This topic has been talked about on a few other blogs, but I was doing my blogging hiatus when I first discovered the tragedy. Now because I think it is so tragic, I won’t be linking to it. I am tempted to not even say the guilty party’s name in this post because I’m so angry/mad/disgusted with him/her that I don’t want to give him/her any more attention.
This tragedy is brought to you by a pretty famous trainer (this won’t take rocket science to figure out). But this so-called trainer who encourages people on a weekly schedule to be the biggest loser of the week (ahem), has started her/his own line of WEIGHT LOSS PILLS. Let me repeat that, someone that tries to teach overweight people how to lose weight is selling pills for NINETY-NINE DOLLARS. Now this person probably has a pretty damn good idea of just how desperate overweight people are. This person has built a reputation for helping overweight people overcome their years of weight gain by eating better and exercising, and now he/she’s selling weight loss pills while her/his show airs on television (I’m not watching but I’d venture a bet that she/he’s not telling the contestants to take a pill to lose weight and for the love of god if they are and you are watching I beg you to stop watching too). I don’t think that’s selling the right message. In fact, I think that’s the wrong message. I think the message that tells people is that they need weight loss pills to lose weight. I think this person should have come out and said, “I was approached by a weight loss pill company to endorse their product but because I know that the only way to guarantee weight loss is to diet, there is no way I can endorse a diet pill no matter how much money they’ll give me.”
In the interest of full disclosure, I have to say that I’ve been desperate before and taken weight loss pills. I have tried several different varieties. Honestly, I never took any long enough for them to work, but I doubt they would have worked anyway. I also felt weird and scared about taking them (and frankly I don’t like taking any types of medicine). But I did buy them. But you know why I bought them? Because I was desperate to do weight. I thought I had tried everything (everything that is except … diet and lose weight for longer than 2 days) and I wanted the quick and easy solution. I did that without a famous person endorsing the product.
The thing is she/he have been promoting these pills for a while now. Yet every time I see the endorsement I just get more and more mad. She/he is preying on individuals who don’t believe in themselves enough to lose weight. Not only that but she is charging this crazy rate for these pills. Does she/he really think they’ll work? But even more importantly and maybe more relevant to this person should be the question of whether she thinks weight loss pills are really good for HER/HIS profession? Hello, if everyone thought they could lose weight by taking a pill every morning instead of seeking out professional advice regarding training, personal trainers wouldn’t be necessary, and neither would work out videos (which this person sells a lot of! in fact, she/he has a very popular video right now that I like liked). The more I think about this more it makes even less sense. I wish people wouldn’t always be sell outs, but money always wins I guess :-/
Eat: Another good day with leftover lasagna for lunch (even better leftover as I suspected!). Dinner at M’s parents — where I ate two cupcakes. Probably shouldn’t say a good day because of the cupcakes but I refuse to make a big deal of it.
Run: nothing today because I didn’t make time for it (yeah that’s right, no more saying “I didn’t have time” I always have time I just choose not to make good use of my time). However, I did sign up to do something crazy on Saturday. I was already racing in a 5 mile race as part of my firm’s involvement with the city’s corporate challenge. Well the 5 mile race is at 7:45 a.m. There’s a 5k at 9 a.m. and we didn’t have anyone signed up in my age group, so I volunteered to do both. I had a 10 mile run scheduled anyway so I figure this will be any okay substitute. I’m trying to decide which one I’m going to race. I think I’m going to shoot for 10 minute miles in the 5 miler and a PR in the 5k.
Litigate: This category is going to become optional. I work all day and just don’t always feel like talking about more legal stuff on my blog. This is my escape and I want it to feel like that. Sorry if you come here for the legal updates; in that case I’d highly recommend Above the Law.
I get frustrated with the diet pill industry as a whole. It doesn’t fix the problem, it only temporarily fixes the symptom.
I hear you about JM. For someone who has always advocated the natural and hard work method, the pills are a complete sellout. $$$ talks to everyone, I guess.
It’s annoying that there is always a little part of me that thinks “Hmmm… I should try them” and I have to kick myself.
Actually, if you look at the ingredients in the pills, they contains supplements – natural herbs and other ingredients that she has always advocated people use to optimize the body’s ability to lose weight. If she recommended someone take a natural supplement made by someone else, perhaps something to help the body fight hormonal imbalances or something like that, I don’t think anyone would mind. In fact, she has done that for years. I think it’s the fact that she’s taking advantage of her fame to make money selling products she would otherwise refer you to (made by someone else) that bothers people the most. And honestly – if we believed in the product we were producing and endorsing, wouldn’t we do the same thing?
I guess I just don’t see what all the hype is about. Again, the ingredients are natural supplemental substances – not ephedra or all the other horrible things that are in most diet pills.
*duck* I know, y’all are gonna want to throw things at me, but it’s just my $.02 (worth about 1/4 that in this economy!).