if you're a waitress and you're reading this posting, I have a piece of advice to you from countless folks, who I'm sure all share this opinion: