Comments on: Unsightly Belly Bulge

Unsightly Belly Bulge

catchmurray — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 10:49:23 -0800

Why did your last diet fail? If you're over thirty, over-stressed and overweight... take a look in the mirror. You've got excess fat around your waste hips and belly, right? Well diet failure is not your fault!

Surprise surprise... Relacore's representative isn't a real dietician! Who cares about that though... at least she's not as nauseating as Dr. Greg Cynaumon.

By: nofundy

nofundy — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 11:06:20 -0800

diet failure is not your fault! No, tis the fault of that fat hand feeding that fat pie hole whilst sitting on thine fat ass dammit!

By: phirleh

phirleh — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 11:09:35 -0800

I smell a lawsuit against this fiendish "cortisol". That fat hand will should watch its back too!

By: fleacircus

fleacircus — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 11:11:47 -0800

Let's all belly up to the trough of easy moral superiority. It only makes you fat in the head.

By: nofundy

nofundy — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 11:19:35 -0800

Does quonsar know about this? Super size me, baby! Daddy likes a little meat on momma's bones!

By: davy

davy — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 11:42:03 -0800

Let's all belly up to the trough of easy moral superiority. I'll have an easier time of that than some of you. (*burp*)

By: adzm

adzm — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 11:47:13 -0800

Walk or bike instead of using your car. What, I lost weight?

By: quonsar

quonsar — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 11:48:05 -0800

*having checked the deadbolt and peered warily through the blinds for several minutes, quonsar retreats to the closet and with quaking hands fumbles open another box of Hostess Frosted Donettes*

By: Cranberry

Cranberry — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 11:52:22 -0800

But you will feel good - "with Relacore™, the breakthrough all-natural anti-anxiety, mood elevating pill". Wasn't there a scandal a few years ago about giving uppers as diet pills?

By: svenni

svenni — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 11:56:15 -0800

Where does it say that she's a real dietician? The TV ad intoduces her as someone with the company, but as far as her legitimacy goes, I don't see how it matters. It's not as ridiculous as the "labs" in shampoo commercials that are always located in swiss, where hot models in labcoats work day and night to solve that hair shinyness problem that is plaguing the world.

By: kcds

kcds — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 12:04:49 -0800

Heh - talking of "easy moral superiority", "Dr." Greg Cynaumon apparently uses: "Heavy marketing on Christian radio stations, the Dr. Laura Schlessinger Show, conservative radio talk shows, and television infomercials" i.e. he markets to the people who least trust lib'rul "interlectuals" and ungodly scientists. So, remember folks - evolution may be "only a theory", but Relacore really works - I heard about it on the Dr. Laura show - so buy some now!

By: nofundy

nofundy — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 12:29:00 -0800

I love you quonsar, no matter how many Hostess Frosted Donettes you eat. Got any fish?

By: Thorzdad

Thorzdad — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 13:21:46 -0800

..."Dr." Greg Cynaumon apparently uses: "Heavy marketing on Christian radio stations, the Dr. Laura Schlessinger Show, conservative radio talk shows, and television infomercials" Heavy rotation on AirAmerica, too. Lib'ruls get fat. All that paté, y'know.

By: ericb

ericb — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 13:26:59 -0800

Couch potatoes say they're fat and happy.

By: ParisParamus

ParisParamus — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 13:41:39 -0800

"Dr." Greg Cynaumon": If you listen to his commercials, he was a "Doctor's assistant." I wonder if the assistee was a medical doctor. How trustworthy!

By: ParisParamus

ParisParamus — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 13:46:19 -0800

What's very funny is that WNYC, the public affilliate, is the AM radio station immediately adjacent to Curtis-Rush-Sean-Levin-Ingraham WABC. You'd think WNYC would have, by now, petitioned the FCC for a frequency reassignment!

By: docpops

docpops — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 13:48:27 -0800

Looking at the ingredients for Relacore I fail to see anything that is a stimulant, even euphemistically, i.e., 'guarana' or 'ma-huang'. It looks like a weak vitamin with some herbal shit thrown in.

By: docpops

docpops — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 13:50:30 -0800

Consumer Digest compares Relacore to Cortidrene and most folks say the Relacore didn't do much, which makes sense since Cortidrene has Green Tea (caffeine) in large amounts.

By: PinkStainlessTail

PinkStainlessTail — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 13:58:19 -0800

Excess tummy flab is not your fault: That's the startling conclusion reached by scientists who discovered stress is the likely cause of stubborn belly fat. I believe everything this says. Because it's exactly what I want to hear.

By: kindall

kindall — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 14:02:51 -0800

You've got excess fat around your waste hips My waste hips are the excess fat!

By: dwordle

dwordle — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 14:47:08 -0800

As someone who call himself a doctor once in a while, I'm concerned about the efficacy of titular endowments!

By: PurplePorpoise

PurplePorpoise — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 16:35:05 -0800

Excess tummy flab is not your fault: That's the startling conclusion reached by scientists who discovered stress is the likely cause of stubborn belly fat. Stress helps people gain weight?! I should be at *least* 250lbs by now instead of a wiry 140.

By: WC_Helmets

WC_Helmets — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 16:48:22 -0800

Everyone would feel better if they just took the Vitality Challenge

By: Kosh

Kosh — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 16:56:21 -0800

Ah, Dr. Greg Cynaumon, my mortal enemy when I'm laying in bed watching too much TV. That smarmy look, those fake credentials... I think my favorite Cortislim commercial is the one where he says "What if the headline said: 'Entire population of Green Bay reorders Cortislim'? (blah blah blah) Now of course, the entire population of Green Bay didn't order Cortislim." WTF? I also like the ones (this isn't unique to the Cortislim commercials) where it says "if you only want to lose a few pounds, (Cortislim|Relacore|whatever) is NOT for you."

By: tkchrist

tkchrist — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 17:41:28 -0800

I am 175lbs of rippling ahtletic muscle... ...unfortunately, with a 30lb protective sheath around it. So I see why some people fall for this hucksterism. Not just people who are lazy. I work out like a motherf*cker six days a week, running boxing, lifting. I eat right... no processed foods, etc. I have my whole life. Fitness and health-wise I'm in like the upper 10% of condition for my age. But I keep that 16%-18% body fat no matter what. I'd have to get liposuction to get one of them Maxium guy sixpacks. The enemy is Genetics.

By: Doohickie

Doohickie — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 18:03:32 -0800

I dunno, my diet hasn't failed, at least not yet. And losing 25 pounds so far (since the first of the year) is good enough incentive for me to stick with my diet.

By: hojoki

hojoki — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 18:08:18 -0800

Whatever you lose you'll gain it all back and then some.

By: Sangermaine

Sangermaine — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 21:01:55 -0800

Doohickie, Wow, that's pretty good. What do you do?

By: billsaysthis

billsaysthis — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 21:10:17 -0800

I want this company busted just to get their damn annoying commercials off once per break rotation on Fox Soccer Channel!

By: kindall

kindall — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 22:21:35 -0800

Whatever you lose you'll gain it all back and then some. Unless you don't.

By: bwg

bwg — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 23:47:20 -0800

Me? I use this.

By: NortonDC

NortonDC — Wed, 09 Feb 2005 00:00:30 -0800

What kindall said.

By: wicked sprite

wicked sprite — Wed, 09 Feb 2005 09:13:52 -0800

But I keep that 16%-18% body fat no matter what. I'd have to get liposuction to get one of them Maxium guy sixpacks. tkchrist, my personal trainer says this is usually a blend of some genetics and that you're just consuming more calories than you burn. If you want to lower your body fat use a food log and see how much you are eating. I have a friend who runs 8 miles a day and is still, consistently, 30 lbs overweight. She ate a lot more than she thought though, so while the exercise was great for her, she had to cut calories to lose additional body fat. Like you, however, she was very healthy and not that overweight, so who cares. It sounds like you are in GREAT shape, so unless you want to join some bodybuilding competition, I wouldn't worry about it.

By: hojoki

hojoki — Wed, 09 Feb 2005 09:17:39 -0800

Whatever you lose you'll gain it all back and then some. Unless you don't. Which you will.

By: Doohickie

Doohickie — Wed, 09 Feb 2005 09:18:25 -0800

Whatever you lose you'll gain it all back and then some. Maybe, then you can say "I told you so". I'll let you know if that happens, okay? Wow, that's pretty good. What do you do? South Beach. YMMV, but I did it because a) I know others who've had similar results, b) it seems like a reasonable approach to me (with my lack of medical experience), and c) upon reading the book, I saw that I exactly fit the profile that the diet was designed to help (middle aged belly fat/high blood pressure/high cholesterol/high triglycerides). I've dropped about 3" off my waist and also dropped both parts of my BP about 10-15 points (when three different combinations of medication were not effective). I'm officially in Phase II of the diet, but it seems to me I am either in Phase I or Phase III (i.e., I start to eat things that make me stop losing or even gain a little, then go back to strictly following the diet and getting rapid weight loss). The book says you can expect to lose about 10 lb. the first two weeks, and people I know who have done it said thereafter you lose about 2-3 lb./week. I lost 20 lb. the first two weeks, and about 3 lb./week since then. I totally fell off the diet last weekend with the Super Bowl and all, then hit it Monday morning again and lost the pound I gained over the weekend plus a little more. And now I am off for my lunch-time walk. Ta!

By: kindall

kindall — Wed, 09 Feb 2005 09:38:29 -0800

Whatever you lose you'll gain it all back and then some. Unless you don't. Which you will. It says: "By four or five years out, almost all dieters have regained all or most of their weight, and most will weigh more than they did at the start of their diets." My advice is don't be one of the "almost all" and certainly don't be one of the "most."

By: hojoki

hojoki — Wed, 09 Feb 2005 09:59:23 -0800

Yes, that's a good strategy. I don't know why the "most" haven't been able to figure that out.

By: Doohickie

Doohickie — Wed, 09 Feb 2005 10:46:46 -0800

I sincerely hope my current South Beach Diet becomes a habitual way of life and not just a bump on the way to a diabetic future. I might be like "most" people and gain it all back, but I can't admit that. I see this not so much as a diet as it is a chance to take back control of my health. So far, so good. How it will work out in the long run, though, is anyone's guess. Stay tuned.

By: hojoki

hojoki — Wed, 09 Feb 2005 11:04:45 -0800

Stay healthy - no matter what.

By: NortonDC

NortonDC — Wed, 09 Feb 2005 11:26:41 -0800

hojoki, the article you linked to is full of shit, and poorly written, too.

Clearly, as anyone struggling with their weight will tell you, "Diets don't work."

Diets work. This month marks four years since I completed losing about 140 pounds. In that time I have stayed within ten pounds of my finishing number, and today have a BMI of 22.5. If it was measured like cancer treatment used to be, in one more year I'd be able to say that I'd cured my obesity. I did it by dieting, and the diet worked. I did also excercise, but it was inconsistent. The diet was consistent, as was the inexorable progress it produced. I'm not advocating my diet for others; I just can't let that blatant lies in that article go unanswered here.

By: hojoki

hojoki — Wed, 09 Feb 2005 11:39:20 -0800

You might be one of the 1 - 3 percent who keeps it off "longer" than the other 97 to 99 percent. BTW, which parts of the article do you consider, "full of shit" or "lies" and are you willing to provide evidence? I'd be interested to read it.

By: five fresh fish

five fresh fish — Wed, 09 Feb 2005 12:01:09 -0800

How can a diet not work? If energy expended > energy intake, the result must be loss of weight. There's simply no way around it.

By: NortonDC

NortonDC — Wed, 09 Feb 2005 12:09:04 -0800

Start with the part I cited and proved wrong. And now that I think back more carefully on the timing, it has been five full years.

By: hojoki

hojoki — Wed, 09 Feb 2005 12:14:35 -0800

"How can a diet not work? If energy expended > energy intake, the result must be loss of weight. There's simply no way around it." If you measure a diet's efficacy by the first stage (weight loss) and ignore the second (maintenance*) then, absolutely, diets work. *lifetime

By: hojoki

hojoki — Wed, 09 Feb 2005 12:22:55 -0800

"If it was measured like cancer treatment used to be, in one more year I'd be able to say that I'd cured my obesity." If a cancer treatment was only successful on 1 - 3 percent of patients, would it be considered the normal course of treatment? Probably not. Other, more effective treatments, would be and have been sought and are used today. Which is why the logic of diets as a normal course of "treatment" for obesity puzzles me, since the vast majority of them are failures and even lead to more weight gain.

By: NortonDC

NortonDC — Wed, 09 Feb 2005 13:36:33 -0800

"It is only the rate of weight regain, not the fact of weight gain, that appears open to debate," Garner and Wooley noted.

Well, no, not unless 0 pounds per year is one of the "rates" we're debating, since my own experience is effectively 0 pounds regained out of 140 lost after five years.

That explains why the heavier a person is the more likely he or she is to have dieted.

Or some other crazy explanation, like people that have always been skinny don't feel a need to diet and lose weight.

If diets did what they promised -- and increasingly more of us want to believe they can -- those who've dieted would be joining the ranks of those at lower BMIs as living proof that diets worked.

HEY! YOOHOO! OVER HERE! That person you're saying doesn't exist is me!

By: hojoki

hojoki — Wed, 09 Feb 2005 13:57:00 -0800

You wrote; "In that time I have stayed within ten pounds of my finishing number,..." And then; "my own experience is effectively 0 pounds regained out of 140 lost after five years." That does not compute.

By: NortonDC

NortonDC — Wed, 09 Feb 2005 15:02:23 -0800

Sure it does. No one's weight is static. We eat, drink, shit, piss and sweat. We have holiday indulgences and sensible corrections. I recognized that before I finished my sustained period of weight loss, and, like I said, since then "I have stayed within ten pounds of my finishing number, and today have a BMI of 22.5." A BMI of 22.5 was my ending target, and it's where I am today, this very day. Hence no change from five years ago. Got it?

By: five fresh fish

five fresh fish — Wed, 09 Feb 2005 15:04:54 -0800

Are you serious, hojoki, or are you looking for an excuse to give up on permanent lifestyle changes? Diets work. Period. It is a fundamental physical law. Your body is not going to create energy stores when it doesn't have any excess energy to store. Everything else is merely technical finesse. It may be necessary to increase one's activity level, so that one's energy output is high enough to allow a reasonable amount of energy input, aka food. It may be necessary to take supplemental essential vitamins, minerals, and various amino acids to make up for a distinct lack of same in an extreme diet. And almost certainly one is going to have to give up eating anything and everything, and start focusing on eating whole, natural foods instead of the purified, processed, gloopy, sweet and fat shit that most North Americans shovel in their faces. But the bottom line must be that if you take in less energy than you expend, you will lose weight as the body taps its stored energy reserves. And subsequent to the weight loss, one must continue to eat in such a fashion that energy in is equal to energy out in order to strictly maintain one's new weight. If you go back to a Twinkee diet, of course you'll put the weight back on. D-oh! No one ever said it would be easy.

By: catchmurray

catchmurray — Wed, 09 Feb 2005 15:45:24 -0800

Billsaysthis... I totally agree. Fox Soccer Channel is otherwise my favourite channel on US TV (at least in the Bay Area). One of the reasons that I posted this is because I have heard it so much that I know the commercial word for word. I need some kind of release! Don't get me started on the '50-year-old' and her Bowflex, or that twat who makes spinach milkshakes with a Magic Bullet.

By: tkchrist

tkchrist — Wed, 09 Feb 2005 18:33:42 -0800

wicked sprite; You are right. I eat a great deal because I am active and need to maintain muscle mass. And with that often comes fat. I do eat very healthy. No junk. All organic. Low saturated fat. High protien. If I lay-off lifting and concentrate aerobic output my weight will fluctuate by about 10-15 LBS VERY quickly. The % of body fat doesn't really change that much - though I have never tested it during those times. I actually like to keep the extra muscle and wieght to be able to take the younger guys at the boxing gym ;-) At least it's good padding for when they kick my ass. Still. At 42 I am in pretty good shape - much better thann my peers. But's it's never good enough - I'm one of those competitive types. Most people would put me in my early thirties (that IS mostly genetics). So I have nothing to really complain about. It would be nice, though, just once to have ripped abs. Er... you know, for the wife to brag on.

By: Doohickie

Doohickie — Wed, 09 Feb 2005 19:06:15 -0800

NortonDC- Congrats on the weight loss. People I know with stories like yours are the reason I decided to try this diet thing. And despite all the statistics that say most people on diets fail, I don't have to worry about most people. I only have to worry about me. (They say most marriages end in divorce, but that didn't stop me from getting and staying married.) I've started a bit of an exercise program, but it's really just a bit: I work in a second-story office. At lunchtime, I walk two miles, then grab a 5-gallon (40-pound) jug of water for the water cooler and carry it up the stairs to my office. This week, I started taking the stairs two at a time. The whole thing- the walk and getting the water- takes 20-30 minutes. I try to do it every work day and don't worry about weekends.

By: biffa

biffa — Fri, 11 Feb 2005 06:50:37 -0800

If a cancer treatment was only successful on 1 - 3 percent of patients, would it be considered the normal course of treatment? Well there are some forms of cancer where the survival rate is very low (pancreatic is a bad one) and they do have standard forms of treatment for those cancers, so yes.

By: hojoki

hojoki — Sun, 13 Feb 2005 21:12:05 -0800

What I should have said was if a cancer treatment was only successful with 1- 3 percent of patients yet worsened the disease in 97 - 99 of the others, would it be considered the normal course of treatment? Odd that doctors and others still recommend diets even though research shows it makes people fatter. America's relationship with food is fucked up and I think diets (especially fads like Atkins, etc) succeed in perpetuating this. BTW, a 25 pound weight loss in six weeks is dangerous and the dieter already knows that the weight will return probably before the year is out. Weight cycling can't be healthy either.

By: ParisParamus

ParisParamus — Sun, 13 Feb 2005 21:39:09 -0800

There was an article in the Times today about a similar huckster being sued by the FDA. Unfortunately, I can't find a linky. Yes, very fucked-up.