It's called 'Getting Healthy'

[gnimaerd]

I hate ads like this one:



I HATE them. 'I lost 20 pounds in two weeks'?! You know what you should read there, f-listies?

'I did a horrible, horrible thing to my body for two weeks, in which I shut everything else down and forced my body into starvation mode. I will have to spend the next six months recovering and will almost certainly end up putting on more weight than I lost within that time.'

Whatever the adverts tell you. Whatever the faddy diets and the faux-gurus try to sell to you to make a quick buck off your hopes and your dreams and, crucially, your insecurities - the bottom line is that it is not healthy to lose that much weight that quickly.

It just isn't. It never will be. The only time you should lose weight that quickly is if you suddenly encounter a famine and your body is forced to burn up all your reserves - and famines are not good things. You lose energy, you lose focus, you're hungry all the time, you crave every food but that which is available to you (what you 'should' be eating according to the diet) and your body is FUCKED the hell up because you're not MEANT  to exist purely on just one type of food or tiny amounts of food. You just aren't.

What's even MORE galling about this ad is that the woman pictured DID  NOT  NEED  TO  LOSE  WEIGHT. LOOK at her, for God's sake - she looks FINE in the 'before' picture. In all honesty, I think she looks BETTER. (Maybe just personal taste - I like hips and boobs on a woman). And if she WANTED  to lose weight or get fitter - fine!  But do it by joining a gym! Cut out fried and high-sugar foods from your diet and jog five evenings a weeks. Sure the process will be slower but it will be HEALTHY and you're much more likely to reach a sustainable, natural weight that work your body and your life style that way, than in forcing it all off all at once and shrinking down to something you can't sustain. She essentially did something incredibly unhealthy to herself for a pre-imposed aesthetic that very few people can truly live by in a healthy, happy way and yet millions of women make themselves miserable striving for it every day.

It makes me SO  ANGRY.

And just read the statistics on 'diets', I mean - seriously. 98% of all people who try to diet put ALL the weight they lose back on within the first year after the diet. 98%, people. That's not about getting healthy - that's about a pointlessly painful exercise in futility. And all of that dieting CAN  have serious long-term health implications. You lose too much weight too quickly you can also lose muscle mass, weaken your vital organs including your heart, fuck up your fertility because of all those random hormones the starvation sets off flying round your body - it's horrible and it's not something people should be doing to themselves.

I hate that the media and the cosmetics and health industires all try to take advantage of a woman's anxieties about the way she looks to flog something that is not only causing unnecissary strife but actually physically harmful to the women who try. I'm trying hard right now to make the changes to my life that will allow me to get healthy - mentally and physically - and be happier and more content in myself and the way I look. It's about serious, long term change and it's going to take work - it's already taking work. But I never go hungry. It's about preserving my health, not sacrificing it so that I can look a certain way. Why should I be made to feel like I'm failing because I've only lost a few pounds in a few months - without suffering, without being unhealthy, without making myself miserable? Because I'm being sensible and careful and because I'm still in the process of resetting the bad habits of a lifetime - how DARE people play on my insecurities about the way I look?  My impatience?  How dare they exploit women like that? Play on us like that?

It's sexist, it's exploitative, it's depressing and it's dangerous and it makes me SO  ANGRY.

Comments

[multred-a.livejournal.com]

It is a whole life attitude...not weight loss. You are so right. I eat the way I do because of my blood sugar problems, but I eat foods that I like. I eat in moderation, and I do eat candy. I can eat half a chocolate bar, slowly, for the taste.

[doylefan22.livejournal.com]

When I see claims like that I think 'what did you do? Chop off a limb or two?'

I've gone down from 12st 8 to 10st. It's taken me two years. Frankly if I'd lost it any quicker I would have been worried. I didn't 'diet', I just changed what I was eating and did more exercise - permanently!

A friend of mine did the Lighter Life plan and every time she mentions it I have to bite my tongue about what a dangerous load of crap I think it is.

As for the photo, personally I think she could have done with losing a bit of weight from the before photo - nothing drastic (1/2-1st). But she's gone too far in the after shot - somewhere in between would have been better.

[heather11483.livejournal.com]

So true. Even if a fad diet actually works in the short term (which rarely happens), without changing lifestyle and habits, it never sticks. I think a reasonable rate of weight loss, depending on how much needs to go, is around 2 pounds a week, 3-4 at most (I guess about a fifth to a fourth of a stone?) -- and that's very doable with simple things like bringing in exercise and cutting down portion sizes/cutting out high-sugar foods. It's the goal I'm setting for myself, anyway.

Also, what I love about those sorts of ads is that usually, in the fine print at the bottom of whatever 'plan' they mention, they say 'use along with diet and exercise' or something similar. Oh, really; you think? *eyeroll*

Not even going to go into how sexist the ad is. Usually when men are in ads like this (and they rarely are), it's for some kind of muscle-building or protein liquid diet. Fail.

[eviinsanemonkey.livejournal.com]

God, yes.

Every time I see one of those adds or commercials I roll my eyes because, really? That's ridiculous. Nothing works that fast and is healthy (hell, nothing actually works that fast, If you look really close on these things you can see that they're either not the same person or there's some major photoshop magic going on).

The media image of the "ideal woman" and how to get there is one of the most disgusting things about today, imho. To be honest, I think Alan Davies said it best: "I've never met a bloke who said he wanted bony".

Yeah...I think my point is in there somewhere. heh...

[indes-elfwine.livejournal.com]

My mum had a Ceasarian with me and never really lost her baby weight after because exercise is hard when you're recovering from major abdominal surgery. As a result, shes been unhappy with her weight for pretty much my entire life. Over the past year, she's gone down three dress sizes. How?

She and my Dad starting planning long walks together around local beauty spots, whenever they have spare time which is usually every other day. It has the bonus effect of giving them time to talk and reconnect which makes our home a lot happier and more peaceful than before. She eats healthy six days out seven and has little treats on a Saturday.

She does not starve herself or yo-yo. That doesn't work.

*scowls at thr silly woman.*

[takadainmate.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the only time I lost weight that quickly I was in hospital and very ill so I now associate weight loss with sickness. I really do think this obsession with "being thin" though is just dangerous, and I agree with what you've said here most certainly.

[entangled-now.livejournal.com]

I agree with you so very hard. The only time I've ever lost a drastic amount of weight I had food poisoning, and I lost five pounds. I was pretty much dead for an entire week, and that's still not even half as much as this woman managed to lose. Did she remove some internal organs or something?

[gnimaerd.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the only time I ever lost a drastic amount of weight very quickly was when I got incredibly sick and barely ate a thing for two weeks straight. (And anything I did eat I brought straight back up again). NOT pleasant.

[avictoriangirl]

I couldn't agree more. Those ads always bug the heck out of me too. I can't believe people actually fall for that crap.

[walkwithheroes.livejournal.com]

I agree with you. Diets and exercise are important, not just to be thin but to be healthy. I know a lot of "thin/healthy" (re: less than 110) who can't even walk up three flights of stairs. While, I know other people that many would think of as obese/and "unhealthy" who can walk up those same stairs without much trouble. It's all about taking care of yourself and eating balanced meals. Like, six or five small meals throughout the day. Plus you have to drink a lot of water and do some walking or other small things.


My mother has been on a diet (Nurtisystem) for ten months. She's eating less, doing her housework, and she's down 60 pounds. She's planning to get off when she hits the 200 mark, which should be soon (she's at 232) and now knows how to eat. Maybe Nusystem wasn't the best idea in terms of keeping the habits, but she, at least now feels full after small meals. She'll just have to keep the habits.


I've also been on a diet for the past five months and have lost 31 pounds over the last four months. Most of it was due to me drinking more water, walking just a bit three times a week, eating smaller meals, and cutting out things like sweets and sodas. I honestly think I lost the first ten purely by cutting out the junk foods.


To lose weight, you have to do it in a healthy way and learn new habits. Every doctor will tell you to "Walk more, eat less, and drink water." So, that's what I've been doing.

[crimson-riddler.livejournal.com]

*hugs*
Yes, yes, yes. Things like this are so idiotic, but it's unfair as it does play on insecurities.

*points to Smallville* - if you lose that much weight that quickly, it's because you've turned into a fat-eating vampire.

*more hugs*

[jeminisoul.livejournal.com]

*Hides in corner* Is it wrong how much I considered stuff like this? Well, I used to. Now my heads been sorted out I know what I should be dong, yes my lifestyle is changing now but I can see the appeal of ads like this.

I had a friend who really staved herself and it was soooo depressing - there was her loosing a couple of stone in a few months with me only loosing a few pounds. I suppose I'm impatient, but who isn't really? I knew she was ill in doing so, but that's not what you think about.

I know now how stupid those ads are and yoga + cardio + being more imaginative with a vegetarian diet = weight loss. But there is still a small part of me thinking - you have summer, you don't need to be all that well in summer, try to do something radical. It's silly and it's wrong but it is logic made of insecurities.

The more weight you lose the harder it becomes, esp since you need the muscle. I'm about 9st 7 now, but for things like performing arts you NEED to weigh less - it's not all vanity, it's looking at an audition and seeing 'maximum size 10' and worrying. Sometimes people don't have time for exercise, so something like this looks amazing!

Once again, I think this ad is wrong and stupid, but as someone who suffers from serious body insecurities I can say that they will always hold slight appeal for those days when you just think: screw all this, I want to just change NOW.

Love you all
xxxxx

[jeminisoul.livejournal.com]

Oh and really the during looks to me to be the most healthy, but that is a bit of a distorted view ^^'.

... Please don't hate me

[gnimaerd.livejournal.com]

....why would I hate you?

What you're saying is exactly why these adverts make me so angry.

Of course I can see the appeal of ads like this. Honey, I've been overweight since I was thirteen years old - you think i haven't tried stuff like this? You think I haven't starved myself for months at a time trying to get the weight off? (And that i haven't piled it all back on again the moment I finally snapped andwent back to eating properly again?)

All women see the appeal of ads like this and the methods they advertise because they play on our insecurities; and it's even worse for someone with an existing eating disorder and/or body image problem (which one in every three women have or will have at some point in their life time). That's what pisses me off. Take someone like you - like me, like several of my closest friends - who already deal with weight issues, eating disorders and body-image problems every day and have deep seated insecurities. For us, the temptation to try something like this is EXTREMELY strong because we want to lose weight and it would be so awesome if it could come off that quickly. Our desperate want to look pretty and thin clouds our judgement over what is actually good for our bodies (and our minds), and when we see ads like that, that legitimize unhealthy practices like starving yourself in the name of losing weight, it makes us feel like we SHOULD be doing it - because, according to the advertisers, it works.

These people are feeding us this shit so that they can make money off of us. They are not only making us even MORE insecure about how we look, but they are trying to convince us to do something that will actually HARM us. It's sick, and it makes me angry, because they're exploiting us - you, me, every woman in the western hemisphere.

[jeminisoul.livejournal.com]

*Nods* I can see what you mean. There is so much pressure as well nowadays, with the media and that. The most annoying thing is that most girls my age (between 15-18) seem to be able to eat junk ALL the time, never exercise and not gain weight. There was a time where I was doing 9 bloody hours of exercise a week and STILL not fast enough change.

These adverts just make me think that if you want to lose weight 'the lazy way' you almost deserve to put it back on. It's cruel, but if you are not willing to work to be who you want to be then you have not really achieved anything. Anyone can pop a few piles, but it doesn't mean that they will be fit, healthy or energised.

xxx

[dissident.livejournal.com]

I don't understand these kinds of diets. It takes more effort for me to avoid foods I love than it does for me to get off my ass and walk a few blocks.

I want to solely blame the media for this, but the women who buy into it are also guilty for choosing what they think will be the easy way to get the body they want. If someone would rather put themselves through a diet that jeopardizes their future health over exercising and managing balanced diets, then I have a lot of trouble feeling bad for them.

[silverarrow92.livejournal.com]

I agree with you, so much so, in this post.
I absolutely loath adverts like this, because losing that much weight in so short a time is completely ridiculous. I know I'm not one to talk, with my own eating problems, but 20lbs in two weeks is in no way sustainable or healthy. I've never lost that amount in so short a time. Even if it was possible, the weight would pile back on immediately and probably take a knock at the person's self-esteem.
To lose weight healthily it takes time and changing diet/excercise habits long-term (which is VERY difficult to stick to). I don't even think these fad diets and pills should even be legal. It offers a seemingly quick escape for insecure young people who don't understand the risks involved...
I just wish adverts and other things in the media didn't promote how someone should look - it really doesn't help anyone. :(