DIETERS BEWARE
Back in 1969, an overweight man named Frank came to my office to see me, demanding that I give him those special shots.
“What shots?” I asked.
“The diet shots,” Frank replied. “The ones that make you lose weight. You gave them to my friend and they were great! I want to lose 50 pounds in 2 months because if I don’t I’ll lose my job as an airline pilot. And then I’ll also be healthier, because I’ll be thinner.”
I told Frank that I hadn’t given anyone diet shots and didn’t know what he was referring to, but this tall, obese man was insistent. “I want those special shots. I have to lose weight.” After careful questioning, I discovered that he was talking about HCG shots, the diet rage of the day. HCG stands for horse chorionic gonadotrophin, a substance made from the urine of pregnant mares.
I understood why he was so desperate to slim down, so I acceded to his demands for the special shots. I gave him instructions on low-fat eating and told him to come to my office every morning for a shot.
So every morning Frank came in and my nurse gave him a special shot that consisted of ½ cc of water. She also weighed him, and acting on my instructions, scolded him. It didn’t matter what he weighed, how much he had gained or lost, she scolded him and told him to eat more vegetables and whole grains and less fatty corned beef, ice cream, and candy.
You know what? My special shot diet worked! Frank lost weight. Obviously it wasn’t because of the injections, but because Frank believed that they would help. His belief gave him the motivation to stick with the simple dietary instructions I gave him (and the admonishments of my nurse), and he lost weight. As I recall, he lost 50 pounds in 12 weeks and was able to keep his job. Unfortunately, when the special shots were discontinued he gained it all back.
Frank’s story illustrates the final three points of the Fat Blocker Program. He had unreasonable expectations, he confused being very thin with being healthy, and he was desperate to try the latest weight-loss fad.
Like so many of us, Frank had unrealistic goals. He wanted to look like a dashing, handsome, slim, young, leading-man type, even though his natural build was on the round side, making him closer to the chubby, best-friend type. Frank would have to starve himself in order to get down to a weight that made him look anything like a leading man. And even then he wouldn’t succeed, because he would become gaunt and emaciated, not handsome and fit. Of course, I understood Frank’s desire. As a teenager and young man I wanted huge muscles, but could never seem to develop them, no matter how hard I tried. I finally had to accept the fact that I was just not the body-builder type, and was better off developing an appreciation for the mind and body that nature had granted me.
Frank also believed that if he were thin he would automatically be healthy. Would that it were so! As pointed out earlier, low poundage does not necessarily equal good health. Achieving ideal body weight is desirable since there is a positive correlation between health and slimness, but rapidly losing lots of weight or keeping your weight unnaturally low by eating a nutritionally unbalanced diet can work against your health rather
than for it. Certainly, keeping your weight low by using highly potent prescription drugs is a terrible thing to do to yourself.
And finally, Frank was willing to try any fad weight-loss program or diet that came along as long as it took off the pounds. What he didn’t know was this: Practically every single diet he’d ever heard about would work—but only for a little while. They’ll all knock the pounds off (and some will do so quickly) but they all also suffer from one big flaw—like my special shot diet, they’re temporary fixes. You lose the weight, then you put it right back on. And many times, you put more back on than you lost in the first place. The only way I have ever heard of to safely, permanently, and reliably lose weight while building better health is to use my Fat Blocker Program (in context with the lifelong, sensible, doable eating and exercise program outlined in this book). It will work for almost everyone; fad diets will work for almost no one.
To prove my point, let’s take a closer look at some of these popular fad diets, as well as certain weight-loss products and surgeries to see why they all fail in the long run—and why some of them are downright dangerous.
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