Majority of weight-loss products fail to cut kilos

News flash fad diets don't work...NO KIDDING! This is old news.

Asano nonetheless concedes that watching DVDs may have the effect of raising dieters’ motivation

yeah, ward offices should supply DVD's for free :) Eat, enjoy and live the way you like...motivated persons do not put on unnecessary weight !

"weight-loss products"

Water's a good one.

next: capillary lotions fail to grow your hair back with a testimony of Telly Savalas.

The one and only way that really works is loosing kilos through stressful situations in my opinion. Just look at that guy who cycled through Syria, took some photos of missiles, got put into jail for 10 days and was fed on bread...he lost a lot of kilos in a short span of time.

The only weight-loss product I know of that works consists of putting your chopsticks down on the dinner table and walking away.

don't eat so much and walk instead of driving. a lot of people could benefit from that simple advice.

We all KNOW how to lose weight, we just don't like to do it. I recently lost 60 lbs (over the last 2 yrs), with 30 lbs dropped in the first 2 months. How?

1) Move a little more every day. I try to get 45-60 min of exercise a day. Some is strenuous, not just walking. I would walk to work, but that's 26 miles each way. I need to work more than 3 days a week. ;)

2) Eat less - For me, carbs stack on the weight, but I won't deny myself rice or potatoes and still eat some carbs. I also cut meat portions 50% and read the calories on any packaged foods. Yogurt comes in 180 or 90 cal servings. Guess which I choose? Don't eat too little for your body or you will be miserable AND hungry.

3) Avoid packaged foods as much as possible. These days, I eat mostly fresh fruits, veggies, fish, meats and things that I cook myself. There aren't many cans or boxes around anymore. Eating out is really tough, since there's no easy way to know exactly what goes into that food. If you eat mostly veggies, there is almost no limit to how much you can eat and still lose weight.

4) When in doubt, review rules #1 #2 and #3 again.

Don't count on exercise to lose weight. Eating less is much easier than you could ever exercise to lose.

Simple. Actually doing it is the hard part. If you are consistent most of the time, the weight will come off.

There's little need for expensive exercise equipment or other products. With just your body weight, you can get a good workout doing the old-style calisthenics (burpees, pushups, situps, jumping jacks, pullups, jogging, hiking, etc). A $5 jump rope will do wonders too.

Well of course they don't work ... the problem in Japan is that there are very lax advertising standards, allowing marketing companies to make unsubstantiated claims, and the majority of Japanese, bless 'em, believe just about anything that they read or see in the media.

Every couple of months there's some new fad diet - natto, bananas etc, that is ultimately discredited, but people keep falling for the same con over and over again ...

eat less / move more : It's not rocket science ...

"The one and only way that really works is loosing kilos through stressful situations in my opinion." Foxie, maybe my new get rich quick scheme will be this.

The Rebel Labor Camp Weight Loss Program. For the low low price of 2.5mil yen we guarantee you will lose considerable weight. You will be kidnapped without warning and piled into a van. You will be taken to our mountain hide away. There you will live in a tiny cell on veggies, a tiny portion of fish and water only.

You will conduct hard labor and forced marches every day from 5am to 7pm. At night you will meditate and be reeducated about what you can and cannot eat and how to maintain your health.

Escape will not be possible. You can quit but it will cost you double. If you succeed, you are free to go. If you relapse, you will be taken again and charged full price again. This is a life long agreement. You will stay fit or you will stay in our camp.

Anyone want to sign up?

Buying DVDs doesn't work.

I've had Billy's Boot Camp sitting on my shelf for months now, and not a kilo have I lost.

I stabilised my weight by eating less and swimming every morning. It's very simple to lose weight: eat less and/or exercise more. Fat people lack the discipline to do either, preferring instead to pay over the odds for mail-order rubbish that doesn't work.

Darren -- agree. I defy you to turn on TV here anytime after about 10:00 pm and not be bombarded by these products. Does anyone really believe you can lose weight and gain muscle simply be putting a couple of electrodes on your abs? What was PT Barnum's famous expression -- "There's a fool born every minute"?, or something like that. Japan sure proves that correct.

Simple, go low carb and cut out the omori rice and noodles and you'll absolutely lose weight. Eat low glycemic index foods and keep your insulin level low and that will stimulate fat metabolism.

“To burn off one kilogram of fat, it’s said a person needs to run the equivalent of three and a half full-length marathons,” Asano points out.

What an absolute load of nonsense. For an "average" sized man or woman to lose 1lb they need to burn 3500 calories over and above normal daily calorie expenditure. For someone who is morbidly obese, they need to do less to lose weight. Men lose weight more quickly and easily than females.

Low carb will make you lose weight, but it is pretty unsustainable.

Scrote - I really object to your generalization of "fat" people however. I currently am super skinny and actually underweight, because of a thyroid condition. Less that 2 years ago I was morbidly obese thanks to the same thyroid problem (except it was moving too slowly instead of too fast, which it is now.) My diet and exercise is exactly the same, but my thyroid is now on the road to recovery.

I have real sympathy for fatties nowadays - they really have a hard time. While some ARE just lazy and sit around on the sofa eating macudos all day, some are not, and really try and achieve very little.

I have a fatty friend who tried everything her doctors said over 3 years. In the end the conclusion was "you are just not meant to be thin." I think that IS the case for some people too. Not everyone is built like tiny Japanese.

@herefornow

Have you watched tv in any other countries? From my experience, late night programming isn't really that different...

In anycase, I agree that the products are money-making schemes which just latch on to the hopes of people looking for a short cut.

of course there had to be a vage reference to some Chinese product that supposedly killed someone. And Asano-san's advice to walk in the pool, great... There are no "easy" solutions, but the combination of a balanced diet and high intensity training is necessary to achieve a sustainable lifestyle. Many people go to the gym and do some exercise, but if you don't really push your self and achieve a high pulse, and feel a little uncomfortable, don't expect much result of it. Personal trainers are on the rise, but many of them are too soft, as far as I've seen in Japan. Stop thinking about jogging or walking, you get much more results from 20min of high intensity interval running/training twice a week than a bunch of jogging, which also will make your muscle mass smaller/leaner, hence reduce your daily basal calorie consumption.

I did a herbal detox (herb and fibre tablets) last week and dropped 2kgs in 5 days.

That was pretty awesome.

ok...so i have never being fat or overweight,,,apart from when i was pregnant,,,but that doesnt count,,, but i noticed something similar between me and my skinny friends,,,,we drink lots of coffee, and we walk everywhere, we often wear high heels (the girls that is ,,,) and seem to have much more toned legs because of it i think basic rule is eat until you are just getting full, not until you are full or too full also walk, its good for you! or be like the french, if you have a big dinner, then just have fruit for breakfast or just a coffee i seriously believe that overweight people cannot be poor , because they are certainly spending lots of money on food! if you bought only veges for one week, you can save heaps of money and clean your body also eat filling healthy foods, like put mung bean sprouts in everything , they are like only 20en in most supermarkets, you can put in omelette, stirfries etc, all that crunching and chewing ,,fills you up no time! oh and fellas, stop drinking beer too much, you will get a biru baru and that NEVER goes away ladies wear heels, it lifts up your leg muscles and your derriere, thus pulling in your tummy

This is probably the biggest con racket in Japan.... The Japanese seem to think they can just drink funky colorful things, pop a pill or put on a vibrating belt to lose weight. Liposuction will be huge here in a few years with the oncoming generations that eat junk all day. Note to self.....start a clinic now or offer suck my fat holiday trips to Bangkok.

shufu: I thought the same thing! that statement was such an exaggeration. To burn one kilo of fat, you would probably have to jog for about an hour a day every day for a week (depending on your weight and how much you ate of course)

mrskit: I agree with you about the walking...but not in heels! Wearing heels may make your legs look more lean and toned but the reality is they can do damage to your feet and your Achilles tendon and can result in an ankle injury. Walk, yes. With a good pair of runners. Heels, NO!

Not surprised there, one thing Japanese people should be commended for is healthy lifestyles. Prevention is best. Small portions, and active lifestyles, (even if it's walking to the train station everyday). Although the abundance of drinking and smoking is not helping things. For me, is 5 small meals, (supper being the largest one), always keep something in your belly, getting hungry pangs is no good. Drink lots of water too, aids digestion, regulates body temp, keeps you regular too. Not that I'm licensed to give advice though...

Okay this post will sound even more ridiculous than my usual ones, but here goes. The three and a half marathons for a kilo of fat is probably based on the following reasoning. It is said that you have to burn 3500 calories for burn a pound of fat - so a kilo of fat means you are looking at 7700 calories to burn. It is also said that on average people burn 100 calories per mile but for women some say its more like 90. So thats 85 miles (3.2 marathons) you have to run - for the proverbial typical western woman, so given that Japanese women are lighter they probably end up with a calculation of 3.5 marathons.

So that's how there come at that figure. Not saying its right for many reasons, but there you go. Some say you burn the same over distance whether you run or walk but I find that crazy.

Problem for most people is that if you go for a half hour walk and feel that you've done something, but then reward yourself with a haagen daaz and a softdrink, you're back where you started.

"I have a fatty friend who tried everything her doctors said over 3 years." It's really hard to ascertain that she did exactly as her doctors said. Did she know exactly how many calories she ate each day? Most people have no idea. If she ate a certain amount of calories each day and stuck to it she would lose weight.

All of the different diets work - banana diet, aitkens, vegetarian, you name it. It's what you do once the weight is off. Obviously we eat what we like and we got that way over years, so we tend to gravitate back to it. Telling a person who loves meat to become vegetarian, or someone who loves bread and pasts to do aitkens won't work in the LONG run unless they have a total lifestyle change.

For those of you with no willpower, here is my suggestion. Drinking two or three liters of water extra a day, if you booze, have a water in between drinks, have 2 cookies instead of three, keep special treats a little more for special occasions (its ridiculous eating nothing on Thanksgiving), and do that sport or activity you like a little more each day.

But in the end, everyone's body shape, metabolism, lifestyle, family eating situation is different, and some people wanting to lose weight don't even need to. I know 50kg Japanese women who are going to have trouble holding a baby worried about losing fat. On the other hand there are overweight people who would lose weight simply by emailing their daily food and drink consumption to a friend - it would be obvious to everyone why they are fat.

Losing weight is easy if you really want to. But back to the original story - yeah, it's amazing how much money people will spend on different products while doing everything else wrong.

What a long post. I need to get out more.

I think I burnt 500 calories just reading yasukuni's post. Keep up the good work.

Pssst, Cleo - Follow the instructions on your Billy Bootcamp DVD and kilos you will lose!

"Eat something whenever you feel hungry"

I used to do that and I gained weight.

I lost a lot of weight after a week in hospital last year for broken collar bone. managed to keep it off by waking up earlier, eating a proper breakfast and cutting out snacks. I don't exercise consciously at all but walk a lot and never drive. Still eat quite a lot of crap food but not as much as I used to. 38 yrs old, 180cm and 65kg, if I can keep that up for another few years I'll be happy

Im so sick of people going on about my weight like there is some magic secret to it or something - I have 3 kids, Im 37, I`m 165cms, 46 kilos (a little skinny in my opinion) and my waist is 61 cms. Paddy Smash has it right. There is no big secret:

1) Above all else I am very lucky - I have a small frame, long limbs, and genetically dont put on much weight - like my mum and dad. 2) I rarely eat food from a tin/packet - we tend to eat a lot of veggies, fish, rice, chicken, fruit and the most processed we get is bread and yoghurt. It all sound so boring, but it really is delicious. We eat smaller portions too - I noticed that when I returned to the UK one year. Because of this diet, I can get a pizza once a week, or a McDonalds, and not worry about it. 3) I exercise - I cycle/walk where I can. I do stomach crunches most nights - just because thats my "wobbliest" bit! 4) I drink at least 2 litres of water every day. I rarely drink sodas, and have 2-3 cups of tea/coffee a day.

I don`t know if it would work for everyone, but it works for us.

However - my brother is huge! Partly his lifestyle an diet is bad - he loses weight whenever he changes things, but can never keep going with it. BUT he also took a lot of steroids as a kid, and I am certain this has interfered with his metabolism. So not everyone is fat because they are lazy.

The basic probles is that a lot of people think there is an easy way to get in shape, better the golf swing or learning a language. If we depart from the premise "it is going to get time, sweat and tears", so much people would be less disappointed...

I could stand to lose some weight, maybe some PPL think I am "typical fat American" as I heard some refer to us as...163 cm, and 67 kilos...actually like my weight I am 34 yrs old and have 3 children, I used to run track in school and play volleyball, then when older I used to walk alot, but as my kids got older, I seemed to get lazy and haven't done any exercise in over a yr, which I have gained 9 kilos..I tried to take some pills to lose the weight but they just accelerated my heart rate. So I have 2 things to do, or get off my butt and exercise or deal with it, as long as I don't gain more weight I am ok with it.I feel chubby but the Ideal weight for a 5"4 woman is 45 kilos to 65 kilos so I ma not far off the mark.

editing...I meant I am 163 cm...

All of the fat people I know eat too much crap and don't exercise enough.

Simple.

Firstly Japanese people are not fat, they are just told they are for some reason. Second if you dont follow the directions of any product (and eat twice as much as mentioned in the article) it is not going to work. Lastly if you dont change your current diet and think the magic drink or magic pill is going to make you lose weight you are kidding yourself.

Key is exercise, some ppl are lucky and eat and never gain a lb, has to do with metabolism, but even ppl with slow metabolism can exercise and eat well and lose the weight, it is much more effective than just losing weight, besides for those who need to lose a significant amount of weight...if you do it without exercise you will just be flabby!

But Sarge - it said watching the videos would get me motivated, and it didn't!

Most people are unaware of basic nutrition which is why so many are overweight or can't lose weight properly. When it comes down to it the majority of us eat too many carbs. Carbs are present in bread, rice, pasta and anything starchy like potatoes. Sure we need some carbs but we typically eat way too many. When you limit your carb intake to a bare minimum and get the rest of your calories from protein and fats, you limit your body's insulin production and in turn limit the body's capability to store fat. Never mind what Japanese tell you about eating rice everyday. Rice has a ton of carbs and will cause huge insulin spikes. Even worse is that they eat white rice that's devoid of nutritional value. Brown rice is a lot better but should still be severely limited if you're serious about weight loss/control.

Being in shape is about 90% diet and 10% exercise in my opinion. A previous poster mentioned high intensity training. This is also paramount to fitness. A lot of people go to the gym but just do hours of exercises when all that's needed to stimulate muscle growth is one 45 minute high intensity workout to failure. Or worse, they do their hours of repetitive exercises and then eat whatever they want afterwards.

In a nutshell, good low carb diet plus regular high intensity exercise gets the job done well. Pills, supplements and workout videos are mostly a complete waste of time and money.

I think you are right Leeroy when it comes to being "in shape" ...you eat right and exercise just to maintain but when you need to lose more than 30 lbs you need exercise to tone your body muscle, if not then you can look flabby since your skin lose's elasticity and you need to gain muscle back,so when you are overwiehgt exercise is a major factor.

"good low carb diet plus regular high intensity exercise gets the job done well"...Agree..why spend so much money when you can just diet, and exercise for free..

The more muscle you have, the more calories you naturally burn every day. Simple.

Low carb is sustainable. Just eat real food. You don't have to gorge yourself on those huge bowls of rice and noodles and loads of white bread.

Completely agree with Leeroy

"Loose weight will you sleep". Beleive it or not there are products that tout that. Proper diet and exercise WILL get you results EVERY time.

Sorry, while not will.

actually, to lose a kg of fat you will need to burn 9.000 kcal whose source is purely fat. jogging or running you can expect maybe 40% of your calorie burn to come from fat. that means that in order to burn a kg of fat tissue you will need to expend in the neighborhood of 20.000 kcal. for distance events like marathons it is approximated that one hour of work will require 1.000 kcal, meaning you need to jogg for 20h to effectively lose a kilo of fat. average marathon time for japanese lady, 5 plus hours fits perfectly into the equation...

and obviously, your lifestyle leads to having this or that type of body and nothing short of dramatic and long-term change to your lifestyle can result in meaningful changes in body weight or composition, at least speaking of healthy people

If you width yourself with your wallet in your pocket, and keep buying these lixers, you will find that you really are losing weight unless using a credit card. 15 years ago I started taking 1/4 of my food, placing it in the side, eat slowly then throw that 1/4 away. I am now down to 1/3 of my original consumption, and weigh 64 kilos or 144 pounds! I walk every day, bike easy, surf and drink shouchu. Easy

There are no poor fat people. q.e.d.

lol...I had a neighbor once who was heavy..he used to say he didn't want to lose weight, he had alot of money invested in his belly! But his wife insisted he lose weight, he did, but not the right way, he lost alot of weight to fast his body is flaccid...I think he looked better when he was heavy!

A single kiss burns 26 calories:

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_calories_do_you_burn_in_a_kiss

so get off your fat bottoms and kiss away

"A sinle kiss burns 26 calories"

A Sarge kiss burns a lot more than that.

Wonder how long I would need to kiss to lose 12 lbs?

Eat wise and sexercise, you'll be a thinner grinner through and through.

Muscle burns more calories "at rest" than fat does when in a full marathon.

Translation: More muscle means you're burning calories even while sleeping. More fat doesn't help at all unless you live above the Arctic Circle.

I take an over-the-counter diet pill that works real well. It doesn't try to increase your metabolism, it just prevents your body from absorbing triglycerides. The non-absorbed fatty oils pass straight through you, leaving your toire looking like the Gulf of Mexico after the Deepwater Horizon disaster. It's sold under a couple of brand names, but the generic name is Orlistat.

It is so very simple.

Eat a balanced diet and do structured intensive exercise regularly.

When you limit your carb intake to a bare minimum and get the rest of your calories from protein and fats, you limit your body's insulin production and in turn limit the body's capability to store fat.

Just be careful with low carb-high protein diets, they are associated with kidney failure, high cholesterol, osteoporosis, kidney stones and cancer. Read up on ketosis too.

Just be careful with low carb-high protein diets, they are associated with kidney failure, high cholesterol, osteoporosis, kidney stones and cancer. Read up on ketosis too.<

For every article about kidney failure and such, there are an equal number of articles stating the opposite.

You don't have to go to extremes either. You don't need a massive amount of protein to build muscle but you do need a bit more than usual. Simply limiting your carb intake by monitoring the glycemic load of foods and not going over a certain limit in total glycemic load for a meal, is a pretty good way to eat. A good general rule of thumb for daily nutrition is 40% carbs, 30% protein and 30% fat with the majority of fat being unsaturated fats.

Yep, that's why I said be careful, not avoid them altogether.

Do some exercise. End of story.

"gogogo at 10:03 AM JST - 28th July Firstly Japanese people are not fat, they are just told they are for some reason. "

I would disagree. Japanese are very small, and very thin, but with an absurd ratio of body fat to muscle. As in (most) Japanese have very little muscle and an awful lot of fat - but yet they are much smaller than westerners. "Fat" is a useless term when describing appearance. Fat is a body component, not a description of how someone looks."Overweight" or "obese" are more accurate. Many Japanese are neither overweight nor obese, but they do have a very high body fat percentage.

I have a theory that there is possibly something in the asian genetic make up which makes it easier for the body to process carbs. If I was to eat as much rich as the Japanese eat I would actually be the side of a house.

Eat less, move more. Jeeses, that is not rocket science.

Those who think that fat is a a kind of disease that attacks people without their own doing should try to find pictures of overweight North Koreans (outside the leading family clan, that is).

Just be careful with low carb-high protein diets, they are associated with kidney failure, high cholesterol, osteoporosis, kidney stones and cancer. Read up on ketosis too.

PeaceWarrior, i'm calling you out on this one.

High cholesterol-total cholesterol doesn't mean anything. It's more important to see triglyceride level, or even better, VLDL levels to see the risk of heart disease

THere are many scientific articles that back up the fact that excessive protein consumption does not have an effect on osteoporsis and kidney stones. Check out Google Scholar for that.

Cancer is not caused by high protein consumption! what a bunch of bunk. Cancer is essentially cells that keep proliferating under a process called anaerobic glycolysis, in which glucose is the fuel. Cancer doesn't use fatty acid or ketone as fuelYou would know that glucose is a major component of carbs. Fat and protein doesn't secrete insulin to the degree that carbs do and in fact, would not promote cancer as much as a carb-heavy diet.

Ketosis is a NATURAL condition. Being obese and hyperglycemic is not natural. Look at the indigenous people from all over the world. They don't suffer any of the "diseases of civilization"-no cancer, heart disease, diabetes. Only when they incorporate Western food (processed carbs, sugars, starches, etc) do they start seeing these symptoms. It's plain and simple.

No problem ironchef, all the info I posted is available at WebMd. Here is the link:

http://women.webmd.com/guide/high-protein-low-carbohydrate-diets

The words I used were "careful" and "associated with" so as to not provoke a backlash. I am all for experimenting with your body, believe me. You can "call me out" all you want, but you also need to "call out" WebMD if you do.

The read up on ketosis is just that, read up on it to make sure that it's something you want to experience with. Nothing more.

Cheers

WebMD is hardly a viable source, or any site that claims to be an expert. You have to do the research yourself. I think we all learned you can't believe everything you read.

You'd be surprised how twisted and manipulated organizations such as the American Heart Association are. Who do you think funds their organization? the food and big pharma industries. WebMD overhypes everything and makes it seem every symptom requires a hospital visit.

If you're going to recommend something, you should check your facts, that's all i'm saying.

As others here are commenting - exercise 5 times a week for an hour. If you can't find the time to do that for your health, you really need to reassess what you are doing in your life! There is no magic pill.

ironchef, the things you are talking about are way above most people's heads. Most people don't even know the difference between a protein and a carb, let alone the difference between HDL and LDL for example. Where do you think they are going to check if they have a question? Sites like WebMD. They may overhype everything but they haven't been taken to court yet so the info must be fairly well documented and true or their lawyers would make it come down in a second. And they are definitely going to believe the American Heart Association when it comes to their health and not people on some discussion board focused on Japan.

If you'd like me to quote the NEJM, I can but to be fair, I don't need to. As far as recommending something, I recommend you read my post again because there is absolutely no recommendation anywhere in there. There is only an advice to check things out first and educate yourself BEFORE you do something like what you are proposing. I was really careful to use words that conveyed this meaning so I wouldn't have to deal with somebody calling me out. I do, however, agree with you about doing your own research.

Lastly, I am a vegetarian so high protein diets are not something I would ever be attracted to anyway.

WebMD is hardly a viable source, or any site that claims to be an expert. You have to do the research yourself. I think we all learned you can't believe everything you read.

So we have to do the research ourselves, but we can't believe what we read? An interesting stipulation... one that allows you to proclaim anything anyone writes as being false. Sorry but I reject your stipulation.

Considering the articles in WebMD are reviewed by doctors before they're published, I'd tend to believe them before some anonymous stranger on a news commentary forum who may or may not actually have any expertise in the field. (And with a handle like "ironchef", I'm actually leaning heavily on the "may not" side of things.) I'm always suspicious of the people who say "Ignore the experts and listen to me!"

HDL/LDL Cholesterol is a factor in heart disease and is only a peripheral factor in obesity. You could greatly reduce the LDL (bad) cholesterol in your bloodstream and still be obese. Conversely, you could have 5% body fat and have cholesterol levels off the charts.

One thing the article didn't go into is the swapping of weight. Most of these diet pills include a recommended diet and exercise clause. If someone actually exercises regularly, they will start to build muscle - which will add back some of the weight lost in fat. So rather than a scale, a better measure of your progress is a tape measure.

Fadamor, you can choose to believe whatever site you want but if it involves your health, it would behoove you to actually research the claims. Are you blindly going to take any medication because the doctor recommends it? Who do you think gets a part of the profit from that?

Obviously the food pyramid has been a complete failure. Eating too many processed carbs has made (at least the US) people obese. That was recommended by your doctors who you've given your undying trust in. Brilliant. You have a brain and a will, use it.

I agree you need to exercise if you want to drop the flab.

But and here many get it wrong, it needs to be the right exercises. Do the wrong exercises/training and the body will draw energy from the muscles(readily available) and not burn the fat.

Also diet needs to be split up into multiple meals with each meal providing the nutrition till the next meal and the activity level in between.

Eat foods that increase the metabolic rate prior to exercising, etc.

Most people don't have the knowledge(nutrition, exercise, etc) to follow the needed steps for the above points.

Most diets try to starve the body or burn muscle to lose weight quickly, hence the bounce-back with revenge.

Just my view.

Fadamor, you can choose to believe whatever site you want but if it involves your health, it would behoove you to actually research the claims. Are you blindly going to take any medication because the doctor recommends it? Who do you think gets a part of the profit from that?

The doctors I deal with prescribe "generic" drugs because the healthcare I pay for mandates it. So much for your "profit motive". Why do you think the drug companies are advertising directly to the general public now? Their hope is someone sees the ad and then demands the non-generic treatment.

Obviously the food pyramid has been a complete failure. Eating too many processed carbs has made (at least the US) people obese. That was recommended by your doctors who you've given your undying trust in. Brilliant. You have a brain and a will, use it.

So if we don't trust the doctors for our healthcare, then who are we supposed to ask in order to "use our brains"? You or your witch doctor friend? (wait, he's a witch doctor so we can't trust him...) I know! We all should find shamen and have them perform incantations over us. All we'll need is a live chicken for the sacrifice.

Yeah, you can knock yourself out thinking doctors are all liars, but don't be offended if I ignore your advice. I DO have a brain and I DO use it, as evidenced by the fact that I can recognize steer defecation coming from someone else's keyboard. If it looks like feces and smells like feces... it must be holistic medicine.

calories in < calories out = weight loss

There is no magic potion.

Eat less, exercise more = Miracle weight-loss formula! ;)

"To burn off one kilogram of fat, a person needs to run the equivalent of three and a half full-length marathons."

So much for burning off a kilogram of fat.

But do they cut pounds instead of kg?

Reminds me of the old cartoon "what diet, what diet?" Eat less, and exercise is the answer....

What? diet pills and potions that don't work??? Could that be possible? Insert eye roll here.

Actually, if you have a caloric deficit and and exercising, diet pills can work wonders...

Sounds like there are quite a few fitness junkies here. Good to see. (I'm one myself). But arguing different diets and fat burning methods can get as intense as arguing politics or religion. What is interesting is how people can use quite different methods to get to the same place.

psssst, yaukuni...methinks the "caloric deficit and exercise" has more to do with weight loss than the pills you mention...unless they are the speedy type that make ya go!

hrd, yeah I was being sarcastic, but also making the point that lot of these fat burners etc are probably best used when you are doing everything else right - and then you are talking about people who are really trying to get into single digit bodyfat.

I'm using coffee and green tea as my "diet potions" these days.

Zenny, Good post. What would you eat before exercise to raise metabolic rate? (not an attack, an honest question)

Yasukuni.

Coffee, certain types of ginger. Would need to look it up, I don't eat anything special before exercise but that is due to the fact that I do a specific training regime as we got restrictions on things like sex too.

Best get a session with nutrionist that will go over your day and activity.

well everyone does what works for them. for me its fish, vegetables, yoghurt (none of the lowfat nonsense b/c it tastes awful), dairy (cheese, cheese, cheese!), milk (lowfat, thank you), meat very occasionally, same w/ carbs (must be whole grain), fibery foods. And lots of tea and walking, yoga. I used to worry a lot but now I think it's better to eat properly than worrying abt wgt. Don't need the extra stress.

and fruits!

Restrictions on sex??? You a boxer or something?

Yasukuni.

Close, just special training I need to go through. To long to explain here.

Cool. Be interested to hear the explanation one day.

I am always amazed by the amount of weight-loss potions and pills advertised on Japanese TV. There is no way they could all work. Just shows how gullible the general public are. Losing weight and keeping it off is not so difficult unless you are a glutenous alcoholic couch potato, then there is no magic potion gonna help you.

Disillusioned. It's not really that difficult. But there are even more "glutenous alcoholic couch potatoes" in the US and Australia.

Obviously no matter how much education, "only eating as much as your body needs" is too hard for most people.

So it's a great industry, and only getting bigger. And in a few years the market in China will probably be a goldmine too.

"only eating as much as your body needs" is too hard for most people.

Of course it is. The human body evolved in a world where dinner was faster/bigger/had more teeth/needed catching; our ancestors learned to eat whatever they could, whenever they could, because starvation was only a couple of failed hunts away. Today inside every sophisticated homo sapiens is that same insecure little caveman or woman, telling us to eat, eat, eat while we can. And to go for those precious high-energy, high-calorie foods first. Even though our modern brains know the fridge is full and there's a conbini on every street corner.

Mmm. I think I just argued that naturally thin people are more evolved....that can't be right!

I think people just like eating stuff that tastes nice. Regardless of the calories.

There's no insecure caveman in me.

"Even after drinking twice the recommended amount, I felt no changes"

This person was lucky he/she didn't actually gain weight from doing that.

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