While on the subject of supplementation, I thought I'd mention one of the most intriguing crazes, fat trappers, and how just about every dieter is joining the stampede to buy them.
Although there are several different kinds of fat trappers available, what is important to know is that there are basically only Iwo kinds of dieters: the perpetual dieter and the desperate dieter. Once in a while, a dieter comes along, diets furiously and sheds all her excess fat. She usually keeps it off. But she's the exception. The rule consists of perpetual and desperate dieters and they are the ones who find the idea of fat trapping so exciting and liberating. Let us briefly examine the motivation and aspirations of the two main groups of dieters.
The perpetual dieter will jump from one diet to the other, dumping the most recent diet in a heartbeat whenever personal circumstances - such as a wedding or a dinner party, work stress or relationship troubles - require it. This is the dieter who originally wanted to lose lust a few kilograms' but refused to commit to certain lifestyle changes. She demands a diet that will produce quick results to 'get it over and done with'. This lady wants to return to her old lifestyle as soon as possible. She has seldom - if ever - reached her natural weight on any of her chosen diets, and usually dumps her diet the moment she starts looking 'better' than before, or whenever she becomes disappointed, frustrated or tired of it. Or when life takes a wrong turn for her and she reverts to what she regards as 'real' food for comfort. After every abandoned diet she regains her weight (plus a few kilos as bonus) and starts the next diet fatter than before. And even more determined that it should be 'over and done with' very quickly so that she can return to her 'normal life'.
This lady is playing a dangerous game with her body. She has the biggest chance by far, somewhere down the line - a few years from now or even a few decades - to come face to face with one of the hardest physical baffles of her life: The Bulge, plus perhaps its Morbid Medical Side Effects, By now you know what they are ....
The desperate dieter has a dieting history that looks much like the one I've just described - the one who perpetually dieted until she was hopelessly obese; severe, chronic and spiralling obesity being one of the most damaging results of perpetual dieting. But this is the dieter who finally has to commit to permanent lifestyle changes if she wants to reverse the damage caused by her perpetual dieting. She is the dieter who is emotionally desperate, who is suffering from a low self-esteem, and who is probably also suffering from one or more of the obesity-related diseases such as insulin resistance, high cholesterol, diabetes or hypertension. She is the dieter who needs more than just a diet. She needs a long-term plan of action and in most cases, professional intervention.
The complexity of obesity can never, ever be over-estimated and I believe one of the major complications is our need for instant gratification. We want to shed fat easily, quickly and painlessly.
Dream on Girlfriend, there is no such thing. To shed fat is tough, because doing so requires a drastic departure from what has become a way of life: eating fat-rich food, following an unbalanced diet and having very little physical activity. Emotionally it requires devotion, commitment, determination, tenacity and yes, permanence!
This is precisely where the marketing of diet products scores big time: you are vulnerable and stand emotionally naked before their lures and empty promises. The thought of throwing your weight - so to speak - behind permanent, comprehensive and successful slimming strategies has a sting: it is called change - something we humans have an innate fear of or a resistance against.
But here you are at a crossroads it were, and like us all, you too want to take the easy road; the fast lane to leanness. And what do you know? Just at that moment you happen to see an advertisement for an amazing diet pill or product or service with the promise that you can go on enjoying all the foods you love and still lose weight. Yes, anything you can imagine, pizza, KFC, fish platters, steak, ribs, chips and everything else on the fatty menu. All you have to do is take these tablets or drops or powders or injections or whatever and your eating habits will have no bearing on your weight!
But not so fast. Just think for a moment how many over-the-counter diet products are sold, claiming some or other 'scientific' formula or theory. Theories that often cause more confusion (and in the long run, spiralling and chronic obesity) because of their incorrect - and often unfounded - claims. Yet, as you also know, obesity is on the increase at an alarming rate. Clearly, very few of these hundreds of products and services ultimately deliver on their promises of physical leanness.