Friday, August 3, 2012

Health Crazes and the Shakeology Cult

I am in Alaska now, the trip up here was for the most part uneventful, but everything up to that point was a royal pain in the ass. I will write about that later (I have some awesome pics), but today I want to talk about an encounter I had at Wal Mart and some other health "encounters".

I ended up yelling at a Wal Mart cashier yesterday, nothing bad, she just saw my Alli and she asked me if it worked. I told her that combined with eating healthy, portion control, and exercise it had helped me lose almost 80 lbs. She asked me if I ever tried the HCG diet (I think that is what it is called). I told her no, she says "It works great! You can lose 10 lbs in a week! You can only eat 500 calories though..." My jaw dropped.

"That is SO UNHEALTHY!"

"Well, it depends on what you eat."

"NO! No matter what you eat, that is UNHEALTHY! A body cannot function normally on that, it cannot sustain itself!"

"Well, the thing is, once you are done you gain it all back... quick."

"Uh, yeah, because it is not healthy and you never learned to eat right!"

It amazes me what people do to try to lose weight. I guess the newest craze is body wraps. People who offer this service or sell the wraps claim that it detoxifies the body and helps you lose inches, but the reality is that it only helps to maybe detoxify the SKIN (making it soft and smooth and help with blemishes), and any inches lost are a temporary thing. They can not help you lose weight, they can not detoxify anything within the body.

I know, I know... I understand the mentality of these people. I have been there before. They want to lose weight and look better, but they do not want to do the work and discipline that is necessary to lose the weight. They want the miracle, or the quick fix. They want to lose weight and do nothing but pop a pill or some other dumb shit. Even gastric bypass or any of the other weight loss surgeries will not work (permanently) if the person does not learn to eat healthy and portion control. You can not go to the gym and exercise and continue to eat bad and expect to lose weight! I don't know about anyone else, but when I work out I am STARVING afterwards. People who work out without changing their diet will go work out, then eat something bad for them, more than likely ridiculously high in calories, and get upset because they are not seeing any results!



I did not intend for my blog to be all about eating healthy and weight loss, but I see and hear what other people are doing to themselves and get angry. I want to shake them and yell at them when they complain or act confused when they cannot lose weight. WHAT DID YOU EXPECT???? My husband had gained weight, he was not happy. I FINALLY got him convinced to try my diet. He rarely (if ever) drinks soda, practices portion control, and is eating healthy without complaint... he has lost eight pounds in 2 weeks. Uh, see? I DO know what I am talking about!

In my personal opinion, people need to stop looking for the easy quick fixes, and either commit to what they need to do (knowing it takes work and is not easy) or SHUT THE FUCK UP! I don't want to hear your whining, crying, and complaining if you ignored my advice and continued to do what you did before that was not working. If my advice does not work then we can re examine what you are doing and figure out what we can do that is different to get things going in the right direction.

New pet peeve? People that are SOOOO healthy, never eat meat, dairy, etc, and tell everyone else they are wrong for what they eat and are poisoning their bodies. They turn their children into vegetarian snobs who refuse to talk to children who eat meat or drink cows milk. FUCK OFF! The picture of the vegetarian dinner you had last night? Yeah, it did not look delicious, it looked like vomit. Your Beachbody/Shakeology (I think I will abbreviate it to B.S. from now on) shit? I DON'T want to try it!!! I refuse to have something that is a necessity in my diet that I can not easily get in any store. If I need added vitamins or minerals I will take a fucking vitamin! I am happy if it worked for you, but don't bad mouth me because I am not joining you on your damn bandwagon! Don't friend me on Facebook, and never talk to me other than to send me an invite to some B.S. party, summit, whatever the fuck you call it. I do not want to be a mindless B.S. zombie that does nothing but talk about how "OMG! B.S. IS SUPER AWESOME!!! ASK ME WHAT IT CAN DO FOR YOU!!!!"

My brother recently started doing that stuff (B.S.), and of course he is selling it and wanted me to try it. After three phone calls he finally got it to click in his head that I did not want to try it and he backed off. I appreciated that, but when we were in Germany it was annoying for him to IM me, ask me to call him, then listen to him try to get me to try that shit. My brother has been skinny/scrawny all of his life (asshole), but he wanted muscle so he started the whole B.S., combined with the Insanity workout and has started to gain muscle and fill out. I asked him how much of that change came from the B.S. and how much came from him exercising and changing his eating habits to eating healthy? He agreed that he thinks the majority of it came from his change in the way he ate and his workout regimen (which is really difficult for him since he drives a truck for a living). I am happy for him, but what he does is not right for me, just as what I do may not be right for others. I get it, I just wish other people would too.

What kind of health nuts or health crazes piss you off? Share with me!!!

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

What makes me nuts is when someone looses the weight and then tells you all about how they did it and then tells you, "I know if I could do it, you can too!" Oh, please! I don't wanna hear it. My fat has been with me for so long, it wouldn't leave with an inviction notice. So, I guess I'll just wait for the magic cure to come along or the fat police to come and get it. Giggle. Love ya!......
Aunt Janie

Hillary said...

I love your post! I know a girl who is a personal trainer. You would *think* that she would be an all-around healthy person. Absolutely not!!! She drives me crazy because she is thin only because 1. she works out for a living 2. she only drinks energy drinks 3. she never eats. I could go bonkers every time she casts her eye over all my "fluff". The other day on Facebook she put "I had to run out to Walmart but all my clean shirts were dirty so I grabbed one of my son's to put on." Um. He's 6 years old. You are a grown woman wearing a 6 year old's shirt? Something is certainly wrong in her world. If that's how she diets and maintains a "healthy lifestyle" like she's always preaching then I say no thank you!

Wow. Apparently I needed to vent a lot more than I thought I did :).

Hope you have a great weekend!

xoxox

Laura said...

Vent away!!! I love hearing the complaints of others... makes me feel like I am less of a bitch :)

PottyMouthMommy said...

The people who REALLY chafe my ass are the ones who get all up in my face about my banding surgery- telling me it must be nice to have the money to lose weight "the easy way"... are you fucking KIDDING ME??? yeah- two weeks of the salad starvation diet from hell, to undergo abdominal surgery, then have a liquid diet for three weeks- having to COMPLETELY relearn how to eat, and eat healthily, because if I DON'T get as much nutrition into each and every bite I eat I might as well not eat at all because my body will essentially starve. And it STILL takes a ridiculously long time to lose weight. I'd only lost about 35-40lbs in the 8 months post-banding when I got pregnant. I honestly have to say, that for me, banding was the best 16K I ever spent, but it most certainly is NOT easy- and it most certainly would NOT work if I wasn't wholly committed to changing my lifestyle. The fact is, there is no such thing as a quick-fix when it comes to weight loss.

Laura said...

HERE HERE!!!! Keep those vents coming!!! *giggles*

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Anonymous said...

Thank you for your rant as it's just the sort of hard truth I was looking for. I've been experiencing really slow weight loss since being diagnosed with diabetes (despite daily hour long cardio and strength training to boot) and admit that I was intrigued by Shakeology. Someone at work had tossed out the idea as some sort of miracle panacea. Luckily, I decided to do some research before jumping on that bandwagon. Yours is one of many websites that basically identifies this as yet another craze and a glamorized/overpriced mimic of any of the dozens of meal replacement diet plans out there. I just needed to remind myself that I'm not looking to "replace" meals with some sort of vitamin enriched slurry. I can't live like that long-term.

Laura said...

I still hold to eating right, portion control, and exercise as the key to weight loss. Portion control is the hardest thing for me still...