Fat Flush Detox

Once again, somebody at Teachers.net is posting about the latest miracle diet. And I crack up and just have to post this smart-ass response because the whole thing is just so silly. Billion dollars a year silly. This is supposedly something that you drink or some combination of foods that you eat and VOILA! Your system is cleansed and detoxified.

I get this most excellent vision of fat being gathered up and sent packing - right down the toilet. Wouldnt't that be excellent? But what happens the next time you eat? Are you full of fat again?
Then there are the 'carb blockers.' I picture them in the stomach holding up a military-type hand and saying, "NO!" to carbs and sending them packing - right down the - well you know. What about the recalcitrant carbs? What if they "let loose" and get absorbed by the small intestine anyway? After all, the small intenstine has a job to do. Will IT listen to the carb-blocker?

My principal and one of my colleagues did this "sewer water" diet. They drank this sludge they created using water, red pepper, and maple syrup. There might have been other ingredients but who knows? It looked just like sewer water and tasted that way too - according to them. "It detoxifies my system," reported my princy when I asked her about it. I am thinking that this is a college-educated woman and she honestly believes that red pepper and maple syrup will "detoxify" her system? Is this some sort of secret combination that the body recognizes as akin to Ajax or Mr. Clean? Why? And how did her "system" get "toxic" in the first place?

I remember as a kid an ad for something called Rollo. Remember that? It was this sponge thing that you swallowed and it supposedly blew up in your stomach and absorbed everything - so you wouldn't be hungry anymore. Then it would flush out. But as it is leaving, doesn't it just coat the inside of the intestine with all the goodies it absorbed while hanging out in the stomach?

But seriously - it is a matter of physiology, is it not? In order to lose weight one must spend more calories than one takes in - which means eating the right foods and exercising to increase metabolism. IF any of these things actually WORKED, wouldn't it be headline news? Leading articles in the Journal of Medicine and cover stories in Time and Newsweek. Wouldn't the price of this stuff go way UP as everyone and their fat mother raced out to buy it? And then the copycat products would begin and huge arguments would brew because schools would begin implementing this stuff in the cafeteria in order to combat the childhood obesity crisis. Then there would be segments on Dateline and Oprah as the "downside" is discovered and millions of tiny, skinny, human beings begin dropping dead from the clogged arteries they STILL have because they never changed their eating habits.

But hey! They get buried in a size 6!

:-)Kim