Gimmicks, False Marketing, and Weight Loss
After my experience of violently reacting to metformin (a very rare reaction, I’m told), saying that I’m ‘cautious’ about weight loss products is a huge understatement.
Today I found a flier in my mailbox that said “30 PEOPLE WANTED: LOSE 5-15 KILOS IN 90 DAYS”. It listed a few other things and a website, so I figured I would check it out. Losing five to fifteen kilos in about three months is actually a reasonable number compared to the gimmicks out there. Plus, with the “30 PEOPLE WANTED”, I assumed it was some sort of medical trial. Times are tight and I’m definitely not against being paid for a clinical trial.
I went to the website, http://www.healthherbalway.com, and lo and behold: Herbalife.
Herbalife was started and had expanded to Canada before I was even born, but I still remember hearing about it while I was growing up. The company that claimed to help everything from weight problems to skin conditions had quite it’s fair share of legal cases to deal with.
By all appearances, I don’t lose weight just by eating right and exercising. Even with that as part of my life, I can’t help but wonder how a company like Herbalife is still in existence. Have we all seriously become so entirely busy that we can’t bare to part with the snacks and sweets? Do we care so little about ourselves that the quick, dangerous fix is always better than the slower, natural one?
Okay, maybe Herbalife has worked fantastically for some people. That’s great. But unless you start introducing the habits that will help you lose weight naturally anyway, you’ll be on the stuff for the rest of your life, feeding money into a multi-billion dollar company. Do you really want to do that?
January 7th, 2009 at 2:13 am
The problem with you and me is that our hormones, which control all aspects of our bodies including our weight and metabolism, are out of balance. Normal dieting (i.e. reducing calories) and supplements will never balance the hormones, so we can’t lose weight that way. What we eat, and don’t eat, is so much more important. The very thing that is causing our infertility is also causing our weight problems.
The best book about how to eat, and live, in order to restore balance to the body and hormones, is Mary-Ann Shearer’s “Perfect Health: The Natural Way”. I’ve been meaning to do a review about it, and just for you, I’ll do it today (although by the time I’m done you’ll probably be asleep already!).
January 7th, 2009 at 5:40 pm
A review just for me? Awesome.
Yeah, it sucks to have the hormone problem making ‘traditional’ weight loss solutions not so effective. Next month I hope to have everything on that end sorted out at my doc appts.