The Straight Scoop About Weight Loss

This one is great.

Health “experts” in the United Kingdom are advising a new solution to their nation’s increased incidence of overweight and obesity.

This new solution is one of several included in a new report, “Obesity — Can We Turn The Tide?” which was recently published in the British Medical Journal.

Here’s the new solution these academics are advising:

Include a helpline phone number for weight loss advise in all clothes with a waist of more than 40 inches for men and 35 inches for women. They also recommend this warning label be placed in all women’s clothes with a size of 16 or above.

OK, so lets say you are above these size limits and so you find this warning label attached to all your clothing. Now what?

I guess these academics assume the people would call the phone number and get some weight-loss advice. But, what weight-loss advice are they going to get which has been proven to work? Are they going to recommend starting on one of the popular book-based diets or commercial weight-loss programs that have a 95% failure rate? Or — do they have some other advice in mind?

Is this crazy stuff or what?

Allen Oelschlaeger
Author of Finally, the Straight Scoop About Weight, Nutrition, and Fitness

The American Dietetic Association has come out with a great list of the “Ten Red Flags of Junk Science.”

Science frequently does junk research but there is no area where this practice is more common than with nutrition and weight loss.

We are bombarded with research study after research study which only create confusion because they all seem so contradictory. There are two reasons for this:

* Doing good and valid research in nutrition and weight loss is enormously difficult and it’s this difficulty that leads to contradictory outcomes.

* The results of the research are inappropriately presented to the public.

It is this second reason that the American Dietetic Association is targeting. Here are their ten red flags you should watch out for:

1. Recommendations that promise a quick fix
2. Dire warnings of danger from a single complex study
3. Claims that sound too good to be true
4. Simplistic conclusions drawn from a complex study
5. Recommendations based on a single study
6. Dramatic statements that are refuted by reputable scientific organizations
7. Lists of “good” and “bad” foods
8. Recommendatons made to help sell a product
9. Recommendations based on studies published without peer review
10. Recommendations from studies that ignore differences among individuals or groups.

My advice? Ignore all scientific research reported on by the media. There is no way you can separate the wheat from the chaff.

Yikes! I just read an article about weight loss that actually has some value.

It’s an article about weight-loss myths.

Here is how the article starts out:

“Myths are all over the place without a doubt. Some of these myths are really easy to debunk, but other myths seem so realistic that a lot of the times we take them as reality and sadly this affects our perception of things.”

Here are the myths the article lists:

* “Lose 30 pounds in 30 days”
* Fat is bad for you
* Carbohydrates are bad for you
* Lose weight by not eating
* Don’t eat after 6 p.m.
* Salad bars ahre healthy
* Diet sodas aid in weight loss
* You shouldn’t step on a scale
* You can lose weight with a pill
* You have to join a gym

Great stuff!

Allen Oelschlaeger
Author of Finally, the Straight Scoop About Weight, Nutrition, and Fitness

In 2002, Steve Ballmer — the president of Microsoft — lost 50 pounds. His success prompted the company to offer a weight management benefit to all employees.

Here is what’s included:

* Year’s worth of sessions with a personal trainer

* Behavioral and nutritional counseling

* Support groups

* Medical supervision

The total cost of the program is $6,000 which the employee contributes just 20%.

The result? 61,100 pounds have vanished from 2,152 Microsofties.

So, what do you think? Is this a program which will likely be rolled out to all employees in the United States?

I don’t think so. Microsoft’s experience is like the articles about celebrities losing weight. We read about them losing 50 pounds or whatever but, what we don’t learn, is that they get to work with a personal trainer several hours a day and have a personal chef preparing all the food they eat.

It would be nice — but that’s just not the reality for most Americans.

Allen Oelschlaeger
Author of Finally, the Straight Scoop About Weight, Nutrition, and Fitness