Saturday, August 28, 2004

# 95: Let the Diet Wars begin! • GREED IS THE ENEMY! • Fines for missed GP appointments• Tip of the Week: Sunburn

Let the Diet Wars begin!

After two successive columns devoted to the redoubtable Atkin's diet it would have been time to move on. Except I couldn't resist telling you about an article in Tuesday's Times which put the diet in the ring against that old workhorse of a diet or slimming plan - Weightwatchers!

Under a full page headline, 'Weightwatchers shape up to Atkins and challenge from low-carb diets' the paper describes how Weightwatchers have been more or less forced to revamp their famous low calorie diet simply to compete with the hordes swarming towards the Atkins system of eating. (which is a high protein and fat diet with low carbohydrates) No wonder the Weightwatching people are scared. Apparently 1.4 billion Americans who used to attend Weightwatchers meetings in America have given the diet and the meetings up and turned to the Atkins Revolution for salvation. This is not merely a matter of fat, it's a matter of the fat of the land. And in the 'land of the fat' that means megabucks! Billions and billions of dollars.

Meat farmers, whom I now understand include the name of Robert Atkins in the daily prayers are watching anxiously. A comeback by Weightwatchers could dent their profits significantly if the recent epidemic of Atkins-inspired carnivore-mania is curbed in the USA.

So Weightwatchers has introduced a new improved system. Not that there was anything wrong with the old system. As a diet, it was as good or bad as any other diet - regular readers know what I think of diets in general. What it had going for it was psychological support and group determination, much like AA and NA. Loving support for your efforts always works and this was a strong contributing factor to the success of Weightwatchers. Still, loving support is hard to market, so Weightwatchers have introduced a new 'Core' System to replace the tried and tested Points System. Why? Because in order to compete with Atkins which allows you to eat as much protein as you want, Weightwatchers also needed to introduce a new diet that allows you to eat until 'comfortable' Thus the new diet is full of food that is high in volume but low in calories. It fills you up without making you fat. Congratulations to them for thinking up such an ingenious strategy - eating foods that fill you up.

Obviously diets are here to stay whatever I think. But if you want a system that always works, why not try the Dr Brian Kaplan's 4 WORD DIET. It only costs �4. (Special offer in USA $4!!!) and it really works. If you want it read on�

Okay here it is!

GREED IS THE ENEMY!

Think about it, digest it, assimilate it, send me �4 and you will surely lose weight. And remember this, it doesn't work if you don't pay. You will then feel guilty and then you will eat to ameliorate your guilt. Then you will be fat again.

Fines for missed GP appointments:

The Times reports that two thirds of British GP's want to fine patients who miss appointments without cancellation. Such considerate behaviour only costs the NHS approximately �162 million a year. That's what it costs the government for the 9 million missed appointments. Outrage is what I say! It's our civil right to have free medicine and our right to miss a GP appointment if we get better while we are waiting for our appointments. And if we have something better to do? What do they expect? I thought doctors in this country were always complaining that they have too many patients! They should be happy that some don't show up.
Don't let them take away our rights!

Not.

Homeopathic Tip of the Week: Sunburn

Here is a homeopathic medicine for sunburn. Yes I know there hasn't been any sun this summer but the sun still shines in Greece, Spain, France, Mallorca etc.

For a hot, red painful skin: Belladonna 6c one every 2 hours. Belladonna is one of the first homeopathic remedies and has had a good reputation for treating various forms of inflammation for nearly two hundred years. Any part of the body that's red, hot and painful may need it, although consulting a doctor for such symptoms is always a good idea as well!

Have a nice long weekend.


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