Making Sense of Diet Scams

By Marina Salsbury

diet pills

As America fails to mount effective efforts against obesity, the average citizen continues to get bigger. According to 2011 statistics, approximately one third of adult Americans are obese. Not only has the United States not made any improvement in obesity rates, they have actually become worse. In a number of states, the statistics for obesity grew to more than 30 percent in the last two years. This disturbing trend makes weight-related ailments like heart disease, diabetes, high cholesterol, and high blood pressure some of the most common health problems in the country.

The weight loss industry pulls in billions of dollars annually at the expense of woefully gullible and desperate masses who are duped into buying their proverbial snake oil. A diet pill doesn’t have the ability to turn a portly middle-aged man who spends 14 hours a day in a chair into a rippling Adonis. It doesn’t take earning a PhD online to recognize the key to any successful and healthy weight loss program. As much as people don’t want to hear it, the only sure way to lose weight in a meaningful and healthy way is to change your lifestyle. Consume fewer calories, exercise regularly, eat healthy food, and avoid these dieting scams.

Frozen Diet Meals

These things are incredibly popular, and also incredibly expensive, though you don’t get much food. Try comparing the ingredients list to that of another frozen meal. So-called diet foods are usually loaded with all kinds of chemicals and fillers to make it taste decent after the real substance was taken out of it. If you want a diet meal, make it yourself using fresh ingredients. It’s healthier for you and your wallet, and tastes better, too!

The Fat-Free Scam

While fat-free isn’t a diet product in and of itself, it surely is a scam. The first problem is fat isn’t inherently bad for you. The second problem is low fat tends to mean high carbohydrate. You can find the questionable claim “fat-free” on products like candy, yogurts, prepackaged meals, and sauces. To keep the texture and flavor starches, sugars, and artificial ingredients are added in place of fat.

Banned Food Groups

It’s become trendy to adopt diets that promise big results if you denounce entire food groups. Along with eating fewer calories and getting more exercise, a balanced, varied diet is an essential part of losing weight successfully. Neglecting food groups leads to health problems like malnutrition, neurological disorders, chronic fatigue, depression, and others.

Fast Weight Loss

Dozens of plans and products promise you’ll be losing 5, 10, even 20 pounds per week. Not only is this rate of loss unrealistic, it’s downright dangerous. It’s considered unhealthy to lose more than about two pounds per week.

Eat Yourself Thin

To state that someone can eat all they want and lose weight is not only an oxymoron, it is blatantly ignoring basic biology. After all, isn’t eating all you want what got you in your situation in the first place? Your body doesn’t simply shed excess calories. It stores them in your fat cells.

Strict Diets

These sorts of diets always seem to forbid any sort of flexibility, variation, or flavor. Some go so far as to ban things like fat, salt, some spices, and even certain fruits and vegetables. They’re often limiting to the point of being unsustainable, causing dieters to eventually binge out of sheer desperation after having been deprived of interesting and satisfying foods.

If you want or need to lose weight, don’t be lured in by shining promises of fast, effortless fitness. People who refuse to make meaningful changes to their lifestyle often lose some weight, but end up rapidly gaining it back (often plus some). Anything worth having is worth fighting for. Truly successful weight loss is based on determination, persistence, patience, and hard work.

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