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Just My Opinion
I'm an insomniac and I love infomercials. One point I make repeatedly is that it is very expensive to market products on TV. These high costs have to be passed on to the people who purchase those products. As consumers I feel we should always look for alternative, less advertised products that offer people a better value.
I also believe I have a knack for spotting baloney. My college english professor once told me I was gifted with an excellent "crap detector". When you read a particular review, think of me as just an average guy that is applying a little common sense.
Contrary to popular belief, not all infomercials are rip offs.....only about 90% of them. To read my thoughts on a particular infomercial simply locate it on the left and click! Currently I have evaluated the following infomercials: Avacor, Scalpmed, Prosvent, Cortislim, Ionic Breeze, Ultimate HGH, Total Gym, Orbitrek, Extenze, Flex Protex D, Supple Beverages, Sensa Weight Loss System, Triverex and Prosate Defense. Before you purchase any of these products I strongly suggest you at least read what I have to say about it!
To be fair, you should also be made aware that sometimes I will recommend alternative products that I feel are better and or cheaper. Some of the alternative products I recommend I have a financial interest in. I will state which products I have a financial interest in when that situation occurs.
Scalpmed Review. Don't buy Scalp Med Until You Read This!
Article Of The Month - March 2011
The Truth About Losing Weight
There are so many kinds of weight loss supplements, diet programs and exercise equipment now being sold it's no wonder everyone is confused. I've tried many of them myself. Yet nothing I tried seemed to work. I wasn't the only one having difficulty it seems. Afterall, billions are spent each year on these types of solutions and yet Americans are fatter than ever! How could this be? If these weight loss experts are right, why are so many people fat? I even personally know of a women who lost a lot of weight using the "Richard Simmons diet and exercise program". She actually was so successful at it that she even appeared on one of his TV shows. I saw her just a few months ago and guess what? That's right...she's now fatter than ever! Which led me to one simple question. Is it possible to stay trim and fit without exercising yourself to death and or starving all day long?
The answer to this question is yes! To explain how this is possible I must first get you to forget everything you might have learned about how to lose weight. I must also encourage you to stop listening to the weight loss gurus and start thinking for yourself.
In the years previous to being successful at losing weight I struggled and failed like everyone else. I kept reading and listening and trying things all of which failed. It wasn't until I sat down and started thinking for myself that I began to succeed at weight loss. I have since come up with 5 fundamental priciples that we must understand before we can ever hope to lose weight and keep it off for good. Here are my 5 principles.
Weight loss principle #1.
We are designed by nature to eat a large amount of food whenever it is abundant.
This is why dieting almost always fails. Let's suppose we could go back in time 10,000 years ago and snatch a newborn baby and bring it into the present. We would then proceed to raise this prehistoric baby the same way we raise modern infants. Do you realize that when this prehistoric baby grew up you would not be able to tell it apart from any other person walking the planet today? It would look like anyone else, talk like anyone else, be as smart or as dumb as anyone else and probably be overweight as well!
In other words, even though our world today is so dramatically different than 10,000 years ago we are essentially the exact same animal. When our species ran in the prehistoric jungle food was scarce and we had to exert a tremendous amount of calories to obtain it. We only put on weight when food was plentiful because inevitably we would need these fat stores to survive when food again became scarce. This isn't the case anymore. Today food is all over the place each and every day. A simple stroll to the fridge is all that's required. We inevitably fail at dieting and start eating and eating and eating simply because we are designed by nature to eat a large amount of food whenever it is abundant. It is as natural to us as taking a breath. But there is a secret I have learned on how to resist all those strolls to the kitchen to binge on food. I will explain this principle further in the article.
Weight Loss Can Happen!
Weight loss principle #2.
A calorie is a calorie is a calorie.
Weight loss is a relatively simple physiological process. Notice I said "simple" not "easy". All that is necessary is that we burn more calories in a day than we consume. Dieting gurus have succeeded in confusing the issue beyond belief and have made themselves rich in the process. They actually have Americans convinced that eating one type of food as opposed to another will cause you to lose weight. Ridiculous!
The reason people can lose weight on a high protein diet or a high carbohydrate diet or even a high fat diet is simply that they are on a diet period! They are simply consuming less calories in a day then they are burning. What types of foods the calories come from is irrelevant. One could conceivably lose weight on a "cheese cake" diet as well. If you don't believe me here'a a cheese cake diet I guarantee you will lose weight on. "Eat two pieces of cheese cake a day and nothing else"! As long as you're not consuming more calories in a day than you are burning you will lose weight. What people are really doing when they are dieting is walking around all day hungry and craving food. They will inevitably give in and start eating again. In most cases they will put back on all the weight they've lost and then some. Unless they keep reading and learn the secret to resisting foods
Stop worrying about the kinds of calories you consume. I realize all the dieting gurus are running around advising everyone to eat a diet low in saturated fats, low in carbohydrates and high in fruits and vegetables. This is good advice for overall health but totally unrealistic. remember principle #1? We are designed by nature to eat large amounts of food whenever it is abundant". But let's not forget principle #2. A calorie is a calorie is a calorie!
Weight loss principle #3.
Exercise is not a natural act.
Exercise is not a natural act. We are designed by nature to conserve our energy. Our bodies have feedback mechanisms designed to make exercise miserable. This prevents us from overexerting ourselves and helps us conserve energy. We do not like to be out of breath. We do not like to feel the burning fatigue in our muscles. We do not like to get hot, and sweaty. We feel great when it's over, I'm not denying it, but we dread having to do it.
Americans spend billions on exercise equipment each year. They purchase their new "Stair Master" or "Butt Blaster" or "Soloflex" or "Nordiflex" or "The Total Gym". Or they buy the latest exercise videos such as "Tae Bo" or the latest version of some work out video. They enthusiastically start their exercise program and confide to everyone how much better they feel....for about a week or two. Then they discover that exercising even with their brand new exercise machine or video tape is a hard, miserable experience. So they stop. They stop until they see their next machine or video that promises a fun and easy way to fitness. Then the cycle starts again. How many pieces of exercise equipment have you bought? How many videos? How many memberships to the local health clubs? You see we are designed by nature to avoid misery and conserve energy. Running from a lion that is trying to eat us is a natural act, but exercising for the sake of exercising is not. We still must do it if we want to lose weight. Further down the page I will show you the secret to consistently exercise but we must first understand that exercise is not a natural act!
Weight loss principle #4.
Forget about trying to raise your metabolic rate.
Anyone who succeeded in losing weight and keeping it off did so by eating less calories than they were burning. Dieting gurus have convinced us that if only we increase our metabolic rate or the rate at which we burn calories in a given day that we can eat almost anything we want and still lose weight. This I believe is a fallacy. Quite simply it doesn't work. Our bodies know when we are losing fat. As soon as our bodies sense this is happening it is convinced we are starving. Therefore it will make us hungry....very hungry. Therefore we begin to eat even more than we did before. In theory yes you could raise your metabolic rate and this would permit you to eat a little more food. But it doesn't take into acccount that our bodies will fight us like crazy and make us hungrier than ever as soon as it detects we are beginning the shed those extra pounds. Furthermore raising metabolic rate is not a healthy thing to really do. When we raise our metabolic rate, we speed up the entire aging process. Do you want to get old before your time? Anytime antiaging medicine is discussed they always bring up the simple fact that eating less....a lot less is one of the major ways to slow the entire aging process. It is the best way to ward of disease. It is the best way to remain vibrant and healthy as long as possible. You see we really don't want to raise our metabolic rate. We want to lower it! We want our blood pressure to go down. We want our resting pulse to go down. If we do these things we will live longer....a lot longer in fact. You see losing weight still comes down to resisting the urge to eat. It is not about doing something or eating something that will raise our metabolic rate. It is about concistently eating less calories than we are eating day after day. Again there is a technique to resisting all those foods we know we shouldn't eat.
Weight loss principle #5.
We must strengthen our will power.
Here is the secret to resisting all those foods we shouldn't eat. There has been some recent evidence surface with regards to will power. Afterall the key to any weight loss program is resisting foods that are high in calories and forcing ourselves to get off our butts and exercise. It turns out the power of the mind is much the same as a muscle. The more you use it....the stronger it gets. In other words, everytime we successfully resist the foods that make us and keep us fat, it's get's easier to do so in the future. Everytime we force ourselves to exercise, it gets easier to do next time.
Realizing this principle was the key to my personal weight loss success story. But we must also realize that when we give into temptation and eat foods we shouldn't or when we fail to exercise consitently, our will power begins to decline. This makes it more difficult tomorrow to do the things we need to do to get and keep the weight off.
It's extremely hard in the beginning to do the things we need to do to lose weight. But it will get easier to do day by day. I've even pushed this to the extreme simply to test the principle. Often times I literally only eat one meal a day and now jog 7.2 miles. I would have thought that impossible before understanding that will power was a thing that we could strengthen. Yet I am now able to do this with very little effort. Now I'm not recommending you do this type of thing right off the bat. I'm recommending you gradually resist and reduce your caloric intake and you gradually increase the amount of time you spend exercising. The first month will be tough....I'm not denying that. But it will get easier and easier as the strength of your mind increases.
Unfortunately people don't want to hear they have to resist foods. They want to hear they can still eat mostly anything they want. They want to hear they don't have to spend much time exercising. Marketers of diet programs and weight loss routines realize this. In fact over several decades they have convinced most Americans that they can somehow lose all the weight they want effortlessly. Yet where is the evidence to support this notion? Aferall Americans are fatter than ever before. I believe these marketers have helped make the situation worse that they were supposed to be helping to solve.
Let's quickly review these 5 principles.
We are designed by nature to eat a large amount of food whenever it is abundant.
A calorie is a calorie is a calorie.
Exercise is not a natural act.
Forget trying to raise our metabolic rate.
We must strengthen our will power.
Now to summarize. We first need to realize we are designed by nature to eat a large amount of food whenever it is abundant. Eating one food as opposed to another won't work because a calorie is a calorie is a calorie. We need to exercise but since exercise is not a natural act it will be difficult to do. This leaves us with one inescapable fact. We need to be willing to eat a lot less and exercise even though it is very hard to do. In short we need to use our will power to resist food and exercise as much as we can. Anyone that tells you differently is either wrong or is trying to sell you something!
The good news is that everytime we resist food...everytime we get off the couch and exercise.....it will get easier and easier to do because we are building our mental toughness. Stop looking for an easy way to lose weight....it doesn't exist. Instead try making yourself tougher so that you are willing to do the things necessary to shed those extra pounds.
Start slowly and proceed using your common sense.
Best of luck to all of you!
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