Kevin Trudeau and the HCG diet - Scam or not?!

[flavia]

Hey ive been doing some research for a few months on this weight loss plan and Kevin Trudeau.

Some info -

He claims that this is a suppressed weight loss plan since the 50's and is the cure to obesity.

http://www.weightlosscureonline.com

some more info on Kevin can be found here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Trudeau

A page from diet scam

http://www.dietscam.org/reports/hcg.shtml

and some proof that the diet actually can work from people who are on it

Hcg diet blogs

http://www.drugdelivery.ca/hcg-challenge.aspx

and heaps of videos on youtube saying it works.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxUo-hM4zpo

Heaps more info on google.

Do you guys think it is worth to try out this diet and buy the book or is it just another scam. Kevin seems to have a bad rap sheet. Im currently at 300 pounds and need to lose the weight hard and fast. What would you do?

[JJM]

{snip} Do you guys think it is worth to try out this diet and buy the book or is it just another scam. Kevin seems to have a bad rap sheet. Im currently at 300 pounds and need to lose the weight hard and fast. What would you do?You know that Trudeau is a quack, he earned his legal rap-sheet, that says it all. Look at www.quackwatch.org and search for him.

[ZERO]

All these diets are scams.

Losing weight really isn't a mystery. All you need to do is use more calories than you ingest.
If your body is running on a net calorie loss, then your stored energy reserves will be used up.

Eat a balanced diet and engage in regular exercise.

Eat less, move more.
O0

A healthy eating and exercise regime is not something you only do until you reach your desired weight target.
The old lifestyle put the weight on and will do the same again. Maintain your new habits and avoid the yo-yo trap.

Here are some links on a balanced diet.
http://nutrition.about.com/od/foodpyramid/ss/explorefoodpyr_8.htm
http://www.food.gov.uk/healthiereating/healthycatering/healthycatering02

One more thing.
Start by having a good talk with your doctor.

[Matt]

Do you guys think it is worth to try out this diet and buy the book or is it just another scam. Kevin seems to have a bad rap sheet. Im currently at 300 pounds and need to lose the weight hard and fast. What would you do?

If you want to keep the wieght off you don't want to loose it fast.

If you need help join weight watchers or slimming world. If you want good free advice try the Hacker's Diet.
http://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/

[New_skeptic]

flavia please please please don;t let your despiration to loose weight lead you to do something silly like waste your money or even damage your health on a fad diet promoted by a total crook praying on peoples desperation .

i am in the same postion as you are . i was 23 stone 3 pounds ( 322 pounds ) at my heaviest and my weight was continuing to rise. i go to weightatchers , and have been doing so since january bar a break of 4 weeks and find it very good as the teachers encourage you to eat 3 sensible meals a day and excercise which to me is the only way to loose weight . my weight has come off slowly . i am 21 stone 7 ( 301 pounds) now and my decrease in weight will continue . it is going to be a long time before i get to goal weight . wieghtwatchers suggest no more then a 1-2 pound weekly weightloss as being healthy .

matt and zero speak sense belive me .

[Drop Bear]

Diets don't work. None of them. Weight loss exceeding about 2 pounds a week tends to be unhealthy.

I know of no diet which will help you keep the weight off long term.

A few years ago,I was diagnosed with having impaired glucose tolerance. I later developed type 2 diabetes. Over a period a 18 months, I lost 1/4 of my body weight and have kept it off.


HOW: simple exercise; just walking, not less than 30 minutes a day. If that's too hard at first,start with 5 minutes or even less..Forming the habit is the point.

FOOD: Simple approach; FRESH IS BEST. I avoid processed food of all kinds because the main ingredients are white flour and refined sugars. NOT because those things are bad for you,they are not. They have a high glycemic index, which means the body processes them quickly,leaving you hungry.

Relatively low protein intake.(this depends on age and activity level)


Limit fasts foods of all kinds to once or twice a YEAR. Avoid potatoes in all forms. (spuds have the highest GI of any common vegetable) Get your carbs from small serves of pasta, basmati rice, polenta,cous cous. Limit bread intake (4 slices a day for me,2 for women) of high fibre full grain .

EAT fresh fruit every day.

BEST ADVICE:long term weight loss means learning new ,permanent eating habits.,SEE A DIETICIAN. That's what I did initially, at the local public hospital, it was fee. Today the diabetes clinic at the same hospital helps me.

KEEP a food diary of EVERYTHING you ingest for the first year.

There are no shortcuts which work, as far as I'm aware. (surgery is not a shortcut,but a dangerous last resort)

[chaggle]

The whole subject of dieting and losing weight seems to me to be a completely evidence-free zone.

[Ryoden]

From my experience what works for one person may not work as well for another but on the whole I agree with what has already been stated:

More exercise
Eat smaller portions
Eat more fruit & veg
Try to only eat when you are actually hungry

From a personal perspective when I reached the point that I looked at my waist line and thought "hmm 37 inches - that's getting too big" I just cut down my carb intake by about 75%, no bread or chips etc (your body burns carbs for energy but if it doesnt have enough carbs then it burns fat). I was down to 35" in about 3 weeks. Then I just changed my diet slightly so I didn't go back to over eating, which was what caused the gain in the first place.

I believe that we eat in general much more food than we actually need a lot of the time unless you are in a very physical job or you exercise a lot (sports etc).

There is no magic involved though, your body needs x calories to survive based on your physical requirements, if you eat more than that then your body stores it as fat, simples.

If you have a bad eating problem, ie - you eat to much bad stuff like chocolate, fast food, processed food etc then just try cutting down, even after I got down to what I consider a healthy weight I still have a takeaway curry every other month or go out for a meal, lifes too short not to eat the things you like as long as you dont do them to excess.

One thing I would never do is pay someone to tell me how to lose weight or buy some pill or whatever that will make me slim as they never work, there is plenty of free advice that is probably a lot better for your body in the long run, ie the basics.

[Pebble]

The weight loss industries are rather like religious groups. Each has their sworn followers some quite fanatical, some are particularly good at extracting money to support the cause. Others use volunteers to spread the good word. All start with some simple observations about the food weight relationship, rapidly one or two aspects are chosen for illustration of the wonderous workings of the body as viewed through their prism. Once the victim has begun to consider this new reality, they are lured along a 'pain free' or 'degrading' journey - some regimes appealing more to the masochists.

The problem is that the food-activity-fat store relationship is highly complex and small snippits of evidence can be used to support any belief you like. There is no over arching theory of everything that has gained universal acceptance, but there are some basics which rapidly get forgotten when people are desperate for the perfect body or wish to deny that they have a problem.

The basics I think are:

Famine and anorexia are not associated with obesity
Weight gain is reliably acheived through high calorie diets
The first half stone is the easiest to lose
Gastric banding is the most effective 'medical' treatment for severe obesity (only suitable for those with a dedicated toilet of their own or anosmic partners)

The relationship between calorie consumption, activity levels and fat stores varies between individuals, thus there is a threshold below which weight loss will occur in every one, a threshold above which weight gain will occur in every one, but these thresholds are individual, with some exhibiting a stable weight over a very substantial range of calorie intake without evident increases in activity.
The precise setting and gap between these thresholds explains why some lucky individuals fail to gain weight despite the same apparent balance of factors as others who are gaining weight, it also explains why reduction of weight does not necessarily follow observable though modest reductions in calorie intake in all individuals.
It is this ability to adapt ones metabolic rate/percentage calorie absorption/percentage excess converted to fat stores that leads to the observations that are harnessed for crazy diets or supposed weight loss pills.