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Dieting: I Can't Afford To Lose Weight! |
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We are so eager to lose weight that we swallow the promises of
every diet guru on the planet and eagerly plunk down our hard
earned cash, praying that this time it will work.
What are the costs of the popular diets? The initial cost is to
buy the "Bible" for the diet or join the program. Those initial
fees range from $20 or $30 for a book to several hundred dollars
for a personal program.
Then there's the food. Studies have shown that the average cost
of a week's food purchases, per individual, is slightly above
$50. To start the South Beach Diet, tack on an additional $25
per week. For the Zone and Weight Watchers Diets, the additional
cost is about $40, for Atkins $50, for NutriSystems almost $60
and for Jenny Craig about $85!
Wait a minute, you say. I'm losing weight by cutting back on
eating. Shouldn't that SAVE me money?
Looking at it logically, you would certainly think so. But we
don't try to lose weight logically, we approach the whole
process through our emotions. It is our emotions that lead us to
buy things on impulse, to sign up for programs we know we'll
never complete, and to join projects we'll never actively pursue.
Our emotional thinking is our weakness and it has nothing to do
with intelligence or education or social level. We all get
suckered into scams at some point in our lives and we all
occasionally suffer from buyer's remorse - it's a part of the
human experience.
The marketers and ad men know it |
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well and spend their days
devising tricks for which we all too often fall. How often have
you eagerly dialed an 800 number during one of those brilliant
infomercials only to receive something that doesn't work as it
did on TV, is either shoddily made or just too complicated, and
you stick it in the back of a cupboard where it gathers dust
until you finally toss it?
When it comes to our weight, our emotions reign supreme. We so
desperately want to be more attractive, more respected, and more
desirable. We will even subject ourselves to painful and
sometimes dangerous surgery to bring our reality closer to our
ideal. And we will rob our piggy banks, deplete our bank
accounts, and run up our credit cards for anything that promises
us a slender future.
Do we get what we pay for? Sometimes. There are a few successful
disciples in every program. It is their pictures and stories
that are prominently displayed in promotional literature. It is
the old "before" and "after" trick that sucks us in. Our logic
(and a tiny footnote) tells us that the featured results are not
typical.
The wary left side of our brain wonders if a little airbrushing
might have been employed. Then the right side explodes, filled
with desire, well-meaning intentions, and an overwhelming urge
to believe. And we fall for it again.
Notice that we never hear or see about the failures, the
hundreds of thousands who start a diet with such high hopes yet
live the rest of their lives |
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Untitled Document
'Eat, Shrink & Be Merry" - it's the title of a fun cookbook by two sisters, Janet and Greta Podleski that I found on the 3 Fat Chicks on a Diet Web site (3fatchicks.com).
Mice that were fed a diet rich in fat, sugar and cholesterol for nine months developed a preliminary stage of the morbid irregularities that form in the brains of Alzheimer's patients.
A new diet aid has been released to stop mindless snacking and achieve the long-term weight loss results that will lead to a healthier lifestyle. Diet Guard is a revolutionary product that can help consumers think before they grab that snack. It's drug free and virtually invisible, and users need not worry about any side effects from questionable supplements. (PRWeb Dec 1, 2008) Read the full ...
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