Oprah’s favorite alternative medicine mouthpiece Dr. Oz got little love during Tuesday’s Senate subcommittee hearing on the misleading marketing of diet products, with the TV personality admitting that his use of terms like “miracle” for unproven treatments had provided fodder to scammers out to make a quick buck off people desperate to shed pounds. Last night, the Doc went on Facebook to give his fans his perspective on the issue. [More]
weight loss
Dr. Oz: I Thought I Could Call Diet Drugs “Miracles” Because I Wasn’t Actually Selling Them
By 6.19.14
Diet Sodas Better For Weight Loss Than Water, Concludes Study Paid For By Soda Industry
By 5.27.14
There’s a widely held belief among fitness and health experts that people who truly want to lose weight and keep it off should replace diet sodas and other artificially sweetened beverages with nature’s no-calorie drink: water. You know who stands to lose a lot of money from people believing that? The same industry that funded a new study that concluded that diet drinks are better for weight loss than water. [More]
Why Does Everyone Tell You To Eat Almonds If You’re Trying To Lose Weight?
By 10.25.13
A common refrain often bandied about in the general vicinity of dieters is “Instead of eating [insert junk food you really, really love] as a snack, just eat a handful of almonds!” While it might be easier for some than others to change their eating habits to lose weight, how did almonds get so popular? And is all the hype worth anything? [More]
Infesting Yourself With Tapeworms Is Not A Safe Or Sensible Weight Loss Method
By 8.16.13
A desperate desire to lose weight leads people to do some wacky things. Like intentionally infesting their own guts with parasitic worms that they hope will suck up all of their nutrition, leaving them hungry and slender. Only that’s not really how tapeworms work. [More]
Weight Watchers Sheds Pounds, CEO, And Customers
By 8.6.13 — Updated: 2.5.15
Weight Watchers has changed a lot over the 50 years it’s been in business, but remains the top brand in paying someone to help you lose weight. Right now, the company is having some trouble. They recently ditched their CEO, and like many industries are struggling to stay relevant in a world where customers can get the same or better service online cheaper or for free. [More]
There Are No Magic Weight Loss Tips: Here Are 89 Magic Weight Loss Tips
By 7.30.13
There’s only so many ways to rephrase the concept of “eat less crap and get some exercise.” That doesn’t mean that media outlets and the diet and fitness industry are ever going to stop trying, even if that means bombarding the public with contradictory advice. [Jezebel] [More]
Getting Paid To Lose Weight Possibly More Effective Than Throwing Cake In The Garbage
By 3.11.13
Instead of wasting money on perfectly good desserts by throwing them in the trash and dousing them with liquid dish soap just so you don’t eat them, getting paid to lose weight could be a much more rewarding dieting move. Earning cash and slimming down — in a perfect world, right? [More]
Putting Jay Glazer’s Perfect Punch And Other Infomercial Workout Systems To The Test
By 12.27.12
If those jeans you got as a gift this holiday season don’t fit because of the all the food you devoured in the last few weeks, you might be tempted to buy one of those exercise devices advertised on TV. But some of these products aren’t worth the price — or effort. [More]
Study: Weight Loss Programs Are Just As Good As Relying On Doc’s Advice To Shed Pounds
By 10.11.12
As parents are fond of noting, maybe you shouldn’t jump off a cliff just because all of your friends are doing so, but if you have pals that are seeing results from joining a weight loss program, you might want to join them. Not in the cliff-jumping, Weight Watchers or something like it. A new study says people in such programs are often just as successful or more so than people who only rely on medical advice from a doctor to lose weight. [More]
Cut Carbs With These Food Substitutions
By 1.26.12
If you’re trying to lose weight by cutting down on carbohydrates, you don’t necessarily need to alter your diet drastically. By swapping out carb-rich ingredients in favor of low or no-carb stuff with similar shapes, tastes and textures, you can stick to your plan without much sacrifice. [More]
One Man's Plan For An All-Out Attack On His Excess Baggage
By 1.5.12
Some weight loss experts warn against sudden, drastic changes in lifestyle and diet to try to lose weight, but there’s no restrictions on the results that determination and careful planning can yield. Those who have already given up on New Year’s resolutions to lose weight may find inspiration in people who are making sweeping changes. [More]
Study: Cutting Carbs 2 Days A Week Could Be Enough To Lose Weight
By 12.9.11
Not everyone has the self-control to downsize their bellies by cutting bread completely out of their lives, but they might not need to. According to a British study, avoiding carbs just two days a week could be all dieters need to do to lose weight. [More]
Fat Gets You High
By 7.8.11
A new study finds that eating fatty foods triggers the release of endocannabinoids in the body, which are marijuana-like chemicals. And the feeling they give you makes you want to continue eating more fatty food. [More]
FDA Approves Lap-Band Surgery For Not-As-Obese Patients
By 2.17.11
The folks at Allergan, the company behind the popular Lap-Band weight loss surgery, have 26 million reasons to cheer today. After all, that’s the number of potential new Lap-Band patients now that the FDA has lowered the minimum weight loss requirements for the procedure. [More]
HCG Diet Products Are Fraud, Says FDA
By 1.24.11
There are tons of diet pill pages on the internet prosthelytizing the wonders of the miracle diet drug HCG, or “human chorionic gonadotropin.” You have the usual “before” and “after” pictures where you get to play that fun game of trying to figure out if they’re actually two different people, and the promises of losing 30 pounds in 4 weeks. Only problem is that HCG doesn’t work for weight loss, and an FDA exec says they may even be illegal and fraudulent. Quelle surprise! [More]
Researchers Conclude Wii Fit Produces 'Underwhelming Results'
By 11.11.09
Nintendo’s flapjack-like selling Wii Fit isn’t much of an exercise program, according to researchers from the American Council on Exercise, who researched the calorie-burning video game along with the University of Wisconsin La Crosse, Gamasutra reports.
344 Now 224 lb Reader Featured On TV, In Newsweek
By 9.25.09
Reader Tyler Weeks, who started a blog to chronicle his journey from 344 pounds to his current weight of 224.6, was recently featured in Newsweek and on his local CBS news station for his weight reduction success story. Nice job! Here’s the video.
How I Lost 100.4 Pounds In 6 Months
By 7.14.09
Reader Tyler started 344pounds.com to document his weight loss journey. We’ve checked in with him before when he lost 32 and then 54.6 pounds. Now that he’s hit the hundred-pound-loss mark, Tyler wrote this feature for us to share his methods.
