For every pound I have spent on diet books, exercise books or diet ingredients I could go on a world cruise.
I went through and pulled out all these books on Sunday and sat on the sofa with them spilling of the coffee table – if that accounted for effort in the dieting industry I should have lost a substantial amount of weight. I should have the body of a super model.
I then started reading through and I came to a few conclusions why the diet industry is a major money earner for the business involved and why they don’t tap into the women over forty who need help.
First the diet books – when you start there is long preface and they tell you amazing stories but they also point out you must follow this diet like a strict religion otherwise you’ll not lose the weight. So you look at how the days are laid out ....... your stomach then sinks not shrinks at the strange and weird food you have to buy and the big list of don’t even inhale food and the short list of what you can eat. So you buy all this food and you then start but they always have something which is your daily crutch you have to abstain from like tea or coffee. You eat the nine eggs a day and twelve grapefruits and you have one or two cups of tea – well let’s face it skimmed milk and zero calories in tea can’t add weight. By the Sunday when you have either never-ending flatulence and/ or breath which could strip paint and/ or your bloated due to your chronic constipation and/ or huge headache you jump on the scales expecting them to swing wildly to the left and marked weight loss and nothing or you have gained 2lbs.
So you sit on the bed and think WHY..... I only had two cups of tea or coffee and I ate all nine eggs and twelve grapefruits..... No weight loss so you go back and fiddle with the scales and jump on nothing changes......
Why do we do this – why do put ourselves through this? Because the book said if we ate nine eggs etc; or just lived on jellied eels we would see a dramatic difference........ Did our weight dramatically appear at the end of one week - had we piled on nearly a stone – no it was mouthful by mouthful? So why do we think that by eating the most obnoxious combination in the world for a week will we suddenly revert back to pre 40 years figure?
Just because some Hollywood superstar has said she used this diet and she shed half her bodyweight in two weeks do we think in downtown Battersea it will work – do I have a personal chef and trainer – do I have to be buff so I can bank a $40 million movie deal – no it’s all a big con.
Next slimming clubs and the industry they have spawned – Good old Wendy Shanker said something which rang so true with me:
“Someone at a Weight Watchers meeting always asks this kind of question “If I eat three tomatoes instead of two how do I account for those points? Should I use my optional calories, or........?” Now points are confusing. But you and I know that the problem is probably excess pop tarts not excess tomatoes .Very few of us end up at Weight Watchers because we overdid it on the fruits and veggies.
However, major weight loss programmes would not be successful business models if they helped you lose weight and maintain that loss. Think about it .If you joined one of those programmes the first time , lost the weight and kept it off, you would not have to keep giving them money and going back again and again to try to get down and down and down.”She is right in 2008 the annual turnover was $1,535.8M with a growth of 4.7% and a net profit of $204.3M not flabby figures.
But you also buy into the lifestyle, scales, snacks, frozen foods, tinned food everything branded so you live and eat the Weight Watcher lifestyle – a long way from Jean Nidetch a housewife having her friends round to motivate each other to diet. But the offered “lifestyle “diet is the same if your 20 years old or 90 years old – I’m sorry when I was in my 20’s and 30’s and I needed to lose a few pounds or a stone I just went salad, salad and no puddings and maybe skipped a few meals and hey presto the weight and some more fell off. Now I’m forty it sticks like glue – it will not budge.
Exercise ............. oh yes exercise.
You know the real equation for weight loss is less food + exercise = weigh loss its simple really eat healthily and exercise.
So I have books on exercise – think about that exercise means you physically have to do something and what do I do buy a book to read. My favourite book is “
The Red Carpet Workout” by celebrity trainer Joe Fournier. You know why I bought this book not because I’m secretly being nominated for an Oscar no it said
“The Ultimate diet for lazy girls who want to look fabulous in 6 weeks” hey that’s me I’m fabulous and forty – no it’s not first they assume you’re already a spin dry gym bunny and you can run like a honed athlete and you can also do lunges and press ups – me! What’s a lunge? I can lunge at cake or food but other than that I’m at a loss. The only good thing is the print is huge so one sitting and I’ll have it read.........
I have books on running , yoga and getting motivated for exercise I have only read the opening pages with a cup of tea and a piece of cake and then thought no ............
So if someone wants to make money write a book aimed at the over 40’s as the majority of people living in the UK are over 40. Talk to us we will buy your book and we do want to slim.
So the vows start next week I’ll get a grip and I’ll sort this out once and for all – but you don’t one day of some strange dramatic weight loss diet is blown to smithereens because you have to have lunch out due to work or you have to go to a cocktail party. So by day two the diet is blown and then you just think sod it and blow out until you have to squeeze into something or you’re on the bed surrounded by discarded clothes and shoes crying because you’ve nothing to wear.
