Yo, Apples! It’s time for a little pre-spring cleaning. This week’s challenge is to clean out the (kitchen) closet. Empty your fridge, your pantry, the cabinets, and the deep freeze out in the garage. If it’s not healthy, if it’s not recognizable, if it’s older than the Clinton administration, toss it.
Don’t save unhealthy stuff “for the kids”, either. They don’t need that junk any more than you do. If you feel it’s wasteful, donate the items to your local homeless shelter or soup kitchen.
One of the easiest ways to be healthy and lose weight is to avoid turning your home into a minefield of temptation. Restaurants and movie theaters aren’t going to change anytime soon, but you can control what goes on under your own roof. So from now on, fill the freezer with frozen chicken breasts and veggies. Stock the cabinets with vegetable-based soups, low-sodium broth, canned tomatoes, almond butter, and olive oil. And make sure the condiments in the fridge are low in saturated fats, salt, preservatives, and sugars. As always, ask the Bees for help if you’re unsure about a particular item.
Posted By: Mark Sisson
The oily spotting continues. Healthbolt has the money quote on new diet drug Alli:
“You can also bet your bottom dollar that GSK will be running ads of fabulous looking people living skinny-happy lives on alli in a field of wheat somewhere. They sure as hell won’t be running ads about 16 year old girls, malnourished as-is because of eating disorders (and this is who’s buying over the counter diet pills) passing out in gym class because they have no vitamins in their body…”
There will also no doubt be a floppy-eared puppy somewhere in that field of wheat – though I’m betting on a field of buttercups and violets myself.
For further consideration: at best, this new wonder drug will yield you a 5-10 pound weight loss…after 6 months! And that’s if you diet. And if you exercise. And that number may not be right, anyway, because the study was so shoddy.
I could lose 5 pounds on a bet in a week and it would still be healthier and safer than the Alli method.
If you work out for just 30 minutes a day and simultaneously cut just 200 calories from your daily intake (we’re talking a soda or a latte or just one standard serving of carbs, Apples), you’ll lose 5-10 pounds in one month. Yes. ONE MONTH. And that’s without a drug.
It should never take six months to lose 5 pounds. It should take about two weeks, and you certainly don’t need a drug to do that.
Among things that will take off 5 pounds in far less time than Alli:
(bear in mind this study isn’t totally proven, but then neither is Alli’s)
Yawning
Stretching in your chair
Rolling over one extra time in bed
Smiling at the mailman for once
Thinking about losing weight
Wondering if your friends are thinking about losing weight
Not thinking about losing weight
Remembering you need to put the clothes in the dryer
Technorati Tags: Healthbolt, GSK, Alli, eating disorders, diet drug
Posted By: Mark Sisson
I’m sure you’ve heard the headlines about Orlistat, the obesity drug, being approved for OTC use. What you may not have heard about are the side effects of this fat-blocking drug. Orlistat, which will still be distributed by Rx as Xenical for morbidly obese patients, will now be sold as Alli in drugstores nationwide.
A magic pill it ain’t, Apples. I have a big (pardon the pun) problem with this drug, for several reasons.
1. How It Works
I have no doubt that Alli is going to fly off the shelves faster than bananas in a monkey farm. People want to lose weight without making changes, and that’s the unfortunate truth. Some of us are lazy; some are depressed; some don’t have the information; and like children believing in Santa, many simply want to believe in a magic cure. These folks are the ones GlaxoSmithKline is banking on. Drug companies love a sucker.
Alli “works” (and even this is highly debatable) by blocking fat absorption. This is problematic, to put it lightly.
First of all, fat does not make you fat. The human body was meant to operate in a fat-burning metabolic state. Whether you believe in God or cite Darwin or both, there’s absolutely no disputing this fact.
The advent of grain agriculture is a new thing for humans, relatively speaking, and the transition from a flesh-and-vegetable diet to a grain-and-sugar diet has humans suffering in a glucose-burning state.
The side effects of this high-sugar diet are horrendous: inflammation, heart disease, depression, insomnia, diabetes, mental degeneration, aging, obesity and cancer. Do you still really want to block fat? People I coach are shocked when I put them on a higher-fat diet because mainstream wisdom still worships at the altar of low-fat. Know what happens? Infections clear, cholesterol drops, energy increases, anxiety dissipates, skin glows, and the pounds melt away.
Second, reducing fat deprives your body of vital nutrients, vitamins and antioxidants, which all need fat to metabolize. Blocking fat means you can’t properly absorb critical nutrients, which is why Alli has to be taken with a multivitamin to offset some of the damage.
2. The Law of Unintended Consequences: Oily Stools?
Alli is available under conditional approval. This is the same FDA approval stamp that got us into the HRT and Cox-2 disasters. How many thousands of women suffered from breast cancer and how many people had heart attacks as a result of these reckless approvals? Conditional approval.
As I mentioned the other day in an update on the FDA’s drug woes, conditional approval is a process by which the FDA essentially allows the burden of safety to rest with drug companies. (Yes: more often than you want to know, the FDA lets pharmaceutical companies begin marketing and selling a drug before lengthy testing has been conducted.)
This tacit trust is just super-duper for drug companies eager to sop up years of product development costs with fast cash, but I’m stumped as to how this is beneficial for actual human beings. Can you imagine if farmers, restaurants or vitamin manufacturers like yours truly just up and sold products that knowingly caused serious health issues and thousands of deaths? We’re not talking one or two or even a dozen. We’re talking hundreds of thousands of serious – often fatal – drug reactions every single year. Some estimates go into the millions.
Just who is the FDA supposed to be looking out for?
Alli, among other issues, causes incontinence and oily stools.
And this is the deal-breaker, folks. Anal leakage? Oily spotting? I don’t think so! Alli can also lead to kidney stones, gall stones, breast cancer, and hepatitis. Every time a new drug scandal hits, I think, surely, surely the FDA will make changes. It never happens. This is the definition of insanity: doing the same thing you’ve always done and expecting different results.
There’s a better way to lose weight, but it does take some work – though not nearly as much as you’d think. You can eat fat and drop pounds simultaneously. You can enjoy flavor. You don’t have to be a slave to the treadmill. Stay tuned for tips every day on how to lose weight and feel better – sensibly, enjoyably, without any suffering at all. No spotting, either. We have a strict no-spotting rule around here.
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Technorati Tags: Orlistat, obesity, OTC, over-the-counter, Alli, drug companies, fat absorption, high sugar, FDA, oily stools
Posted By: Mark Sisson
Worker Bees’ Daily Bites:
Mark’s favorite items from today’s health news.
1) FDA Approves Deficiency – er, Diet – Drug
Orlistat, an obesity drug, has been approved for over-the-counter use. It ain’t your mama’s diet pill – this drug actually has major side effects, and because it depletes nutrients from the body, must be taken with a multivitamin. Like ephedra before it, we’re giving this product a short shelf life. Unlike previous diet drugs, this is now going to be available at the local Rite Aid. The FDA reminds Americans that we must eat right and work out along with taking Orlistat. In case you were wondering, the FDA’s favorite glasses are rose-colored.
There are healthier – and easier – ways to lose weight, friends. Stick around for plenty of helpful tips, every day. We’ll keep you posted on all future Orlistat news, too.
2) Sleep Your Way to Slim
Yesterday’s Tuesday 10 focused on the importance of sleep (scroll down the page a bit to check it out).
Here’s another great thing that’s just been revealed about the connection between sleep and health. Slender days ahead!
3) For the nerds (you rock)
If you’re into breaking discoveries, and especially cancer news, this is an utterly fascinating new piece of information.
4) For the curious (you also rock)
If you’re just into really bizarre health news, this is for you.
Posted By: Worker Bee
Worker Bees’ Daily Bites:
All the news, none of the partially-hydrogenated soybean oil!
1) Every name under the sun…
These guys have a great piece on shedding pounds by becoming aware of “liquid candy”. You’ll want to check it out – you’d be surprised at what can sabotage your weight-loss goals!
2) All y’all can stop worrying about Nicole Richie
Because this is far more of a health problem. Disturbing. But with things like fried cheese balls being offered at major restaurant chains, are we really surprised?
3) Breaking girls’ hearts…sort of
Women’s heart health is rather overlooked, although the recent PR campaign to raise awareness has helped offset that somewhat. Women are at equal risk for heart disease, stroke and heart attacks – so take care of yourself, ladies! You can’t always trust a doctor to think about your heart, evidently.
Kind of a no-brainer, isn’t it? Plant some trees.
Hysteria? Nerves? Is this a joke? Doctors revert to 19th century views on women’s health.
4) Another great plan from Uncle Sam
This time, on a potential flu epidemic. We hope it includes a color-coded bar alert. No, seriously, we do. We’re rooting for turquoise and magenta. (Dissenter: Elliott votes for taupe.)
Be sure to stop in tomorrow, when Mark will be posting his easy (almost brainless, really), healthy-yet-still-not-embarrassing-for-the-guys Superbowl food tips.
Posted By: Worker Bee
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