This is the claim made by an advertisement I received via email for a product called TurboTrim. It promises to be the final solution for those who want to look great, feel great and have more energy than ever imagined. But first, the ad claims, you have to toss out everything everyone is telling you about how to lose weight. (Trust only the ad.)
TurboTrim is perfect for the person who hates to diet but needs to lose weight. So the product is basically being marketed to over half the American population. That’s a lofty marketing goal. And TurboTrim is offered by a doctor who “takes weight loss seriously.”
For over 20 years I’ve seen plenty of weight control programs and I honestly think most of them just seem like a waste of good money. But I’m very excited about the news I want to share with you today!
I bet you are! The ad claims that TurboTrim is the answer to your prayers and it appeals to all the emotional hot spots:
- Your waist is smaller
- Your old clothes fit
- You have energy to zip through the day
- You can have sex all night (Wow! That’s some weight loss product!)
- You’re so damned good looking you turn heads wherever you go (works miracles for ugly people too!)
They’re awfully confident, because they think a “click here to order” button is appropriate. But just in case, there’s more! Next, the ad reveals the four true facts as to why weight loss is so difficult. What’s a “true” fact, anyway? Is it different from a false fact or fabricated fact?
First, it’s my duty as a physician to never disguise the truth from my patients or readers. That’s why I have to make this disclaimer right up front so we understand that weight loss doesn’t happen overnight like some “miracle”.
I’m glad he straightened that out. I was expecting to swallow the whole bottle and fit into my size eight pants tomorrow. No, not overnight, good doctor. Just four weeks to that thin, head-turning, sexual marathon god that zips through the day with boundless energy. (This is a prime example of why physicians should never be trusted when it comes to diet and nutrition.)
Then if the four true facts didn’t sway you, the ad goes into detail of what makes TurboTrim so special: it contains six patented nutritional ingredients.
The first ingredient is a nutrient extracted from white kidney beans that inhibits the action of amylase, an enzyme that breaks down starches. The starches are then too large to pass the intestinal wall, so they pass through your body and out via feces. These pills are nothing more than starch blockers. Nothing new. Been around a long time. In fact, the FDA banned starched blockers in 1982, so I’d like to know who paid whom to keep these on the market.
So my question is, does this nutrient also prevent the bacteria from feeding on this incredible new sugar supply and multiplying like crazy? Gas is a byproduct of bacterial fermentation of sugars (you won’t be too popular at parties), and people have been hospitalized from painful gas and excessive diarrhea.
About ten years ago I talked to a man who used the current fad pill for weight loss. This pill operated on the same principle but it bound fat and escorted it out of the body. The man lost weight but he also got sick, because fat is required for the transport and metabolism of many nutrients, and his body was being deprived of these nutrients as they, too, were excreted in feces.
In this study starch blockers were tested on rats. The rats did not lose any weight, but they did lose copper and zinc. Which explains why one of the patented ingredients is zinc. New York Times reported:
However, an article published this week in The New England Journal of Medicine by a team of physicians from the Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas said it could find no persuasive evidence that starch blockers led to weight loss without dieting or exercise. Other scientists have reported that starch blockers can cause flatulance, cramps, diarrhea and swelling of the pancreas. –New York Times, 1982
Swelling of the pancreas? Yikes!
After listing the six patented ingredients with the special names like SuperCitriMax® and L-OptiZinc®, you are presented with another Click Here to Order button.
And then comes to real kicker:
How are you going to feel when your friends and family compliment you on your new body? Imagine how it’s going to feel to look great at the beach or pool…or to fit back into those clothes you almost gave away!
This is all possible now by following my simple plan to eat properly…get moderate exercise and start taking TurboTrim. TurboTrim is easy to follow…its inexpensive (not like those costly weight programs) and now you can try it with absolutely NO RISK!
Note the second paragraph. He has a diet and exercise plan for you. Isn’t that how people lose weight normally? By eating well and moving their bodies?
One bottle of TurboTrim is $39.95. If you buy two bottles for $67.90 you get one free, a savings of $51.95. But wait. It gets better. Shipping is $6.95, so if you buy four bottles for $115.80, you get a free bottle and free shipping, a savings of $83.95! And if you order within seven days, you receive a complimentary copy of “Who Wants to Be Fat?” Only a fool would pass up that opportunity.
Here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to be given a meal plan to follow and you’ll have to exercise. You’ll take these starch blockers. In other words, you’ll be on yet another low calorie diet, the same sort of diet that got you where you are today. With each decrease in calories consumed, the body adapts by slowing metabolism. Once you get off these pills and special diet plan, you’ll go back to eating the same poor foods, so you’ll gain back the weight–just like you’ve done before. But now your metabolism will be even slower.
I’ve done this. I’ve dieted numerous times, lost the extra weight, felt great, went back to my customary crappy diet of fast food and sugar snacks, put the weight back, increasing a few pounds each time. After I quit smoking I ballooned up to 195 pounds. I was officially in the obese column. And I carried that weight for two years, because I refused to diet.
In the past year and a half I have lost 30 pounds, and all I did was start eating a little better, a step at a time. A salad for dinner instead of pasta. Some fruit for lunch. Reduce pizza consumption from once a week to once a month. I’ve continued to eat out often. I’ve had cookies and ice cream and indulged a serious sugar addiction. But I keep going back to healthy foods. And the more healthy foods I incorporate into my diet, the more I desire them. I just ate two peaches.
If you want to avoid turning starches into fat, then quit eating cakes and cookies and donuts and bread and pasta and all those products made of refined flours that are completely without nutritional value and filled with fat and sugar to get tastebud approval.
Or, better yet, instead of avoiding those foods, just start incorporating healthier foods into your diet. Each time you steam some vegetables instead of eating pasta, you improve your nutritional profile. Try to have a salad before every dinner. Substitute wild rice for white rice. Instead of reaching for a cookie or donut, have a sweet fruit. Small changes over time will not only help you lose weight, but you’ll be benefiting every cell in your body with improved nutrition, resulting in improved quality of life.
What sort of small changes can you make today to begin developing a healthier diet?
