Starling Fitness: Daily writings on Fitness, Diet, and Health

When we decide to lose weight, we are vulnerable. There were times when I felt like I was willing to do ANYTHING to lose the weight. Companies prey on that. One way to find out whether a product is good or not is to find an independent reviewer to rate the product. That’s where Consumer Reports comes in.

Consumer Reports is a non-profit organization that rates everything under the sun from cars to blenders. They have a large selection of health and fitness ratings. Just recently they rated the popular diet plans, putting Weight Watchers, Slim-Fast and The Zone (men’s menu) at the highest and giving Atkins the lowest rating.

They are a subscription site, so to see their ratings, you have to pay a yearly or monthly fee. There are a couple of their articles that are free, however.

• Stability balls – They can bolster your midsection

• Invest in your health – Which health products and services are worth paying for?

• Health benefits of weight loss vs. exercise

• Decide which machine best suits your workouts and available space: Treadmill vs. Elliptical

Each article is a simple introduction to its respective subject. The Stability Ball entry is really thorough with a few exercises demonstrated with descriptions and pictures. They are a good introduction to Consumer Reports as well. If you are planning on buying a piece of pricey exercise equipment and have no idea where to start, they are worth the one-time monthly fee to search their ratings. The $5 fee is the cost of one magazine, but you get to search four years of issues. Don’t get ripped off by cheap exercise products and unscrupulous nutritionists. Check it out before you buy it with Consumer Reports.

Via: Consumer Health Digest – May 10, 2005

I saw the sweetener at Wild Oats. It was in a bright green box and cost a whopping 25 bucks, but I thought I would try it. It’s supposed to be natural, right? It tasted good. It only took a tiny amount to sweeten my herbal tea. I was happy with it and didn’t think much about the reason it was marketed as an herbal supplement instead of a sweetener.

• Quackwatch – Stevia: Is It Safe? – by Stephen Barrett, M.D.

The reason it is marketed as a herbal supplement instead of a sweetener (or any other type of food) is because they haven’t bothered to go through the FDA process of proving that Stevia doesn’t kill people. They haven’t even proved that Stevia is zero calories.

Think of all the products who go through the rigorous testing that the FDA requires and still kill people. I tossed my very expensive box in the garbage. Until they bother proving to me that the product is safe, they aren’t getting any more of my money.

Hoodia Gordonii is a cactus that is supposed to suppress the appetite. Everything that I have read about this stuff sounds like hype. I’ve found some articles recommending that you avoid the supplements because they tend to not contain what they say they do (surprise, surprise), but very little information about clinical trials or safety.

• Wikipedia – Hoodia

• BBC News – Sampling the Kalahari cactus diet – by Tom Mangold

• CBS News – African Plant May Help Fight Fat – by Lesley Stahl

• Fit FAQ – All About Hoodia Gordonii

• News Target – Hoodia Gordonii weight loss pills scam exposed by independent investigation

• Really Useful Fitness Blog – Hoodia Gordonii Alert

Wouldn’t it be funny if the stuff has a million calories and fat in just one bite? It would explain the appetite suppression…

The Wikipedia entry on Hoodia gordonii sums it up perfectly:

There is no published scientific evidence that Hoodia works as an appetite suppressant in humans. The safety and/or effectiveness of Hoodia Gordonii as a dietary supplement must thus be considered as unsubstantiated.

I was just cruising the grocery aisle when I came across this TV Dinner. It’s 16 ounces of food. The box announces it in bold letters, “1 lb. of food!” That cheeseburger and cheese fries looked so good to me. I figured it must be pretty small considering how big the box was. I was shocked when I turned it over and looked at the nutrition facts.

At 1110 calories, 66 grams of fat and 9 grams of fiber, that calculates to 27 Points on the Weight Watchers Flex Point Plan. Do you know how many points I’m allotted every day? 22 That one frozen dinner is a full 5 Points more than I’m supposed to eat every day (not including Flex Points).

If someone had shown me the picture and asked me to guess the points, I would have guessed 6 for the burger and 8 for the fries. I would have said 14 points, missing the mark by a full 13 points. I am so grateful that the FDA requires the nutrition facts on all food now. I would have eaten this monster and wondered why I didn’t lose weight.

I put the dinner back in the freezer where I found it…

It sounds so easy, doesn’t it? Get a dog, and you’ll be forced to exercise at least twice a day. You will have a running partner who is always willing to go with you. You will have a foolproof reason to get your butt out the door. You’ll even feel a little safer with the dog with you.

Yeah… it didn’t quite work out like that for me…

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I’ve seen the ads at the gym. They flash on the television while I’m sweating away on the elliptical trainer. Anna Nicole Smith is thin and beautiful again and the words, “Be Envied” burn themselves into my forehead. Isn’t that what we all want? Sure, those bitchy looks from women might sting a bit, but they wouldn’t give you those looks if you didn’t have something to be proud of, right?

Isn’t that what life is about? Survival of the fittest is all about being the Alpha. Anything below Alpha is going to envy me, right?

• About.com – What you need to know about Trimspa diet pills – by Cathy Wong, ND

The only thing that can wipe the slogan for the diet pills off my forehead is the knowledge that I am doing this to be healthy. I am exercising to be healthy. I am eating nutritionally to be healthy. I am limiting my portions to be healthy. Healthy shines through my skin and shows up in my hair and nails. Healthy reveals my firm and toned muscles under my skin. There is no fast forward to healthy. There is no pill that can give me that result.

Plus, when I finally get there, I will Be Envied, and I’ll know I earned it.

Chitosan is an ingredient that has been marketed as a “fat magnet.” It is said that it can cause weight loss by preventing fat from being absorbed. Unfortunately, the claims are too good to be true. Three studies have found that chitosan has no measurable effect on weight loss.

Quackwatch: Is Chitosan a “Fat Magnet”? – by Stephen Barrett, M.D.

The FDA and FTC are cracking down on advertisers that claim that this product can help you lose weight without changes in your diet and exercise, but that doesn’t protect you from health store employees that like to recommend these products. So watch out…

My cat likes to sit on paper. If she were in an empty room and one sheet of paper was lying on the floor, my cat would be sitting on it. That’s about the best use I can think of for this week’s US Weekly.

The headline reads, “20 Best Body Makeovers: How top stars went from flab to fab!” Referring to any one of those twenty women with the adjective “flab” is a travesty. Even when Oprah Winfrey and Queen Latifah were at their heaviest, they were fabulous. I sat there looking at all the before pictures thinking, “If that is flab? How could I ever measure up?”

Margaret Cho said that when she looks at the pictures of women in fashion magazines wearing things that she could barely fit on her finger, she thinks, “If that’s what being a woman is all about, I must not be one.” I understand how she feels. Sometimes I feel so disconnected from the media’s perception of female beauty. Magazines like this week’s US Weekly just make me want to pound someone into a bloody pulp.

It’s such a contrast from the January article about the same issue. The Sexy Diet Secrets that turned out to be eat less and exercise more was so down to earth. This week’s article calls twenty beautiful and stunning women flabby and then touts “losing baby fat” as fabulous.

They did provide one tip per woman on how they lost the weight. These tips amounted to the same story of eating less and moving more, but the focus of the article was the before and after pictures. It was as if some catty girl’s club sat down and looked at all the pictures. “Look at her thighs. She was FAT. I can’t believe she went out in public looking like that!” When all I can see is one fabulous before picture after another.

Worst of all, there wasn’t one man on the list. What about Billy Bob Thornton? That boy looked like he was on death’s door when he first met Angelina Jolie and by the time she was finished with him, he was toned up and looking hot. What about the lead singer of The Goo Goo Dolls, Johnny Rzeznik? After pressure from his record label, he dropped weight and came back lean. There is not one mention of Tom Hanks’ multiple dances with weight loss for movie roles. What about Matt LeBlanc? He starved himself on The Zone diet to keep Joey’s character slim and sexy. Sure he was fabulous before, but so was Beyonce.

Don’t waste your money on this week’s US Weekly.

Snopes.com, the best urban legend debunking website around, has an article about an email piece that has been hitting the inboxes of people across the United States.

• Snopes.com – Vitamin See – by Barbara Mikkelson

The email in question states that you will no longer be allowed to buy vitamins over the counter if you do not act immediately. The article does a good job explaining why the email is invalid and give a clear and concise explanation of the issues regarding dietary supplements.

This article is a very concise and interesting piece on deceptive advertising for weight loss products:

Tijuana Fitness – More Deceptive Weight Loss Advertising Tactics

It names companies that have been shown to take quotes out of context and misuse scientific data to promote their merchandise.

Companies/Products Named:

• Enforma / Fat Trapper
• Oxycise
• AbTronic
• Cytodyne / Xenadrine

Check out the article for the full story and think twice before using any of these products.