By fnord12 | May 26, 2015, 3:07 PM | Ummm... Other? | Link

Slim Fast - More Absurd Than I Thought

I have to post this cause i can't stop thinking about it. I'm all outraged on behalf of all the nutty people who go on this diet.

I have a protein shake for breakfast every weekday. It's convenient. There's no way in hell i'm waking up earlier to make actual food. I barely get out the door to make it to work on time. So, having something that takes a minute to put together and is portable is fantastic. For reasons, i ended up having a second shake for lunch earlier this week, and it got me thinking about the whole Slim Fast "2 shakes a day and a sensible dinner" diet, because having a shake for breakfast and one for lunch is beat. So, i went to their website to see exactly what their plan was. This was when i discovered the extent of the absurd.

Each of their shakes are 190 calories. You are allowed up to 3-100 calorie snacks. And then dinner should be 500 calories. That's a total of 1180 calories (1200 if you have a "meal replacement bar" instead of shakes). For a day. For an adult human being. If all i did was lay on the floor and breathe for a day, i would burn approximately 1400 calories. I'm 5'2" and weigh 114 lbs. I don't have a lot of excess me requiring frivolous calories. If someone put me on 1180 calories/day, i'd be gnawing on the furniture.

They also claim the shakes give you "up to 4 hours hunger control". One of my shakes is 310 calories. By the 3.5hr mark, my body is starting to tell me i had better feed it soon or things are going to get ugly. Staying hunger-free for 4 hours on 190 calories sounds like magic.

And the plan isn't scaled based on how much you weigh to start. Regardless if you're 300 lbs or 150 lbs, it's the same regimen.

Let's say you're 200lbs and used to consuming an average of 2400 calories/day. All at once, your calories are cut in half. How does that sound manageable? There's no way you wouldn't cheat. And you'd prolly still feel deprived and punished because that bag of potato chips you snuck doesn't change the fact that your lunch was liquid, and you're still hungry after eating dinner. Plus you feel guilty for eating those chips.

And that's before we consider what happens when you miraculously meet your goal and go back to eating regular food. Well, since the plan never teaches the person how to budget their food intake, coupled with the glee of finally being able to eat food again, it's no surprise people go back to eating how they used to and re-gain all the weight they lost. All that misery for nothing.

You'd prolly have better luck if all you did was replace your usual lunch with a piece of unfried, unbreaded protein and vegetables seasoned in some non-fatty way and changed nothing else.