Lipotrim, the latest fad.

Well now, here we go again. Atkins,-poof- The Zone-poof- The south beach- poof- and slimfast-poof. So what's next? Why the Lipotrim, say it with me now, the L-i-p-o-t-r-i-m. Doesn't it sound lovely, can't you feel the pounds melting away even by saying it?
My mother, the mistress of the quick fix, got wind of this last week through a friends of hers. Apparantly it is a diet you buy at the chemists (thus making it totally kosher, right?). You drink shakes instead of eating food and voila, the fat just melts away.
Can you imagine anything more horrific?
'What happens when you finish the diet and start eating normally again?' I asked the Lilac one, thinking of her metabolism which is already fucked up by years of taking tablets for just about everything a hypochondraic with a sympathetic/rich docter can take.
'Carmel Higgens lost over a stone in three weeks?' She said, ignoring me.
'A stone of what? Fat? Muscle? Water? Handbag?'
'A stone is a stone.' She said.
'No it isn't. Look, this sounds like just another faddy diet to me.'
'Well I'm going to give it a try.'
'Okay.'
'You know, you could at least try to sound a little more supportive.'
'I don't support it, I think it's a bad idea. I"ve told you a million times before, if you do really want to lose weight change your diet and do more exercise. I've offered to come with you to the gym, AND go for walks and you just ignore me.'
She changed the subject, thus neatly ignoring my last sentence completely.
I had a gander about the interweb to see about it and WHOAH! As I suspected, not good. And not cheap either, costing about 65 euros a weeks for the shakes. You have folk starving themselves and complaining about feeling dizzy and coming out in rashes. Then there are the folk who swear by it, but put the weight back on the moment they stopped doing it and are wracked with guilt for not being stronger and more commited to their 'saviour.'

Most diets are not good. I would even go as far as saying that diets are a crock of shit, but that's just me and it's monday so I don't feel like pulling my punches. Diets are not sustainable, changing your eating habits and exercising is very sustainable.
At the risk of repeating myself, the quick fix is attractive, but never the way to go about something.
Kim Ayres at http://losingcwt.blogspot.com/ got it right when he shed over 100 pounds in weight. He did it slowly and carefully, by eating right and changing his eating habits and recognising his relaltionship with food. I would advise anyone thinking about losing weight to give Kim's site a thorough read through, save your money, don't buy into a fad. The answer to your weight loss problems is in your own hands.
Right, now I'm off to the bank to kick up a fuss. They are quick enough to take money from us customers, but when they are supposed to be giving it back I notice they do like to drag their little banky feet.
There could be a Swink Lop involved.

Women, what are we doing to ourselves?

It was with a heavy heart I read this article earlier this morning and it made me wonder, what is it that makes us despise ourselves so?

"Half of all women - including some girls as young as 17 - would consider plastic surgery, a survey has revealed.
And nearly a third of women who are a size 12 believe they are overweight or fat, according to the poll of nearly 25,000 people
The survey results come after it was revealed yesterday that a controversial plastic surgery group is offering interest-free loans to patients.
The offer by the Transform Medical Group means women can have a face lift or breast enlargement and not pay interest for 12 months.

The latest research, carried out for BBC Radio 1 Newsbeat, quizzed people of all ages, but 85 per cent of respondents were aged between 18 and 35.

Half the women taking part said there was 'lots they would change' about themselves while more than one in 10 said they 'hated' their body.

This was in contrast to 49 per cent of men who said they were 'okay' with how they looked. One in 10 men claimed they were 'very happy' with their appearance - and less than a quarter said they would opt for cosmetic surgery.

Almost half of the female participants admitted they had skipped a meal in attempt to lose weight, while eight per cent had at some stage made themselves sick after eating.

Of the girls aged between 12 and 16 who took part, 53 per cent believed their body image prevented them from getting a boyfriend or stopped them from relaxing in a relationship.


Of those women who said they would consider plastic surgery, 36 per cent were thinking about having a breast enlargement while 32 per cent said they would opt for liposuction.

The survey also asked people whether they were on a diet. More than one in five women said they were - compared to less than one in 10 men.

Weight Watchers proved to be the most popular, with almost 20 per cent of dieters following it, while only one per cent were following the Atkins diet.

Dr Dee Dawson, who runs the Rhodes Farm eating disorders clinic in North London, said the results revealed how unhappy women were with their bodies 'They feel that they are overweight even though they are really not, and they are feeling despondent about it.

They think they should look like those models but they are people who are starving themselves and are not healthy.

Quite clearly, plastic surgery or skipping meals is not the way forward. People need to realise they should not be trying to look like these girls."

Well of bloody course women are unhappy with their bodies.
We are constantly being subjected to image after image of airbrushed prefection no matter which way we turn. Every magazine contains reams of photos depicting size two models who have no visable flaws and who are quite frankly are digitally altered.
Hollywood women are for the most part skin and bone- I'm not including Jennifer Hudson Jessica Biel or America Ferrera- in this, but Jesus, Nicole, Paris, Christina- Ciara? These are the women our teenagers are trying to emulate, and when a teenager starts out thinking she's flawed you can be damn that she's not going to change her mind the moment she hits young adulthood.
There needs to be some balance. On the one hand obesity is rising and our diets are growing poorer and poorer, saturated in fats and high in sugar and sodium, cash rich time poor, we're breeding probems that we may not be able to solve.
But god dammit, on the other hand what's wrong with looking like a female, what's wrong with having breasts? Hips? Buttocks? Who says size two is beautiful? Why do we care so much? Who are we dieting, starving, sucking, altering ourselves for?
So you have stretch marks after your baby? So what? Why can't you wear them with pride, you gave birth didn't you? So your breasts are a bit smaller than your friends, are they soft? What makes two hard balls sexy? Vagina lips untidy? Well guess waht, you can get them nipped and evened out now too, why? Because porn stars have neat labial lips and waxed bleached ass-holes, and they're the height of feminine guile are they not? No? Are you sure? They so pink and clean looking?
I'm fed up with the pursuit of fictional perfection. I think people should be healthy and happy. I think people should embrace their uniqueness- who the bloody hell wants to look like they came off the assembly line?
I'm not perfect and chances are neither are you. I'm nobody's clone and neither are you. To plunder 'The Life of Brian' we are all individuals! Yes, we are all individuals!
That is all.

Killing with kindness.

From to days UK Independent.

"The mother of an eight-year-old boy who may be taken into care tomorrow because of his excessive weight has condemned her local health authority for threatening the drastic measure without offering enough support to deal with her son's weight problem.

The boy's mother, Nicola McKeown, who has suffered from depression, said her family would be devastated if Connor was taken away. She accused the authorities in Wallsend, near Newcastle upon Tyne, where she lives in a council home with Connor and his sister, of failing to support her.

Speaking to the Tonight with Trevor McDonald programme, which has been following Connor's case for a month, she said: "I was given a diet sheet when he was five-years-old, stuck to it for a whole year. There was supposed to be a follow-up appointment, nothing. Carried on, stuck with it as long as I could and for the amount he was eating, I felt sorry for him.

"He lost a stone in a year and for the amount he was living on at the time, it should have been a drastic weight loss, not just a stone." She added: "The worst case would be Connor getting taken into care. He is well cared for, well looked after between the family.

"It is just the fact that he has totally demented me wanting feeding constantly. It is so hard."

Connor has reportedly broken four beds and five bicycles. He has difficulty walking, washing and dressing himself, and often has to miss school because of health problems.

His grandmother Barbara Bake said: "He is walking pretty bad at the moment because the strain is all on the knees.

"[I'm] extremely worried because if he ever gets taken into care, I think that would be the finish of me seriously. I love that little boy so much really. I would give my life for him, willingly."

The family has been summoned to a child protection conference tomorrow to discuss his future. The conference, which will be attended by two specialist obesity nurses, among other professionals, could result in his being placed on the child protection register, or the less serious, children-in-need register, and lead to him being taken into care.

Obesity experts believe the intervention is justified. Dr Michael Markiewicz, a consultant paediatrician, said: "I think we are looking at a child who is going to be exceedingly unhappy, exceedingly unhealthy and probably will face an early death. They love him but they actually love him to death, literally ... through the way they are treating him and feeding him, they are slowly killing him.

"As far as I'm concerned this is a form of child abuse. Not done intentionally, but the result is child abuse."

Dr Colin Waine, chairman of the National Obesity Forum, which campaigns to raise awareness of the impact of obesity on the NHS, said in extreme cases removing a child from his or her family would be justified. "The long-term impacts of this child's gross obesity are frightening," he said. "He has great risk of diabetes and coronary illness. His life expectancy is severely prejudiced. So action is required if his health is to be safeguarded."

Ms McKeown maintains she should have been helped earlier. "I don't see how they can say we are not doing enough," she said.We have all got Connor in our best interests. These are people that have never helped us before now. I asked to have a social worker to help me and this is what it has come to." "

I don't know if this woman is deluded or an absolute lunatic. She's bleating on about how unfair it is that the 'authorities' are threatening to take her son, instead of facing up to what she is doing. This is an eight year old that is so overweight he can no longer make the five minute walk to his school.
He's 8 years old and he weighs 14 stone.
"I don't see how they can say we are not doing enough"
It's unreal how self- pitying this woman is. Her son has no friends, eats an unbelievable amount of crap a day and is slowly but surely killing himself. At eight years old this boy cannot make decisions regarding his own diet and his own health, that's a parent's job. Just as it is a parents duty to protect, provide for and care for their child. Even if fulfilling that duty sometimes means saying 'NO'.

This is Connor's diet.


BREAKFAST: Coco Pops cereal

11am: Three slices of toast with turkey ham

LUNCH: Two sausages, burger, chips, fizzy pop

DINNER: Takeaway (two nights a week). Roast will include four Yorkshire puddings

SNACKS: Every 20 minutes. Intake will include four packets of crisps, three packets of biscuits, several bars of chocolate.

I could hardly believe what I was reading. 3 Packets of biscuits? four packets of crisps? His snacks alone probably exceed 2000 calories.
I'm against kids being taken from their parents if there is another way to resolve an issue. But in this instance a care order for this boy might just be the only thing that can save him. From himself and from a family that are too blinkered and head in the sand to realise that while they doubtless love their boy, they are doing him immeasurable harm.

Tears, Tempers, Tiaras, Tylenol.

OH, I feel it, a snuffly wuffly teary smeary sensation. As I gather my bag up and make sure I have taken some pre-Memnoch painkillers, my heart is heavy.
Today is my last class with Memnoch, that vicious being who mocks me, rolls his eyes at me, and-on occasion- puts me in hospital with concussion. Here is a man, a cold stone brute of a man, who quite frankly, let's not beat around the bush here, does not really like teaching women and thinks we are too pathetic to be in his dojo, and I'm upset over his departure.
At the start of my path with Memnoch I was outraged by this sexist nonsense. Furious over his confident air that we ladies wouldn't last long and that he was only humouring us by letting us stay. There were five of us ladies and anything the lads could do we could do! I said it so it must be so!!
As the months progressed there was ample time for me to reconsider those views.
As the five whittled down to four, then three, then just me and Claire I was forced to deal with something my brain refused to accept but my body already knew.
Memnoch was right. Memnoch is always right.
Once I had learned this the hard way- rounds with the Canadian flinging me about lie a rag doll, pad holding for Memnoch, where he would strike the pad so hard I would be forced backwards and my head would ache at the sheer force of the blow, conditioning where after circut laps my leaden legs would wobble and my bile rise, occasional ceiling watching-I felt liberated. I started to accept other things too, Most men are stronger than us, so what? We have only one third of their testerone, of course they are! We're not in direct competition with each other.
How liberating.
No longer did I worry about being tougher than the lads. Claire and I shut out yaps and decided to learn what Memnoch had to teach us. And new calm washed over me.
And now, having broken us and rebuilt us, our master, our tormentor, the man we -male and female alike- respect deeply, fear greatly, and bow to equally deeply- is leaving us.
For sodding Hamburg.
If he notices I am a bit teary today I will tell him there is something in my eye. Like Claire's fist for example. He'll like that.
Stupid change.
I am totally and utterly against it.

Fat Camp Folly.

From today's independent.

"A FAMILY had their home repossessed after they missed mortgage payments in order to send their son to fat camp.

Linda Morris-Finn (44) said she took the drastic decision to risk the family home in Highbury Vale, Nottingham, because she was "desperate" to help her son Carl.

It cost £1,500 (€2,270) to send the boy who, at age 10 and 4ft 10in weighed 13 stone, to attend the Carnegie Camp for obese children in Leeds for two weeks last summer. The family was evicted two months later.

"It was sheer desperation," Mrs Morris-Finn said.

"He is a happy-go-lucky chap and he wasn't bothered about his weight. But I was, especially from a health point of view."

Mrs Morris-Finn, a support worker who now lives in a rented flat after divorcing husband Alf, discovered the 'fat camp' when she turned to the internet for an answer to her son's problems.

She then approached Carl's paediatrician at Nottingham City Hospital with the idea, in the hope that she could secure funding from the NHS - but ended up paying for it herself. "My ex-husband Alf knew I was missing payments on the house but we decided Carl was more important."

"Then, with one thing and another we just couldn't make up the mortgage payments and the house was repossessed in October.

"I now know there is NHS funding for this kind of thing so I'm trying to get it to send him back next year.

"Carl's a lot better than he was. He is more interested in food in terms of the calorie content and fat content. He is aware of portion control and wants to help prepare things," Mrs Morris-Finn said.

Carl did not lose a significant amount of weight during the two-week camp but has maintained a steady weight since, despite growing more than three inches."

This is madness.
Not only has this woman lost her family home-and ergo the home of her son, can you imagine the immense
pressure she has placed Carl under? He must know that he is the reason she sliped behind in her mortgage payments. That's a lot of guilt and unwanted anxiety to put on the shoulders of a young lad who is 'happy-go-lucky'
Why could she not have done something about this boy's weight herself, she is his mother after all. Why did she not restrict his calories, get him involved in sport and cooking at home. Where was his father in all this?
How unbelievely ridiculous is it to lose your home-and his- in order to send the boy to a two week 'fat camp', where basically they restrict calorie intake and get the kids to partake in more exercise.
I don't understand parents who cannot say 'no' to children. I don't understand a parent who on the one hand claims they have the best interest of their child at heart, but then allow their child to become more and more unhealthily obese. Children do not become obese over night. You wouldn't allow your ten year old sit around the house smoking or drinking Scotch, so why would you allow him to eat himself to ill health.
And then, after everything, the poor boy didn't even lose so much as a pound.
Crazy.