Aug. 20th 2010
One of my oldest, dearest friends called me up and asked me to comment on Releana personally and professionally. She handles marketing for a progressive medical practice in an urban community in the Northeast. Releana?? What’s that? I asked her. She roughly explained the premise to me as a physician prescribed, medically supervised weight loss program involving a hormone. My further research into the product taught me that Releana is a brand name product featuring a property called HCG, Human Chorionic Gonadotropin, a naturally produced hormone found in pregnant women’s placentas and excreted through the urine. HCG allegedly enables your body to break down fat cells not normally reachable by diet and exercise alone. The claim is, you take the hormone, you combine it with the prescribed diet, and you lose weight….massive amounts of weight, like up to a pound a day. Additionally, the research cited on the Releana website claims that subjects taking HCG “coped more efficiently with daily irritating situations, were in a better mood, and handled home conflicts without stepping up family discussions.” Sounds pretty amazing, doesn’t it?
I will attempt harness the intense emotional response I am currently having, and calmly clarify a couple points. FYI, the prescribed Releana diet is called “VLCD.” That stands for Very Low Calorie Diet…500 calories a day. To put that into common context, that would be like 10 points on Weight Watchers. That would be like ½ a pint of ice cream. That would be like a yogurt, an apple, and two pieces of bread. For the day. And with regard to mood, most people losing weight rapidly are in a good mood.
Why does losing weight rapidly put people in a good mood? It’s not because of a hormone. It’s because people who are struggling with their weight are tortured. They’re tortured by society’s message that they’re lazy slobs. They’re tortured by the 40 billion dollar diet industry that whispers to them seductively “this will be the last time I will ask you to shell out a couple hundred bucks…this time you’re gonna be happy.” They’re tortured by the fact that Fatism is the last acceptable prejudice in our society. In order to subsist, the diet industry counts on this consumer misery, and subsequent weight loss failures. If you read the fine print of almost any diet out there, pills, hormones, shakes, points, even Gastric Bypass Surgery, you are being asked to follow that company’s interpretation of some type of modification to what you consume. Any time your caloric intake is less than the calories you expend, you will eventually lose weight. Therefore, most of those diets encompassed beneath this 40 billion dollar umbrella do work if utilized properly and “as prescribed,” Releana included. This is why so many of these companies can afford to offer money back guarantees. They count on the fact that the consumer will not be able to follow it properly. Then obviously you can’t blame the product.
My heart was broken perusing the posts of individuals taking Releana. The abundant internet chatter left nothing to my imagination of what these consumers are experiencing. The commentary spans like a wild pendulum back and forth between euphoric I’ve-found-the-meaning of-life reverie, to the crushing defeat captured in I-can’t-believe-I’ve-gone-and-done-this-again lamentations. As compulsive eaters, like all addicts, we are people of extremes. When we are high-as-kites, on top of our game, (“I was so GOOD this week!!!”) we are actually setting the stage for our rapid descent back into depths of despair, empty inside, and envious of others (“I’ve been so BAD lately.”) The internet reactions to Releana are predictably consistent with this mindset, and leave me feeling discouraged and troubled by my peer group’s fear and hopelessness.
In short, I want to emphasize that I do not blame the diet industry for our failures at weight loss. Nor do I blame America’s obesity problem on McDonalds serving Supersize Fries. I may gain weight from eating Supersize Fries, but I appreciate my God given right to choose to do so if I wish. I may choose to take Releana, and just not worry right now about what will happen to my weight when I come off the hormone, what it would be like to maintain that weight consuming 500 calories a day for the rest of my life, and how 500 calories a day is contributing to my dwindling muscle mass, stressed organs, dull skin and thinning hair.
For today, even though they’re yummy, McDonalds fries actually make me feel like $#%&, and so I choose not to eat them. For today, I choose to eat the amount of calories that fill me up (which I predict is going to be more than 500), and I will do it with foods that seem to me, to fuel my body. I choose to trust myself that I am able to determine these things. I choose to believe that if for some reason I go off course, I will find my way back again if I commit to treating my body with the respect and love it deserves. I choose to recognize and accept that I will not lose a pound a day functioning like this. I choose to continue to wrap my brain around the fact that this journey I’m on has no real end point, and that’s ok. As a result of my choices, I feel rational, even, not fearful, not euphoric, and not empty. Oh and P.S., it didn’t cost me a dime.
