14 DAY TRIAL // Earlier this week, Kirstie Alley announced that she was back on Jenny Craig to lose weight. Then Melissa Joan Hart tweeted a photo of her new figure, courtesy of Nutrisystem. Before that, Jennifer Hudson and, now, Jessica Simpson represent Weight Watchers. And there’s never a shortage of celebrities endorsing one product or another, this or that diet, promoting X or Y workout routine designed by a trainer.
The bottom line is that the weight loss industry is thriving (which I’m sure is not news to you) and, partly, we have celebrities to “thank” for that. The other contributing factor is our desire to always look better: be skinnier, get more muscle definition, look prettier, have longer hair, better clothes, you name it.
Feeding on this almost-uncontrollable desire we have (who here can honestly say they never thought they’d look better with 5 pounds off or on?), weight loss companies have built a fortune by selling empty dreams. Celebrities are just a tool they use to send the message across and reach more people.
And what most people don’t realize is how empty the promises these companies make, through their A- or B-list spokespersons, are. It’s not that the programs or products or whatever won’t give you the results they promise (“5 pounds in 2 days!” “10 pounds in 2 weeks!” “lose the extra weight now!” etcetera), because they do work. They do deliver as promised.
What they don’t do is guarantee you that the results will last or that the manner in which you will lose the weight won’t affect your health. They can’t do that, of course.
Most of these weight loss programs, though considerably adjusted in recent years with consideration for health, imply a restrictive diet or pre-packaged meals that are delivered to you. Common sense says that, once you’re off them, when the program ends or you run out of money and you’re back on “regular” food, you will put all the pounds you lost back on – and then a few more, because that’s how things go with yo-yo diets.
Such diets mess up your metabolism because they’re made to give results quickly; they’re not designed to be sustainable in the long run. For proof of that, you don’t have to look any further than the very celebrities who endorse them and Kirstie Alley, who has struggled with her weight for most of her adult life, is the perfect example.
This is the second time she’s on Jenny and, in between, she appeared on Dancing With the Stars, which helped her lose a lot of weight because she spent many hours in the dance studio, rehearsing and burning calories, and even tried her own weight loss program.
The appeal of these programs, besides the fact that they promise weight loss with very little actual effort on your part, is the shiny package they come wrapped in thanks to celebrity endorsements. When you see the difference with the before and after shot, and you hear X or Y star gushing about how her or his life has changed and energy levels improved, it’s hard, if not impossible to think, “Man, this could work out for me too, I should at least give it a try.”
I confess to having given in to this temptation once, when I went on a super-expensive plan that gave me the same results as counting calories and keeping my daily intake under 1,000-1,100. Naturally, I lost the weight but it crept back when I decided I could find a better use for my money than the pre-packaged meals.
From experience I say: before you buy into the fancy and empty promises of celebrities and the weight loss companies who pay them to shill their products, think about your weight loss strategy like this: can I achieve the same results by devising my own eating plan? More importantly, can I come up with an eating plan that is healthy and I can see myself sticking to 5 years from now?
Think health before thinking “oh, I need to lose 5 pounds to get into that dress by my friend’s wedding” and, though results will take longer to appear, they will also be guaranteed to last because you will have learned not how to diet, but how to eat healthy to be healthy.
Now, live long and prosper! And remember to smile.