16 Oct dodgey weight loss pill – Garcinia Cambogia

Have you noticed that facebook is sometimes filled with all sorts of spammy crap? There has been a rumble in the weightloss camp lately, I keep seeing these references to a magical pill that will make you lose 20 kg in three weeks or something ridiculous.

Latest weight loss pill

The weight loss industry never tires of coming up with the latest fad pill which will ‘melt fat’ and make weight loss effortless. Weight loss is hard for anyone, I think we have to face that. There may be some permanent ways of eating that make it easier. I still think that a plant based diet might be the way to go, given the evidence, and the fact that you can feel as though you are walking on the clouds, so light, when you integrate this way of eating into your diet.

Readily available food outside the home does not make this any easier, but weight loss is TRICKY. I remember reading that many diets do succeed in weight loss in the first six months, but also that most weight loss is regained over the course of 3 – 5 years.

Diet wars

There is also a camp that suggests that the diet wars need to stop, and a variety of different ways of eating (paleo, plant, low energy etc), will work depending on what appeals to you. I am not going to turn around and say that we should eat high protein diets like paleo or Atkins, with so much saturated fat and cholesterol! Incidentally I read the other day that Dr Atkins died of heart disease in his 50’s and was morbidly obese at the time. So that is saying something! However, I take the point. Everyone is different.

A colleague of mine at uni wrote a great post about the habits of people who do manage to keep weight off permanently. And I am convinced, that whatever eating plan works for you, it needs to be permanent, and the same with exercise.

The good thing about exercise, is that even if you are not losing weight as much as you would like, the benefits of your fitness level, are as much, if not more important than any extra weight you might be carrying. It is important for everyone to integrate exercise into every day life. Permanently.

Garcinia Cambogia

So back to this dodgey weight loss pill. I saw it advertised today, and wanted to learn more about it. Dr Oz endorsed it, and from what I found out, I wonder how that guy keeps his credibility intact, when he jumps on every diet bandwagon, and there are some dodgey testimonies out there!

The first piece of literature that I found, was particularly humorous, it was a piece that I had unmistakenly read before! I can’t link to it, I am sorry, because my computer deems it ‘unsafe to visit’ but I was reading this today at work, thinking: ‘I read this exact same article word for word in regard to Acai a couple of years ago!’ It was uncanny. The same author who was ‘lucky enough to try because she had a wedding coming up, and wanted to look her best’, and this funny disclaimer at the bottom, saying that Women’s Fitness would never recommend a product unless it really worked, because there are so many diet fads out there.

I was laughing, but then I found some interesting information about what people who had tried Garcinia Cambogia had to say about its effects! One person said that her blood pressure went through the roof, which I understand. I tried Acai a while ago, and even though my blood pressure is perfect normally at 110 on 70, it skyrocketed, and I wondered if there was something in this ‘amazing berry’ that was doing this.

There were a whole heap of people who didn’t lose any weight what so ever, and other people whose bloods came back with elevated blood sugar, cholesterol, and other nasties. It was a real awakening.

As an industry, they are unscrupulous. So no, I wouldn’t recommened Garcinia Cambogia, Acai, or any other pill that is so dodgey that they will sign you up for a permanent recurring shipment of some exorbitant amount each month. Where is people’s ethics? That is what I want to know.

Sustainable permanent weight loss

I don’t know the answer to weight loss yet. I know that prevention is better than a cure, and that it is incredibly difficult to do. Some people have a metabolic tendency to put on weight, and I am going to learn about this at the start of next year.

I think that more than anything, it is good to exercise because it does wonders for your heart, and your body is a million times healthier for it. I think it is important to nourish yourself with lots of fruit and vegetables and grains, because these foods nourish your body and supply it with vitamins, but some fool proof way to lose weight is elusive, and a plant diet, does come with other problems like calcium and zinc as we have started to explore in the past.

Stop pushing your Indonesian berry wonder pills on the world!! For peat’s sake!