While driving up to Oregon last year, we passed by this truck hauling milk across the Interstate.
I’ve seen these trucks many times, but that was the first time I was able to get a good photo of one. It says:
Milky-Way
Drink-A-Mug-A-Milk-A-Meal
Sounds like good advice to me, even if it was coined by the people trying to sell me milk.
My hair stylist was significantly skinnier. I had seen her a mere six weeks ago, so she had lost a lot of weight in a short amount of time.
“You look great!”
“Thanks! I’ve been doing a new diet.”
“Really? What are you doing?”
“It’s the HCG diet…”
She continued talking, but I froze up. That was that diet that was promoted by Kevin Trudeau and the FTC slapped him with a huge fine. I squeezed my eyes.
“Isn’t that the one with the injections?”
“Yeah. I go to a medical spa. I actually haven’t even met the doctor. I just go in once a week and the nurse hands me the injections that I give to myself every day. The doctor looks at my file, though.”
“Hmm…”
“Of course, you have to follow the diet, too. It’s really low fat and pretty restrictive.”
“Wow…”
I keep my mouth shut. Over the years, I have learned that people don’t want to hear me burst their bubble. They don’t want to know about double-blind testing against placebos. They don’t want to hear about the fact that they would have lost all that weight by themselves without those expensive injections. They don’t want to hear about the placebo effect. They just want to continue living their weight loss fantasy.
And who am I to burst it for her? Heck, the placebo effect is WORKING for her! I’m not going to get involved with the power of that.
If you want to know the SCIENCE, however, it’s pretty damning when it comes to HCG injections. Here are links to just two of the many studies that were conducted in a proper manner (1976 and 1990), showing that HCG is no better than saline solution when it comes to benefits of weight loss.
Two hundred two patients participated in a double-blind random cross-over study of the effectiveness of human chorionic gonadotropin (HCG) vs placebo in a weight reduction program. Serial measurements were made of weight, skin-fold thickness, dropout rates, reasons for dropping out, and patient subjective response. There was no statistically significant difference between those receiving HCG vs placebo during any phase of this study (P greater than .1).
Low-dose human chorionic gonadotrophin (HCG) combined with a severe diet remains a popular treatment for obesity, despite equivocal evidence of its effectiveness. In a double-blind, placebo-controlled study, the effects of HCG on weight loss were compared with placebo injections. Forty obese women (body mass index greater than 30 kg/m2) were placed on the same diet supplying 5,000 kJ per day and received daily intramuscular injections of saline or HCG, 6 days a week for 6 weeks. A psychological profile, hunger level, body circumferences, a fasting blood sample and food records were obtained at the start and end of the study, while body weight was measured weekly. Subjects receiving HCG injections showed no advantages over those on placebo in respect of any of the variables recorded. Furthermore, weight loss on our diet was similar to that on severely restricted intake. We conclude that there is no rationale for the use of HCG injections in the treatment of obesity.
For more information about Kevin Trudeau:
The new season of True Blood started a couple of weeks ago and it reminded me of something Lafayette said last season:
A way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, that shit true as gold. You put some love in your food and a fool can taste it.
Raelle Tucker, True Blood, Cold Ground, 2008
In the episode, Sookie’s grandmother had been murdered and the entire town showed up with casseroles to console her. Tara and Lafayette were wondering what to do with all the food and Lafayette said they should just throw it all away, “Sookie don’t need no bad juju cookin’.” People were scared when they made the food and he could smell it. You can see the scene here (Warning: Strong Language):
I think Lafayette was right. Food made with anger and bitterness doesn’t quite taste as good as food made with love and joy. That’s why home cooking tastes so good. It was made for us with love. That’s why some restaurants just make mediocre food. It was made with indifference.
The next time you’re choking down a healthy meal that just doesn’t taste right, think to yourself, “Did I make this with love and joy? Did I just throw the ingredients together haphazardly?” Next time you make a meal, really think about who is going to eat it and the benefits that you hope they will receive from the meal. It will truly make a difference in how the meal will taste (at least to you, if not the others).
This article from Rudd Sound Bites takes a fascinating look at Disney’s efforts to brand themselves with celery, bananas and blueberries.
It’s hard enough to find unbranded versions of almost any child-related items (diapers, bottles, clothing, toys, just to name a few), but come on, cartoon-stamped eggs? Really? Do we need to turn fruits and vegetables into another “But I want the Mickey Mouse ones!†battleground? And do we really want kids to learn that you buy, eat or enjoy food because of a cartoon character’s ‘endorsement’? Whatever happened to food itself and to the pleasure of eating?
Unfortunately, Camille Lizarribar has completely forgotten what it was like to be a kid. COMPLETELY.
I, however, vividly remember being a kid. Observe this Bozo the Clown fork. It was part of a set of spoon and fork that I loved as a child. Even looking at that fork right now makes me feel happy and special. When I was a kid, my cereal tasted BETTER when I ate it with my Bozo the Clown spoon. I remember refusing to eat one morning because the Bozo the Clown spoon wasn’t clean. The vision of my frustrated mother hurriedly washing my spoon just so that I would eat my breakfast is burned into my mind. I think I was three or four years old because I wasn’t even in school yet.
I wasn’t the only kid with this obsession. My sister Stacey felt the exact same way. I’m the LUCKY one because I got the Bozo the Clown fork (the spoon was long ago lost or demolished). My sister was a full five years younger than me and never lived east of the Rocky Mountains. She had never even SEEN an episode of Bozo the Clown, yet she loved that spoon as much as I did.
Really, Camille? Do you not remember feeling like that when you were a kid? There MUST have been something that made you feel like that.
If plastering Hannah Montana’s face on bananas and strawberries urges children to eat healthy food, then I’m all for it!
What is food to one, is to others bitter poison.
Lucretius, De Rerum Natura
I think that part of the reason that there are SO MANY diets out there in the world is because of this known fact. A half a century before the birth of Christ, Lucretius knew that for some people certain foods are healthy and for others it is nothing more than poison. Sure, the diet industry is fueled by the desire to make money, but the reason that there are so many different diets available is because they ALL work.
Yep, you’ve heard time and time again that diets don’t work, but sorry, those people are WRONG.
Diets DO work. They just don’t work for everyone.
That’s why some people can lose weight on the vegan diet while others grow fat on it. That’s why some people thrive on the low carbohydrate diets while other people feel lethargic and exhausted. That’s why some people lose weight while eating as much pasta as they want while other people are literally sick from all the wheat and gluten.
The important thing is to find the diet that works for YOU. Take the time to see what kinds of foods are healthy for you and what kinds are poison. Once you know what works for you and what doesn’t, you’ll feel so empowered to follow your diet that it will mean more to you than anything said in a diet book or website.
Powered by Twitter Tools.
I read teen lit all the time, mostly because the science fiction is better than the sci-fi written for adults (less sex and more cool ideas: see Scott Westerfeld for more). While perusing the teen section at my local bookstore, I saw The Fat Girl by Marilyn Sachs. The blurb on the back of the book was compelling to me.
Jeff Lyons can’t stand Ellen de Luca, the fat girl in his ceramics class. She’s huge and clumsy, can’t throw a pot to save her life, and stares at Jeff all the time. But he’s a “nice guy” and feels bad when Ellen overhears his hurtful remarks about her. The “crumbs of kindness” he tosses her way soon turn into advice on weight loss, college, clothes, hair… To everyone’s surprise, good-looking Jeff soon dumps his pretty girlfriend to be with the fat girl! But as her pounds melt away, Jeff resents the happy, independent young woman he has unleashed. Where is the gratitude for all he’s done for her?
Through most of this book, I had a uneasy sense of distress for Ellen. Here was this good-looking guy who seemed to enjoy being with her only because she was easy to control. He dressed her, he chose their activities, he was in complete control and when he wasn’t in control, he was pissed off at her. It just didn’t seem like a healthy relationship. Fortunately, Marilyn Sachs is a brilliant writer who can make even the controlling Jeff Lyons a likable character and the story works out well for everyone in the end.
Overweight teen girls LOVE stories about fat girls who lose the weight and end up with the cutest guy in school. I know this because I was an overweight (or so I had been told my whole life) teenage girl. My beloved fat girl book that I read over and over in ninth grade was
Dreams Can Come True by Jane Claypool Miner. It was about a girl name Ellie who lost a lot of weight right at the time that her mother moved her to California, so none of the kids knew how fat she used to be at her old school and none of them were surprised when she tried out for cheerleader. It all risks crashing down around her when her old friend from the Midwest comes back to visit, exposing her dark secret of her past self. I LOVED that book and read it countless times. Even now, I’ve come to realize that my desire to move to California was first spawned by that very book.
Unlike Dreams Can Come True, The Fat Girl is a book about losing the weight and coming into your own life and an additional story about not allowing anyone to control you or your dreams. It’s a better role model story about health and fitness for young girls than Dreams Can Come True and I wish I could go back in time and give it to my fourteen year old self instead.
This postcard from PostSecret made me crinkle my brow in confusion.
It reads:
I told everyone I ran the race…
But really, I went to Starbucks, enjoyed a latte, and watched everyone else run past the window.
My confusion was, “So what?” Races are held to earn money. If you paid the entrance fee, they got what they wanted. If you didn’t run the race, you didn’t get all the benefits of training, so anyone can tell that you didn’t run it. It all was a big confusion until I realized how different I am from a lot of people.
I don’t care if other people know I ran a race. The MOST important thing about running a race is that I know that I did it. It was never about impressing other people. I’ve been trying my best to impress myself all along.
Ironically, no matter how many races I run (or walk), I have yet to really impress myself. I might as well have sat at Starbucks for all the lack of self esteem I’ve achieved from race participation over the years. The only thing that has been better is that I am stronger. I can’t deny that, no matter how much I feel like I have to prove myself.
PostSecret‘s beneficiary is the National Hopeline Network. It is a 24-hour hotline (1 (800) SUICIDE) for anyone who is thinking about suicide or knows someone who is considering it.
When I first saw Project Natal, flashbacks of trying to get Playstation’s Eye Toy to work filled my mind. The disappointment of a new toy that doesn’t work was all I could think about.
It just looked like a marketing ploy and I had no hope that it would work.
Then I saw this video of Felicia Day playing with Project Natal:
Just found this video of me doing Natal. It was pretty much the highlight of my E3. It is so fun and surreal to be IN the video game. Can’t wait to be able to cast a fireball with a single thrust!
Felicia Day is a long time World of Warcraft gamer, so I tend to believe her opinion a little more than the marketing spiel I saw from Microsoft, until…
I noticed that they have her playing on a white carpet in front of a white wall. How many of you have a stark white wall to stand in front of when you’re playing a video game? Not me. The video games are in the living room, so I’m standing in front of a couch. Sure, it’s easy for Project Natal to be able to see Felicia’s movements when she’s standing in front of a big white wall. Throw a couch and some friends on it and once again, I have SERIOUS doubts about whether this thing could work.
People have been saying that Project Natal is going to give the Nintendo Wii a run for their money in the exergaming market. I’d love for it to be true, but I think we’re going to have to wait ten years before technology is good enough for this to work in any living room.
This video was made by BenjaminLotan. His description of it:
Compilation of Rachel Ray mmmmm’ing after tasting food on her show 40 dollars a Day… slowed down to 40% original speed…
All of the shows on the Food Network seem strangely obsessed with food. I know it’s the Food Network, but come ON! It can’t taste THAT good! Of course then there are some of the shows on the Food Network, where the insanely skinny hostess tastes all the food, but you never see her swallow on camera. I just imagine that she spits it out as soon as the camera stops rolling.
This obsession with food CAN’T be healthy.
Via: Littlest, Yellowest, Differentest – RACHEL RAY EATS HER FEELINGS
Powered by WordPress
(c) 2004-2017 Starling Fitness / Michael and Laura Moncur
Buy Walking Videos