Apeco Health and Fitness

Do you think the diet industry really wants you to lose weight? Think again!

We see these commercials for diet products, personal trainers, exercise equipment and gym chains. They look so nice don’t they? Get ripped in just five minutes a day they say. Eat the same foods you love and lose weight anyway. Come here for just $10 a month with no signup fee… wow sounds like these companies really care about us, they want us to slim down and want us to get in to the best shape of our lives.

NONSENSE!

The weight loss and diet business is a billion upon billion dollar industry and they care about one thing… selling you their products.

Weight Loss Products

How many weight loss products are out there that you can name off the top of your head? Atkins bars, Medifast, Weight Watchers frozen dinners, Nutrisystem, heck even Diet Pepsi. All designed to help you think they will help you lose weight. Sure you might lose weight for a little while on Medifast or the like, but do you want to eat freeze dried oatmeal the rest of your life?

Of course not, and the marketers behind all this stuff know you don’t. Their goal is to get you to buy it, have a little bit of success and quit. Then you’ll come crawling back for more like the diet junkie you are.

Made for TV Exercise Equipment

Im not going to say all exercise equipment is bad because quite frankly if you want to lose weight you need to get your butt on the treadmill, but you can’t go through five channels on TV without seeing a brand new “ab ripper machine” or “compact cardio blaster that folds up and fits under the bed”. Do you really think these things work? Do you think Chuck Norris got ripped because he uses the Total Gym for 10 minutes a day three times a week? Really?

You’ll do what everyone else does and hit your dieting low point and whip out the credit card thinking “this time for real” and when the box finally gets to your house it’ll sit in your basement for six months until you open it up. Then you’ll try it for a few times, not see 6 pack abs in 30 seconds and give up, only to go and buy the next “Fat Blaster X9000” that comes in three easy payments of $59.95.

Your Local Gym Chain

You need to go to your gym. Let me repeat. Get off your butt and go to the gym, work hard and you will lose weight.

So why are gym chains in the list of weight loss businesses that don’t care about you? Because they want you to come to the gym, sign up once (on a monthly rebilling membership) and never come back.

$10 a month sounds awesome right? Guess what? That’s just low enough for you to forget you have it, or not break your back to go cancel it. So every month you pay and more and more of you go in to the gym and sign up while they sit back and collect the checks.

Think about it if everyone who had a gym membership all went at the same time do you think there would be less than a 3 hour wait on every treadmill? Yea, plus the insurance companies that provide coverage to the gym in case someone blows out their pecks trying to bench 600 pounds don’t want that many people either. So next time you go sign up for a gym membership actually use it k?

One of the more popular weight loss products on the market right now is Medifast, a weight loss supplement that claims that its users can lose weight much faster than on any other product, but is this really true? We investigated Medifast to give you the real story.

Medifast was designed by scientists to help people who were morbidly obese lose weight to help save their lives. Several studies have been done to test Medifast’s effectiveness such as this one from the USDA or this one from the NCBI so you know Medifast is effective. Originally it was mostly shakes that you drink that give you the nutrition that you need but prevent you from eating junk foods or large portion sizes that plague the obese community. Originally you needed a prescription from a doctor to buy it but now it has become so popular that you can buy it online directly from Medifast’s website.

There is a nice variety of food on the plan, their website features shakes, bars, brownies, oatmeal, soups, eggs and a bunch of snacks like pretzels and cheese puffs. Heck they even have soft serve ice cream, what kind of diet lets you eat ice cream? Apparently this one!

All of this food can get a little expensive though, which is where I don’t really like it. I found a Medifast coupon code that help you save $50 on $250, but these days $250 is a little expensive for my taste.

Speaking of taste I asked a lot of users what the food tasted like, and they weren’t thrilled with it but they said it was “good enough” that they could deal with it if it really helped them lose weight. Most of them had lost weight though so they were happy to stick it out. The plan also does cut out some specific food groups which was a concern in a recent NYU review of Medifast, so please consult your doctor to make sure you are getting everything you need before trying the program.

In the end Medifast does seem to work very well, most of the people I talked to lost at least 20 pounds which is a very good sign. One woman had an allergic reaction though so if you notice anything funny happening with your body it’s best to discontinue use until you talk to a doctor about it first.

Overall I would say Medifast is a quality diet. It’s probably not for someone who just wants to lose 10 pounds or less, but if you have a lot of weight to lose and don’t mind shelling out a few bucks to lose that weight then Medifast is probably a very nice option for you