Diet Fads: Supermarket Sheep
Eighteen or twenty years ago, I was into high protein, high fat, low carbohydrate diets, courtesy of the original Atkins Diet Revolution and, to an even greater extent, Stillman’s Quick Weight Loss Diet (which I must admit I still prefer to Atkins but that’s merely personal taste). At the time, every aisle was loaded with labels proclaiming Low Fat or Reduced Fat. I didn’t care about fat and sought much different information. Unfortunately, low fat was “in” and I felt alone and abandoned.
With a certain sense of resentment, I tracked down the carbohydrate costs of a wide variety of food, keeping a sharp eye on ingredients, calorie levels, and nutritional values. Certain items were strangely emblazoned with banners announcing low fat: pasta sauce, potato chips, candy bars, and ice cream. I was puzzled: how could certain foods, full of fat to their very core, be low fat? How could all the fat be removed and there be anything left?
I became fascinated with certain labels. Have you ever, for example, read the labels on those flavored coffee creamers? Zero fat. Zero carbohydrates. Zero protein. Zero calories. How can anything we put in our mouths have zero calories? A negligible amount, maybe, but absolute zero? What is in that stuff? Or is it virtual food, existing only in our mind’s eye as a kind of edible hologram?
Mercifully, the low fat craze died its natural death. Atkins and similar regimens took over and the low fat labels were reprinted (corporate recycling at its finest) to read Low Carb. Suddenly, everywhere you looked, there were foods recast as low carb – again with the pasta sauce, the potato chips, the candy bars, and the ice cream.
I was curious. Had the manufacturers taken out all those carbs and put the fat back in? Where did those carbs go? Are there vast dumpsites in the desert where unwanted carbs are buried – next to worn tires, plastic bags, and nuclear waste?
Once more, I wonder: what is left in those boxes, cans, and jars? Why am I paying $1.19 per ounce for something that really isn’t anything?
Then I started to figure it out (sometimes I’m a little slow). The food hadn’t really changed at all, just the packaging. Food labels are like those ubiquitous Internet sales letters. They trumpet headlines that catch our interest because they are in synch with our desires and goals. Is that accidental? Of course not. Highly paid copywriters choose their headlines with great care, buying into the national “obsession o’ the day”, floating on the coattails of the latest fad.
Many of us are so desperate to control our weight that we buy into the promises like the unaware followers we are: bleating sheep heading for a precipice with no thought of questioning our leaders or striking out in a different direction.
The unspoken secret is that the label doesn’t matter. If we want to lose weight, we don’t eat pasta sauce, potato chips, candy bars, or ice cream. Period. No matter what the package says. Deep in our psyche, we know what we can eat (very little) and what we can’t (a whole bunch). Allowing ourselves to be misled is only a fashionably acceptable way to fool ourselves, and we know it. We buy into the hype because we want, so badly, to believe. We want to think that we are doing the right thing, that we’re really trying, that our motivation is pure.
Our weaknesses are being exploited by the packagers and the super store con men. Our ambivalence, and the overwhelming need to avoid the very real discomfort of effective dieting, invests the misguidance of food labels with an illusion of truth.
Like our dimwitted ovine cousins, we, too, are eventually fleeced.
Virginia Bola is a licensed psychologist and an admitted diet fanatic. She specializes in therapeutic reframing and the effects of attitudes and motivation on individual goals. The author of The Wolf at the Door: An Unemployment Survival Manual, and a free ezine, The Worker’s Edge, she recently completed a psychologically-based weight control book: Diet with an Attitude:A Weight Loss Workbook. She can be reached at DietWithAnAttitude.com
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Phentermine Generics & Brand Names: How To Avoid Prescriptions Riddled With Impurities
Which diet pill are you currently taking for your weight loss needs? Recently, many people have been switching to brand names as opposed to generics. This is because generic manufacturing is put under far less strict rules and conditions. For example, the purity of the prescription drug you are taking is allowed to be far less when manufactured as a generic.
Should I Buy Generic Prescription Medications?
If you are taking a generic prescription medication, another factor to consider is that there are several generic versions of Phentermine available online and from brick-and-mortar pharmacies. Depending on which pharmacy you use, you may receive a different version of generic Phentermine each time you refill your prescription. This may affect your ability to lose weight, as different purity levels and doses of medication will change benefits and the number and strength of side effects.
It is recommended that you choose a brand name version of Phentermine, such as Adipex-P, and continue using that brand exclusively to avoid getting medication containing a dissatisfactory purity of Phentermine.
Generic Or Brand Name Phentermine: Which Is Best For Me?
In many cases, the generic versions of Phentermine use differing mechanisms of action, and, therefore have differing efficiencies. This inconsistency can affect your program for weight loss. You may want to stick with a single brand that is proven to yield consistent results.
Which Brand Name Diet Pill Should I Use?
Adipex (Adipex-P) is a weight loss medication that is indicated for short-term use. This is because long term use will cause you to build tolerance and, therefore, all Phentermine diet medications will lose their effectiveness.
If you are enjoying refreshing bursts of energy in the morning, but then are becoming hungry during the night hours, have a chat with your doctor about using Adipex-P 37.5mg tablets. Many doctors prescribe this medication for their patients because the 37.5mg tablet can be broken in half. As a result, you can take half (18.75mg) in the morning and the other half at night to extend your medication’s effectiveness through the whole day. If you then have trouble sleeping at night, talk to your doctor, who will probably tell you to take half (18.75) a tablet per day, until you can tolerate Adipex.
Adipex-P is, so far, the only version of Phentermine which lasts over 12 hours. However, please remember to diet and exercise along with taking your medication in order to maximize weight loss and your health.
Keep In Mind:
Note that I’m not a physician. You should talk to your doctor before taking any advice found in this article. I do not speak on behalf of the manufacturer of Adipex-P, Gate Pharma. I simply do a great deal of research in the health field. I just love to do it, so you can expect good information from my newsletter! Visit my site and subscribe for free.
Join our online community and discuss weight loss at the Phentermine Forum
Happy weight loss!
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Ian Mason, owner of Shoppe.MD, your source for discount Phentermine refills, drug information and weight loss support forums.
Ian is a fat-to-fit student of health, weight loss, exercise, and several martial arts; maintaining several websites in an effort to help provide up-to-date and helpful information for other who share his interests in health of body and mind.
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