The truth about diet packages

"Does your stomach look like this?, Are you sick of feeling tired and unattractive?......bla bla bla.....use Fat-a-melt, and you'll be a lucky slim person just like our model here........."

Yes its the diet package - toted as a quick, easy, safe way to lose weight. The advertising works because so many of us desperately want to be that lucky slim person. Get real people! If you can lose the weight, it will take a balanced eating program and more exercise than the average individual wants to think about - for the rest of your life - not a couple of months. There are tricks and gimmicks to the majority of these diet packages - some obvious, some dangerous and some downright deceitful.

Below you'll find a description of how popular diets appear to work and what goes wrong with them. I have changed the brand names to protect myself but you should be able to work out who they are.

JUNNY CRAYG
This is a diet that appears to help a lot of people. Its main program fees aren't horrendously expensive but you have to buy all your food from them on top of your fees and that can amount to quite a bit (more than the average Joe Bloggs can afford). In NZ the food will cost you $90 - $120 a week (US $180 - $240). The food that they sell you is a balanced eating plan, which is good, but its not the food that makes you lose the weight - its the vitamin and mineral tablets that you have to buy and take. In the Junny Crayg vitamins there are three different combinations of vitamins that will stimulate your metabolism, counteracting three common problems that contribute to obesity. For example a high intake of cobalt and iodine will stimulate your thyroid. This is all well and good except that your metabolism is being artificially stimulated. When you stop taking the tablets your metabolism goes back to its usual function and you begin to put the weight back on. In a way, Junny Crayg counts on the idea that fat people don't exercise and slim people do. If you become slim while using their product, then you will automatically become more active and exercise more, and by doing that you may be able to maintain a reasonable metabolism without having to stimulate it artificially.

WAYT-WATTCHAS
On the whole its not a bad program. Its a well balanced eating and exercise program. I have one bug-bear with it though. It avoids reality and is advertised like a miracle remedy and a short cut. There are no short cuts and miracle remedies. When you go onto their program, you will discover that there is a 'maintenance program', which is designed for you to use for the rest of your life, after you have reached your goal weight.

PHAT-BERNA
Yes - and then there is products like Phat-berna. Take a real close look at these one folks. In these you'll find all sorts of shit. Amino acids like Carnitine, Androsten, Arginine, Lycine, Ornithine, Phenylalanine, and various different combinations - all designed to do different things as well as artificially stimulate your metabolism. Phenylalanine helps because it ups your levels of CCK which is what tells your brain that you have eaten enough but if you take too much you will start suffer from insomnia and irritability and if you don't back it with exercise then you run the risk of doing damage to lean body mass - things like essential systems and muscles! They never tell you these things! But - looking at the reality of the thing - many of these diets are liquid diets. If you don't eat solids for three months - of course you're going to lose some weight - but you probably won't be too healthy either.

SEROTONIN PRODUCTS
There are many products on the market that talk about people who can't loose weight and crave carbohydrates and sweets. They say that your problem is most likely low serotonin levels and they may be right but why spend stupid amounts of money on a bottle of pills when all you really need to do is get into the milk and fruit.

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