Medical Weight Loss Diets

[Ms. Highside]

(after I typed this.. I'm not sure what forum it really should be in... but it IS about nutrition, although the worst kind!)


SCARY !!! **shocked**

I went to the LA Convention Center today for the Health and Fitness Expo. I was expecting to see alot of people there who are interested in their health... working out... nutrition... etc... but instead, it was a bunch of people who couldn't afford health insurance and were getting some basic diagnostic testing for free. I'd say about 60% didn't speak english... and most of the rest looked like they have never walked into a gym in the life, and had no idea what a carb was. Okay... enough about the expo. Back on topic.

Due to my profession (I own a fitness testing lab), I feel that it's necessary to keep an open mind to all kinds of diets (not for myself... but for everyone else), even if I have strong opinions against them. Okay... so at the expo, I tried to be open minded while listening to some company's pitch on their "cookie diet." Supposedly, this is a Medical Weight Loss Diet that is overseen by doctors and has been approved by a team at Cedar Sinai Medical Center (huge well known hospital). The clients eat these nasty no-taste cookies for breakfast and lunch and eat a regular healthy dinner. They advertise losing about 5 pounds a week.

Talking to one of the doctors (and trying really hard not to call him a quack), I found out that this is a 800 CALORIE DIET !!!!! 800 Calories????!!!!???? I was shocked... repulsed... and ready to teach him a lesson, but I maintained my composure and asked him to explain to me how anyone can keep from losing muscle and slowing down their metabolism on 800 calories a day. He called it a protein-fast diet... and said that it is highly recommended by lots of medical weight loss clinics. (I can't believe people are being paid to abuse their clients like this) According to him, human beings are not designed to eat everyday. I almost fell over... and wished I could smack the Ph.D off his name plate.

I wouldn't have been able to keep a level head hearing this kind of bulls***, but another doctor supervised medical weight loss clinic had called me a few days ago asking to join the referral list for my fitness testing lab, and I was shocked to hear that they also recommended an 800 calorie diet to many of their clients.

WTF !! This is the kind of stuff that DOCTORS are pushing !???!!!

Is there anything that can be done to stop this??? Is this the kind of stuff that all these medical weight loss clinics are pushing?? Is anyone taking responsibility for these mis-informed obese people who are learning to eat less than 1/4 of what their body truly needs??

Opinions??

[bluebird]

Wow, these "Doctors" really need to have their licenses pulled (if they even have a license to begin with.) It sounds to me like they are taking full advantage of desperate obese people to make a quick buck. Absoulutely disgusting. 800 calories a day? That's what people eat after undergoing gastric bypass surgery, and even that is under close medical supervision. With medical advice like that, it's no wonder the obesity epidemic is getting worse and worse in this country.

[Star9]

Hey Ms. Highside,
So the LA convention center's health and fitness expo sucked? I almost went down there today and was planning on going tomorrow, but it sounds like kind of a waste of time. I went to the fit expo in Pasadena back in February (I go to 24 Hour Fitness and they sponsored it) and that was great. I got tons of free stuff and everyone was super fit, very friendly, and willing to give you advice. So this one wasn't like that? I'm glad you posted something about it! Thanks.

-Star

[Ms. Highside]

This one was sponsered by Bally's... so I expected something more like what you see in the Vendor area at bodybuilding/fitness competitions. It obviously wasn't.

The best part... many of the vendors were giving away CANDY at their booths, EVEN THE DIABETES BOOTH !! They didn't care about prevention... just treatments and drugs.

Waste of time... and I'll be shocked if I get one client from all the marketing I did while I was there.

[jessedi]

I work in the medical profession and doctors of all kinds, not just weight loss doctors, are beginning to work all for the money and not spending enough time with patients to determine their real needs. I was having a conversation with a dr. at work the other day about this same thing. Have any of you guys read the book "Eat, drink, and be Merry"? The author touches on the same aspects and has some really good thoughts in the book. It makes someone not want to fully trust the medical doctors. Some of the stuff he talks about may not be right on, but its still good to be aware that such things can be going on. But I do agree that these weight loss fads are all for the money and not for someones well being.

[MissKristi]

This one was sponsered by Bally's... so I expected something more like what you see in the Vendor area at bodybuilding/fitness competitions. It obviously wasn't.

The best part... many of the vendors were giving away CANDY at their booths, EVEN THE DIABETES BOOTH !! They didn't care about prevention... just treatments and drugs.

Waste of time... and I'll be shocked if I get one client from all the marketing I did while I was there.

welcome to america

[barenaked]

In Ontario we have a similiar culprit named Dr. Bernstein. It is a medically supervised diet designed for what he terms as the "Morbidly Obese" - i.e. people who will die due to an illness caused by or linked to their obesity. You are restricted to 1000 cal/day (whether you are 300lb or 175lb), almost 0 carbs and very little protein (you live on vegetables and water). Every other day you are injected with a vitamin B complex in your target areas (hips, butt, lower abs) that helps to metabolize the fat in the area. Essentially, you are achieving ketosis within a few days. However, he also allows people who are already in their "ideal" weight zone to go on his diet. I went on his diet about 4 years ago and started out at 137 (in 5'7"). I had a little fat to lose, but not much.
Six weeks later I was 115lb and had stopped menstruating (for 6 months I didn't have a period). The weight loss had become addictive and no one in the clinic did anything to stop me. But they sure as hell liked my money. This was the closest to anorexia I had ever experienced. He should have his license taken away.

[MsFit]

I worked at a "Medical Weight Loss Clinic" back in 1993. They focused on 800, 1200, or 1500 calories a day, depending on the person's weight. They're main thing was prescribing drugs for weight loss. The clinic lost one doctor because he refused to prescribed the drugs. You should have seen the carbs the owner or "nutritionist" was pushing. Just horrible. And the processed food they pushed. OMG.

Doctors are not trained in nutrition. They are trained by drug companies. These days, medical school is revolved around teaching how to prescribe drugs and how to remove organs and body parts.

I guarantee you that most of you guys know more about fitness and nutrition than your doctor. Oh, BTW, I'm 135 pounds and 16% and my doctor claims I'm overweight because the last time he weighed me I was 2 weeks from a contest when I was 127 pounds and the fact that I gained back my weight in 6 weeks, he's concerned. I told him I'm a bodybuilder, but he pointed to the height/weight chart.

I'm not the only bodybuilder who gets yack from their doctor regarding their weight. You should see the pissed off e-mails I get. LOL

Just goes to show you, they just don't know.

[Ms. Highside]

I swear... they're a bunch of sell-outs !!!

I'm a new business, and need to form as many business relationships with other health-related businesses as I can, but I have more integrity then those idiots and will NOT set them up on my referral list, no matter how badly I want to increase my client base. I pray that those medical weight-loss clinics are stupid enough to send their clients to me because I will prove (with bodyfat and BMR testing) that they are screwing up all of their patients with their starvation diets.

A friend of mine recently suggested that I start to carry supplements at my lab... and make general statements, leading people to believe that I'm a huge supporter of these products. He was shocked that I was adamently (sp) against it because I consider many supplements a waste of money with fraudulent claims, and/or temporary results.

I may eventually add heart rate monitors, protein powders, multi-vitamins and fish oils.... but you won't find much of anything else ever entering my lab. I built my business based upon helping spread the truth behind the lies. I'm not going to support smoke and mirrors... even if it makes me more money and brings in more clients.

Sorry... rant over. Those supposed "doctors" piss me off !!!

[barenaked]

It's no surprise that most of these so-called health practioners are in it for the money. The doctor I wrote of earlier makes a few mill every year doing this - and he only has a base in southwestern Ontario. That's small potatoes compared to what he could be making if he set up shop in some the USAs "fattest" cities. When my period stopped I asked him if it was because of the diet and he claimed "it has nothing to do with the diet. You are just having an irregularity in your menstrual cycle." Six months later I went to my family doctor and he told me I had stopped producing estrogen because my body wasn't fit to have children. And to top it all off, I ended up gaining all the weight back in just as much time as it took me to lose it.

Highside, the best thing you can do for yourself and others is to promote the truth. But beware that people want quick fixes to their body image issues and are willing to accept lies in lieu of hard work and discipline. Good luck with your business

[Ms. Highside]

Thanks Barenaked. I try hard to show people the right way by explaining the usefullness of their test results and how to benefit from eating/training for their personal metabolisms. I press for "slow steady weight loss" so it can be maintained... but some people won't get excited unless they think it's going to fall off overnight. **rolleyes** (i have to admit, that i'm not the patient type either... **blushing**)

Doctors like that deserve to have their licenses pulled. They are doing nothing but making it harder and harder for people to understand the right way to take care of their bodies.... and are causing the yo-yo weightloss and all the emotional symptoms that go along with it. I hate when people get rich off of screwing other people. I actually don't care about getting rich at all... just as long as my expenses are covered, I can put something away for a rainy day and I never have to worry about bouncing a check. Anything more is just extra. Somebody asked me the other day...."what would you do if you won the lotto?" I told them that I'd hire a staff and keep spreading the word so I could help educate as many people as possible about their own body's needs because I find it sad that so many people get lied to constantly.

The new XYZ pill will turn you into a supermodel in 30 days.
Try this new starvation diet where you get to eat cookies everyday.
Don't buy our $150 diet pill unless you're serious about losing alot of weight.
Take this supplement and all the fat will melt off your body.
Take this magic pill and you can eat as much as you want, never exercise, and you'll lose weight.

GRRRRR !!!!

[SexyChic]

OMG!!! These people aren't doctors, they are an anorexic cult in disguise!

[fitnfirm]

Ive always heard that low of calories would put your body in starvation mode and you would not lose any weight, so how could it help the patients of those clinics?

[PopeGregorius]

Talking to one of the doctors (and trying really hard not to call him a quack), I found out that this is a 800 CALORIE DIET !!!!! 800 Calories????!!!!???? I was shocked... repulsed... and ready to teach him a lesson, but I maintained my composure and asked him to explain to me how anyone can keep from losing muscle and slowing down their metabolism on 800 calories a day. He called it a protein-fast diet... and said that it is highly recommended by lots of medical weight loss clinics. (I can't believe people are being paid to abuse their clients like this)

Do a search on "protein sparing modified fast" in google and you will get over 4000 hits. The swiss pharmaceutical manufacturer Novartis makes a product that has 100g protein and <600 calories per day. http://www.optifast.com/

These products are used for the severly obese in hospitals, as an alternative to weight loss surgery, or by physicans to patient with a BMI >35. They are fairly safe but you don't want to use the products for more than 3 months. They are generally a diet of last resort.

[Ms. Highside]

I can agree to super short term weight loss for the morbidly obese.... but these diets are being advertised and pushed on the general population at health fairs... not the small part of the population that it might be okay for. (and it's being pushed long-term... if you read their literature)

Still sickening to me. ... and sad.

[nooneno12325265]

Ive always heard that low of calories would put your body in starvation mode and you would not lose any weight, so how could it help the patients of those clinics?

this is true and when this happens ur body starts eating muscle in ur body which in turn would cause u to have more body fat....very unhealthy and dangerous

[TigerAngelLeigh]

^ It does make you lose weight: a little fat and a lot of muscle and water. Eventually, you will lose so much muscle that you will stop losing weight, despite your body still clinging onto fat. There are many cases of anorexics who are severely underweight having higher bodyfat percentages than people who are a healthy weight. You have to starve yourself for a long time in extreme conditions to get to the point where you look skeletal (assuming you start from a healthy weight): most anorexics take years to get to the point where they almost die - it's just that the media is more interested in the unusual 'I started dieting and 6 months later I was on a drip' stories, which cause more sensation and higher magazine sales/TV viewing figures.

Forgot to add my main point: I used to eat a starvation diet for months at a time and the most I dropped was 30lbs. I hovered between 155 and 185lbs, yoyoing back and forth on a starve/binge cycle. I have old food diaries full of days upon days where I would eat less than 900 calories - averaging 500. There are days where I would even eat less than 200. I did this for weeks on end with no bingeing and lost the same amount as I would've lost with a healthy diet - only I messed up my metabolism and couldn't get below that weight, no matter how much I starved myself. This yoyoing went on for over 5 years - starve for months, binge, starve again. According to these crackpot diets, I should've been 100lbs and skinny after all that starvation. I wasn't. And even eating normal portions afterwards made my weight shoot up.

[Thuirwyne]

My best friend is a doctor and you're right; they're taught little to nothing about nutrition and diet. It's scary.

I remember my old boss was on anti-depressants and had gained weight so her doctor put her on a similar 800 calorie/day diet and she got those b-12 shots. I'll never forget walking into her office and she had a baggie of shrimp and a baggie of grapes and that was her lunch!!! I know she also popped stacker 2 like mints...

[Ms. Highside]

I hear horror stories all the time. I wish there was something we could do to publically "call them out" on selling out... and help the people who get scammed into this s**t all the time. I want to shout it from the roof tops.

This is one of the reasons why I opened up my business... to help protect people from scammers.

[serinebean]

Its so infurriating!!!! What a bunch of @$$ holes! Seriously, if you are morbidly obese, what good is it going to do you to drop your cals so low? At a huge weight, you can loose mass weight at 2000 cals a day, and I have seen this to be true. Besides, eating a "normal" amount of cals wont cause as much muscle atrophy.
In America it seems that we only treat the symptoms but not the cause.
And everyone wants a quick fix....ummm sure.
I think some people are so ignorant, that it leaves them open to these scams. I think its very sad, because these people trust these docs because they wave around a phd and wear a white coat.

Show them how to eat for real, not just starve, thats a tool they can use forever, or does that dip into these docs pocket books?

Whats that about humans not eating everyday, ummmm no! That only occured when there was no food to eat, and besides we are not the same now as we were 10,000 years ago. I hate it when they use anthropology to determine how we should function in the present!
Sorry to ramble but nothing irrritates me more (and yes I know I cant spell)
than people taking advantage of others, its so wrong.
BEANIE CRUSH TOO!!!

[Ms. Highside]

Show them how to eat for real, not just starve, thats a tool they can use forever, or does that dip into these docs pocket books?

Yes... it does hit their wallets because these docs push either diet shakes, diet bars, diet cookies, or some other supplement line that's supposed to keep their client's calories in that horrible zone. Many of these docs get paid by the supplement companies to push their products... either as an employee or as a multi-level marketer.

[slimmerlady]

Hi, everybody! Diets is a very important thing to discuss. So I've got a question! I wonder weather anydody found a good diet? That meams much youi know. There are lots of diets, but almost all of them are rubbish! If you can please share some information with me! THANKS!
http://weight-loss-journal.co.uk/use.../tapeworm-diet

[gella]

Hi, everybody! Diets is a very important thing to discuss. So I've got a question! I wonder weather anydody found a good diet? That meams much youi know. There are lots of diets, but almost all of them are rubbish! If you can please share some information with me! THANKS!
http://weight-loss-journal.co.uk/use.../tapeworm-diet

I don't mean to be rude, but you have jumped on 3 other threads with the same post. If you have questions to the board, start your own thread, it will be more helpful to you.

Other thing, its not a DIET forum, its a body building forum, we don't do diets, we are eating right.

[Watch Me!]

I'm not sure if that link is meant to be a joke, or something you are considering, or what.
At any rate - what it comes down to - is that there is no "diet" that works.
Diets fail.
A change in lifestyle - meaning changing your eating habits combined with your exercise - is the only thing that truly works in the long run.

[Signe]

these people trust these docs because they wave around a phd and wear a white coat.

You know, that's one thing that annoys the hell out of me. You can get a PhD in damn near anything, and be called Dr., but that doesn't mean that you have a license to practice medicine. You need a flipping MD or DO for that. I'll have a PhD in biochemistry next year, but I'm sure as hell not licensed or qualified to practice medicine. Remember that dip**** who was touting Cortislim? I don't remember his name, but I do remember that "Dr." whoever had his PhD in psychology. That definitely does NOT give him any qualifications at all for physiology!

The moral of the story: CHECK THEIR REFERENCES!!!!!! And if they're practicing medicine without a license, call the cops - it's a criminal charge.