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  #1   ^
Old Thu, Dec-12-02, 17:46
gapgirl420's Avatar
gapgirl420 gapgirl420 is offline
Senior Member
Posts: 319
 
Plan: MEAT AND LOTS OF GREEN VE
Stats: 292.7/280/180 Female 68 INCHES
BF:
Progress: 11%
Location: SARASOTA FLORIDA
Default Take A Look At What Was In The London England Daily Newspaper!!!

CHECK IT OUT, AREN'T Y'ALL GLAD WE DON'T HAVE TO STRESS OVER SOMETHING LIKE THIS????

The Daily Mail is from London, England.....

Daily Mail - Thursday 5th December
Why I believe Fergie’s diet only make you fatter by Susie Orbach (Author of Fat Is A Feminist Issue)

With its beguiling “before” and “after” photos of weight-loss triumph, the commercial diet industry has traded for too long on our modern obsession with our weight.

Over the years, we’ve been urged to eat less fat, then to eat more fat; to eat more carbohydrates, the to eat no carbohydrates at all.

Diet plans come and go, and with them the happiness and emotional well-being of the millions of people who are sucked into the weight-loss dream.

Now it’s time to make a stand. I have convened a lobbying group, AnyBody, to campaign against the body hatred that is now so endemic to our society.

We’re attacking this problem on many different fronts, one of which is a planned legal action against the diet industry giant Weight Watchers.

We intend to represent thousands of women and men who have paid out many hundreds of pounds to Weight Watchers, only to find that they have ended up fatter than before they embarked on its’ laborious programme of counting “points” and weekly weigh-ins.

I know we will face criticism for even contemplating court action. Critics will argue that this is the compensation culture gone crazy and that those who fail to lose weight have only themselves to blame, because they are greedy people, lacing in will power, whose weight gain has more to do with their predilection for junk food than any flaws in the Weight Watchers’ system.

But the reality is very different. There is sound scientific evidence that suggest that the whole concept of dieting is fundamentally flawed.

Our campaign is not to make loads of money but to challenge the ideas of Weight Watchers and other organisation that are as questionable and even potentially harmful.

I want to make it clear that my quarrel has never been with the concept of weight loss.

Obesity is a serious problem. Government figures suggest that more than half of women and tow-thirds of men in Britain are over-weight or obese.

Our children are affected, too: one-third of all girls aged 11 are overweight and 20% of all 11 year old boys are overweight.

These figures are disturbing and the problem requires solutions that work.

I first crossed swords with Weight Watchers in a TV debate in the early Eighties. My book, Fat Is A Feminist Issue, had raised the hackles of the diet industry by arguing that diet plans simply don’t work.

They give us an external structure of rules and regulations that make us feel temporarily safe but fail to look at what I regard as the real problem: why people eat when they are not hungry.

After a robust debate, I spoke to Weight Watchers’ then chief executive in Britain, an American. She told me that one of the biggest problems confronting Weight Watchers was recidivism - people who followed the diets and then went back to their “bad” eating habits.

She seemed genuinely concerned and told me that they were working with psychologists to confront these problems.

Since then, Weight Watchers has become a multi-million-pound business, and I don’t believe it is the very “problems” of recidivism that has made Weight Watchers its fortune. For those who feel they are overweight, Weight Watchers offers what seems to be the perfect solution: you can lose weight while still eating your favourite foods, albeit in smaller portions.

Food and drinks are given “points” depending on their saturated fat and calorie content. Members are given a maximum number of points to stick to with the aim of losing between one and two pounds each week.

Some members opt for go-it-alone programmes at home but most attend group meetings run by a Weight Watchers leader.

They pay £9 to register and a weekly fee of £4.50 for the privilege of being weighed in public and attending a discussion on weight loss, although I believe a big money spinner for Weight Watchers is in the sale of pre-packaged diet foods.

It’s certainly true that people do lose weight with Weight Watchers. The problem is that they quickly put it back on again. The reason is simple: our bodies are simply not designed to diet.

Our metabolisms have what scientist call a “set point” - something like a thermostat in a central heating system.

When we gorge ourselves at Christmas, our metabolisms speed up to burn off the excess food. But when we reduce our intake, as when we go on a diet, our bodies go into survival mode, slowing down our metabolisms.

If we continually diet, our body thermostat eventually fails to rest itself once we begin eating normally again. Our metabolisms continue to operate at the slower rate and we start to regain weight.

This leads to the “yo-yo effect” - a vicious cycle of weight-gain and weight loss.

If the plans actually worked, members would have to sign up only once.

Instead, they find themselves returning to its products and promises time and time again.

This leads to huge profits for the diet companies. During the Nineties, American consumers spent more than the annual government budgets for education, health and welfare combined. I believe that the real solution is to re-educate our bodies and minds to eat only when we are hungry. It suits the diet industry far better to convince us that we need their programmes.

There is no doubt that they have a captive market - psychologically prepared for them by the media, fashion and advertising industries who constantly bombard us with photographs of slim and beautiful young women.

They create a vulnerability in all of us that enables organisation such as Weight Watchers to make millions.

For Weight Watchers it’s a win-win situation. The relatively few people who do not lose weight permanently can be claimed as a victory and photographed for publicity purposes.

The rest will continue to buy their products - blaming their failure on their own lack of will power and putting their trust back into an organisation that has failed them in the first place.


WHEW!!!! GIVE ME MY MEAT AND VEGGIES ANY DAY!!

GAP
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  #2   ^
Old Fri, Dec-13-02, 10:00
orchidday's Avatar
orchidday orchidday is offline
Posts: 3,589
 
Plan: Atkins
Stats: 286/261/160 Female 5'8"
BF:BMI43.5%/39.7%/24%
Progress: 20%
Location: Florida
Default

I have always loved Susie Orbach. I read "Fat is a Feminist Issue"when it was first published and that was a long time ago!

But I just don't know about sueing Weight Watchers. Because the bottom line is you have to eat less and exercise more to lose weight. And that is really all that Weight Watchers teaches.

I prefer Atkins because the food plan is something I can use as a way of life. I was always hungry on Weight Watchers and that weighing and measuring just drove me nuts. I belonged in the old days when you had to have five fish meals a week and one liver meal. It was much stricter. I joined years later after all the changes and it was a lot better. But I love Atkins and it has helped me enormously.

The bottom line is that we have to permenently change our eating habits and lifestyle if we are to lose weight and keep it off. And that is NOT Weight Watcher's fault.

I respect Susie Orbach's work and her opinions. I do disagree with her on one major point - being heavy is NOT okay. All politics and misognyny aside, the body does not want to be heavy and it is a tremendous health risk factor. Obesity contributes to many diseases and decreases your life span. Being an old feminazi myself doesn't change the medical facts. I remember the old feminist days when we celebrated large women - heck they are probably all dead by now.

Just my opinions - Cindi
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  #3   ^
Old Fri, Dec-13-02, 11:47
liz175 liz175 is offline
Lowcarb since 7/2002
Posts: 5,991
 
Plan: Atkins
Stats: 360/232/180 Female 5'9"
BF:BMI 53.2/34.3/?
Progress: 71%
Location: U.S.: Mid-Atlantic
Default

I'll have to pull out my copy of "Fast is a Feminist Issue." As a long time feminist myself (I lived in the San Francisco Bay Area from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s and have attended my share of Holly Near concerts), my memory is that Susie Orbach was advocating having more acceptance for different body types. For many of us, I think that has had important benefits. Note that my goal weight is 175, and at some point I may even adjust it upward slightly, my goal weight is not 125. We don't all have to look good in bikinis, and anyway, I am unlikely to do so at the age of 45 no matter what I weigh! I feel sorry for the people who post on this board and say they won't be seen in a bathing suit because they weigh 150 pounds; I think it's this type of attitude Orbach was fighting.

However, sueing Weight Watchers is absurd. I tried Weight Watchers about 12 years ago when my daughter was a baby and couldn't stick to their diet because I was always hungry. I wasted a little money and left. It never occurred to me to sue. I do know people who have lost significant amounts of weight on Weight Watchers and kept it off; perhaps they don't have the same insulin issues I have.

There's no one diet plan that is going to work for all people (including low carb). We need to have a lot of different options around (including Weight Watchers which I know works for some people) so people can figure out what works for them. I'm just sad that it has taken me so many years to find out about low carb eating. Who knows what damage I did to my health over the past two decades because I didn't know how to take off this weight. However, at least thanks to people like Susie Orbach, I was able to live my life at this weight without socially withdrawing and restricting my activities -- I've been putting on a bathing suit and swimming laps several times a week for decades, including when I weighted over 350 pounds. Without having read people like Orbach in the past, I may have hated myself a lot more and restricted my activities a lot more.
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  #4   ^
Old Fri, Dec-13-02, 14:11
freydis's Avatar
freydis freydis is offline
Registered Member
Posts: 901
 
Plan: Atkins, under 30/day
Stats: 335/289/185
BF:
Progress: 31%
Location: MO, USA
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I've been big my whole life. I was doing fine - a large woman celebrating her enjoyment of life - until my husband's doctors put the two of us on a low-fat diet. From that day forward, my health decreased and my quality of living was lessened. Had I continued to eat as I ate BEFORE the doctors messed with me, I might still be big and I might still be slowly decreasing in health, but I wouldn't have gotten THIS big or THIS sick. If she's willing to throw money around to get media attention directed at weight loss plans that don't work, more power to her.
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  #5   ^
Old Fri, Dec-13-02, 17:29
gapgirl420's Avatar
gapgirl420 gapgirl420 is offline
Senior Member
Posts: 319
 
Plan: MEAT AND LOTS OF GREEN VE
Stats: 292.7/280/180 Female 68 INCHES
BF:
Progress: 11%
Location: SARASOTA FLORIDA
Default

CINDI,

I remember those five fish meals, and the liver too! I also remember that we couldn't use mayo and had to mix our tuna up with mustard!
IMO....I did better on the old plan and lost more weight...when they starting changing the program, that's when I stopped loosing on WW's...
Do you remember the old "CALORIES DON"T COUNT?" It was the original low carb diet. You had to drink safflower oil until they came out with these big honking capsules...It was a winning plan, and I still have a copy from the 60's....

GAP
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