Dieting and Exercise Aren't Effective Fat Loss Tools

I started a new job recently. While I was eating lunch the day of the orientation, a woman told me about a former co-worker who had lost 89 pounds in 3 months taking an herbal supplement that only cost $60 a month.

Because she had been taking a medication, she gained 50 pounds. She had done everything right with diet and exercise because her boyfriend is a personal trainer, so when she found out about this herbal stuff her co-worker had taken, she was really excited to try it but couldn't afford it at the time. So, I tell her to email me the name of the website so I could try it out myself, since I've gained weight from taking muscle relaxants and pain killers over the years and am suffering the same problems with diet and exercise (when you workout pouring sweart 3 - 4 hours a day nearly every day of the week and do not lose a pound or any body mass, there is an issue).

She also said the most critical and difficult period is the first 3 days due to the severe cramping, as the herbs are literally scraping the crap caked onto your intestines from all the processed foods we've been eating for decades off the intestinal lining. Once you pass that phase, it's all down hill.

One of the ingredients she said it contains is Senna.

Does anyone have any idea what this product is called? It seems like it's a really intensive colon or digestion cleanse versus a diet or weightloss aide, but weight loss is a definite positive side effect.

Thanx!

reply to post by DevolutionEvolvd



Thanks for the thread. After reading your post, I examined the concept deeper and found the corresponding "syndrome x" as a guide to diet changes. In three weeks my body has completely morphed following the protocols in that diet.

Will it work for everyone, no, nothing ever does. But it is surely worth looking into as an alternative to something that isn't working.

Cheers for the persistence Devo.

Well OP I took your word and I stopped exercising and eating right. I am now getting fat….. Thanks! Back to the I shall go

Well I changed my workout routine to twice/day about 3 weeks ago and the results so far are interesting.

Firstly, my sessions consist of 2 x 40 - 50 min sessions of cardio 5 days/week (1 x morning plus 1 x evening workout), and 1 x weights (morning) plus 1 x cardio (evening) 2 days/week. I will miss maybe 1 session/week (rest session). From what I have read this is a good balance if your working towards primarily weight/fat loss and muscle gain.

The results so far are - I havent lost any weight. If anything Ive put about 1 kg on. Im probably 10kg or nearly a stone over my ideal weight.

I have gained muscle. Particularly upper body. I can see and feel I'm more defined. My blood pressure has dropped. On a bad day I would be anything from 130 - 160/85 or thereabouts. Its now down to approx 120/74 which I understand for my age is very good (normal). I feel I have more energy during the day. I sleep better. Friends and family I havent seen for a few weeks have actually made the comment 'you are looking really good' so I know this new exercise is working (I used to attend gym irregularly previously btw).

The other interesting thing to note is I dont get as hungry during the day as I used to? I'm not sure what to make of this. I'm burning on average an extra 800 - 1000 calories/day than I used to, and am eating pretty much the same breakfast and lunch as I have for the last few months, yet I seem to now get through to lunch and then though to dinner without feeling really hungry? Prior to increasing my gym attendance I would sometimes get hunger pangs a couple of hours before lunch and/or dinner, and maybe have a small snack, but now I just dont feel hungry until mealtime. I would have thought my body would be screaming at me for food particularly later in the day/evening but its not. Just weird..lol..

I eat well and my diet consists of egg & cereal for breakfast, wholemeal tuna sandwich for lunch, and soup/bread or fish/chips/salad for dinner (this varies a bit and I know the chips arent ideal). I may have a couple of choc biscuits after dinner. Ive cut back my intake of milk and drink coffee/water at work instead of the 2-3 lattes I used to have. I drink a lot of water during the day. I no longer eat biscuits at work between lunch and getting home for dinner. A concern I have is not cutting back too far as I know I need a certain amount of calories and nutrition to build muscle, but again based on my current diet routine Im not losing weight. Very frustrating.

On a positive note, I know the 1kg Ive put on in total weight is less than the total weight Ive put on in muscle. Not only have I gained noticeable muscle in the upper body but my legs also from all the treadmill work. The good thing about this is there MUST have been a trade off somewhere for me to have only gained 1 kg in total body weight ie I MUST have lost some fat otherwise my total body weight increase would be much higher. I guess the annoying thing for me is I'm not seeing any difference in my mid-rift which is where I would like to lose it most. In fact, my clothes generally feel a bit tighter all round..(oh the irony lol)

So Ive decided to replace my 2 wholemeal sandwiches for lunch with 1 sandwich and an apple. I'll be cutting back on after dinner treats. I do take other vitamins and supplements during the day so hopefully Im not going to be cutting my food intake back too far that I start to waste muscle.

One things for sure, having started with the gym on an irregular basis about 12 months ago and having done calorie-controlled diets in the past, its become apparent to me theres a HUGE amount to know about weight loss and lots of pitfalls. I can see why people give up when they dont see results, but Im determined not to let my body beat me.

If you want clarifcation of the concept I've been describing, you can visit Gary Taubes new blog: www.garytaubes.com...

But now imagine that instead of talking about why we get fat, we’re talking about a different system entirely. This kind of gedanken (thought) experiment is always a good way to examine the viability of your assumptions about any particular problem. Say instead of talking about why fat tissue accumulates too much energy, we want to know why a particular restaurant gets so crowded. Now the energy we’re talking about is contained in entire people rather than just the fat in their fat tissue. Ten people contain so much energy; eleven people contain more, etc.. So what we want to know is why this restaurant is crowded and so over-stuffed with energy (i.e., people) and maybe why some other restaurant down the block has remained relatively empty — lean.

If you asked me this question — why did this restaurant get crowded? — and I said, well, the restaurant got crowded (it got overstuffed with energy) because more people entered the restaurant than left it, you’d probably think I was being a wise guy or an idiot. (If I worked for the World Health Organization, I’d tell you that “the fundamental cause of the crowded restaurant is an energy imbalance between people entering on one hand, and people exiting on the other hand.”) Of course, more people entered than left, you’d say. That’s obvious. But why? And, in fact, saying that a restaurant gets crowded because more people are entering than leaving it is redundant –saying the same thing in two different ways – and so meaningless.

Now, borrowing the logic of the conventional wisdom of obesity, I want to clarify this point. So I say, listen, those restaurants that have more people enter them then leave them will become more crowded. There’s no getting around the laws of thermodynamics. You’d still say, yes, but so what? Or at least I hope you would, because I still haven’t given you any causal information. I’m just repeating the obvious.

This is what happens when the laws of physics (thermodynamics) are used to defend the belief that overeating makes us fat. Thermodynamics tells us that if we get fatter and heavier, more energy enters our body than leaves it. Overeating means we’re consuming more energy than we’re expending. It’s saying the same thing in a different way. (In 1954, the soon-to-be-famous — and often misguided, although not in this case — nutritionist Jean Mayer said that to explain obesity by overeating was about as meaningful as explaining alcoholism by overdrinking, and merely reaffirmed, quite unnecessarily, the fact that the person saying it believed in the laws of thermodynamics.) Neither happens to answer the question why. Why do we take in more energy than we expend? Why do we get fatter?

...saying obesity is caused by a caloric surplus is like saying atherosclerosis causes heart disease. This is tautological reasoning, and it's ridiculous.

Metabolism is the net product of anabolism ( biosynthesis; the synthesis of molecules from smaller ones; the growth of tissue) minus catabolism (the breakdown of tissue/large molecules into smaller ones). These processes are regulated by hormones.

Do teenage girls going through puberty become fatter because they're eating too much? Hell no. They eat because they're becoming fat. And even if they don't eat enough, which can be the case with highschool girls, they'll still store fat. And what would you say if I went around saying teenage boys grow taller during puberty because they eat too much? You'd laugh.

Fat deposition is anabolic. So is growing tall. Fat mobilization is catabolic. So is muscle loss.

I remember when I was a teenager I would sleep as much as possible and people would see how much I ate and say, "Just let 'em eat. He's a growing boy!"

I was eating and sleeping because I was growing, not the other way around. When calories are being allocated to anabolic (tissue building) functions that either burn calories (bown growth - vertical) or store calories (fat deposition) and a caloric defecit is maintainted, the body adjusts by making you hungry or by making you tired. It's important not to confuse cause and effect.

i like how people lie to themselves to justify their shortcomings..

Nobody's lying. Approaching obesity as a psychological disease completely ignores how physiology influences our cravings and actions.

Originally posted by SuperGenuis
i like how people lie to themselves to justify their shortcomings..

I like how people lump all of human kind into one singular group. You're right to think that we are all exactly the same, and need and react the same to all things.

Originally posted by DevolutionEvolvd

Overeating does not cause obesity; obesity causes overeating.

Laziness doesn't lead to obesity; obesity leads to laziness

Active lifestyles don't make you thin; being thin leads to an active lifestyle

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heheh