It’s a miracle drug!

[pne]

I just read an advertisement for a weight-loss product in a newspaper from the chemist’s which was accompanied by three testimonials… all of which said, essentially, “I weighed [higher number], then I started taking [product] and exercising regularly and only [time] later, I only weighed [lower number]!”.

Gee. I wonder how much of the weight loss was the product and how much was the exercise. (They did specifically mention exercise in all three testimonials. One even put it this way: “I started taking [product] and a bit later also started to exercise regularly. Now I weigh [smaller number].”)

Kind of like, I don’t know, “We had a drought here last summer and my crops were starting to wither, so I prayed to God to save my wheat and I also started watering the plants. Only a short time later, my plants recovered and I was able to get a good harvest after all!”. Maybe the prayer helped, maybe it didn’t, but since you did two things, it’s hard to prove how much of the effect came from each “ingredient”.

Comments

[xaea]

EXACTLY.

how about a study done with JUST taking the pill? if nothing happens at all, then yeah, it's exercise. 6_6

i bet it's just easy money for this company....people read the marketing advertisement and say, "wow! they lost that much weight taking a pill and exercising -- maybe if i JUST take the pill, i'll lose weight too!"

[yvi]

While those products are usually bullshit, exercise alone is a really hard way to drop weight - I have dropped 11 kilograms over the last year and not much of that was by exercise* - and at the moment, I am at about 4-7 hours of exercise every week depending on what I do, which is a really high level. I would have to run about 7 hours just to drop a pound (about 500 kcal per hour at an average heart rate of 160). I currently run about 2.5-3 hours a week. Also, exercise kind of means that I have to eat at least a bit more.

Really not saying those products are good - they probably aren't. But exercise is completely overrated when it comes to the actual process of dropping weight. Eating less is so much more 'productive'.

* The first 6 of those were dropped without doing any exercise

[schnurble]

Every once in a while I see an ad for another dieting pill and when I google for experiences with them, they are all the same - just taking the pills doesn't result in weight loss for most people who tried it.
I think the companies just add exercise in the picture because then it's not that easy to prove that the pills are just a money rip off - if someone says they don't help, the company can always say, well, you didn't exercise enough in addition to taking this pill.

If exercise is overrated or not depends on your metabolism, I suppose. If eating less worked for you, good for you, you're lucky.

For me, eating less is a sure way to gain weight, because I just can't starve infinitely, and as soon as I start eating normal again (not feasting, just enough to not feeling hungry all the time), I gain weight. If I reduce calorie intake, my metabolism reduces calorie consumption instead of burning fat reserves. And usually keeps that low level for quite a while after the calorie intake has risen again, which then results in weight gain.

I lost about 10kg in preparation for my wedding, and it was exercise alone that managed it. Of course exercise isn't the magic solution to all weight problems either, it's hard work. It took me almost a whole year, and almost daily exercise, and still much discipline about my eating. And as soon as the wedding was over and I was so fed up with exercising that I stopped it, I gained all the weight back (despite not changing my eating habits). So without exercise, I wouldn't have lost any weight at all.