Mixed Feelings
Hey everyone!! How’s your Friday going?? I can’t believe this is the first chance I’ve had to post all day! It’s been go-go-go over here until now… so here I am 😀
The most exciting eat of the day was definitely this breakfast cookie…
It was swimming with SUPERFOOD!
To the usual mix, I added maca, goji berries, chia seeds and cacao nibs. Nutrient overload, antioxidants and energizing power! I’m all over that 😀
Some of today’s eats:
Nothing unusual –I promise to get back my creative mojo next week- but I do want to talk about something I have mixed feelings about…
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Jillian.
Don’t get me wrong, Jillian has lost a significant amount of weight and kept it off (like me), trains and aims to motivate others (also like me) but also promotes the use of diet pills and weight loss supplements (not my style at all).
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As a trainer, this is my worst nightmare. Ron and I actually had a pretty heated discussion about this earlier.. he’s not a fan of the Jill-meister either.
Here we are, trying to teach clients lifestyle changes and a famous health and fitness figure promotes the idea of a quick, easy, fast fix. Can we say trickster??? If I were a skeezy trainer, I could teach my clients “fast fixes” to lose a significant amount of weight within a short amount of time and make them feel like I was doing a great job. However, I would see this as highly irresponsible. It’s my real job to encourage lifestyle changes to my clients that they can stick with over the long run. They lose weight (and body fat) slowly and surely, and the weight stays off. Ron put it really well when he said that “If you make it a lifestyle, you have to intentionally mess it up”. Pills usually cause water weight loss. Eventually when you stop taking the pills (some of Jillian’s are $80-something a bottle), the weight will come back.
Here’s what she says about the pills:
My new proprietary, scientifically developed weight-control and body-shaping formulations are designed to cut through all the diet jargon and help you get the results you want.
This is where you start to change your life, to get thinner, stronger, and healthier, shedding excess pounds by changing your eating and exercise habits, and finding the emotional support that will turn failure into success.
My new formulations can help you make it all possible. Believe me, you can change your life. I know it, I’ve lived it, I understand it, and I changed it… YOU can too!
The supplements also contain bitter orange extract. According to this study, bitter orange can cause fainting, heart attack and stroke in healthy people… all for the sake of losing a couple of pounds quickly. I also noticed that on GNC.com that the pills have less-than-stellar reviews.
Obviously, I’m not saying Jillian is all-bad or anything like that- she does some seriously amazing things!- but I do think that she is being irresponsible and contradicting herself by sticking her face on diet pills. The Biggest Loser emphasizes lifestyle changes, and Bob and Jillian emphasize healthy eating and fitness habits that the contestants (and viewers) can add into their routine. While this is a good thing, the Biggest Loser also emphasizes quick and unhealthy weight loss. It’s unhealthy and unrealistic for everyday people to spend all day at the gym, exercising to the point of vomiting and eating a ridiculously low amount of calories. All for weight loss. I’ve said it once, but I’ll say it a million times over again… weight is just a silly number. Body fat says SO much more about body composition. Instead of the giant scale, why not a bod pod???
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Why not have Biggest Loser over the course of the year and then do re-cap episodes during the season to encourage slow, steady and healthy weight loss?
I don’t always stir the controversy pot on the bloggy, but what do ya’ll think of all of this?? Biggest Loser: good or not-so-good? Jillian’s diet pills: ok way to make some money, or totally irresponsible??
Well I’m off to make a green juice and then chill for a while. We’re meeting friends for dinner then seeing the Lovely Bones 😀
Have a wonderful night <3
Gina
*****New Winter Shape Up workouts will be posted on Monday!!!
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Have you read master your metabolism? in that book, Jillian talks about the dangers of diet pills… i find it odd that she now endorses them.
What really did it for me was this line on her website: “You look in the mirror… you see results… and you stay motivated.*”
And then when you go down to the small print at the very bottom of the page, you read: “*These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration.”
Translation: “You don’t necessarily see results in the mirror and you don’t necessarily stay motivated.”
I’ve only seen the show once, and I was a little freaked out by it. I was worried some of the contestants were going to have heart attacks right on the gym floor! I’m not a trainer, but I do know a bit about how obesity effects the body. Obesity changes the way the heart functions – increases its size, enlarges the walls, makes it slower. It would seem to me its a little dangerous for someone to go from a completely sedentary lifestyle to hardcore workout so quickly – it has to be a massive strain on the heart, especially in such extremely obese people.
On another note, I was flipping through channels the other night and caught Jillian on the Joy Behar show. Joy asked her if working out was really so critical and Jillian’s response was along the lines of, it’s okay not to exercise often as long as you’re eating right. She then went on to say that she hadn’t exercised in a month but it was alright because she “leads an active lifestyle”. I don’t know, sounded sketchy to me.
Hi Gina,
I used to like Jillian on BL. But with her promoting diet pills and stuff, it’s so contradictory to her profession as a trainer.
As a person who’s tried to lose weight over the years, I can say a few important pointers that people should accept
– Even when we say lifestyle change, it doesn’t happen overnight. With trial and error, we slowly change our habits.
– All quick fix diets cannot be followed lifelong.
– The best way to lose weight is healthy eating and exercise. Do not exclude and macronutrient from the diet. Watch your portion sizes and get a trainer. And start slow. Don’t make a commitment at the very beginning of your exercise routine that you will go in 6X etc…start slow…start 3X….and when you start enjoying it, you will want to go in more often. DON’T SET YOURSELF TO FAIL. SET YOURSELF TO GROW. Have some variety in your exercise routine…cardio, weights, yoga…whatever floats your boat.
…just my 2 cents. 🙂
Gina, I tried the egg puffs..it was good…but definitely didn’t look like yours. Could you put up a picture of the glass dish that you make it in. 🙂
a few pointers that people should accept….i didn’t word that right…i meant to say, ‘there are a few things we learn through experience and embrace it…its all a process of learning and growing. 🙂
The worst thing about Jillian and those supplements is that in her books she talks about how dangerous and unhealthy supplements can be. I did have a lot of respect for her and her fitness teachings until she SOLD OUT and endorsed those stupid, worthless supplements.
You know what’s funny- I don’t watch The Biggest Loser at all- but I’ve been somewhat of a Jillian fan. I read her most recent book titled Master Your Metabolism and the whole focus of that book is to avoid the fake, processed, chemical laden foods, including protein bars, diet meals, diet sodas, etc.- to fuel our bodies NATURALLY. And here she is promoting a pill filled with chemicals that could be dangerous and essentially counteract everything that her book preaches. Very sad to see what I consider a true sell-out. Anything to make a buck, right? It reminds me of Jennifer Nicole Lee who became “famous” in the Figure Competitor circles – which entails 2 hours a day of training usually plus a very strict diet of high protein, good carbs and lo-fat. Now she is pimping out a $15.00 ab machine saying, “this is all it takes” when she KNOWS BETTER. Very very sad.
This makes me so mad! Because there is no such thing as “quick and easy way” when you want healthy and lasting results! The worst part is that she is very well aware of that. So either she does it for publicity and money, or… yeah I really don’t see other reasons!
– Kloé
I’m surprised that all of the “ex-Jillian fans” never listened to her radio show.. Jillian has taken and promoted supplements but only clean ones without High fructose corn syrup and other endocrine disruptor. She always promoted aspirin and caffeine mix(aspirin allows blood to go deeper into your muscles and provide more energy/oxygen and the caffeine speeds it up); and she gives a Bayer aspirin and caffeine to the contestants on the show when supplements were banned because Phillipe accused her of giving drugs to her contestants. She couldn’t even give those EMERGEN-C packets so she replace it with water and lemon juice so they get back the Vitamin C they lost. In her supplements she took out green tea because it effects sex hormones. What she doing isn’t wrong people will always take supplements all she is doing is giving people a safer alternative. I remember my mom bought the P90X mix one of the 1st ingredients was high fructose corn syrup and we all know you’ll never get a full workout or a decent body on that crap. I RESPECT EVERY1 NOT WANTING TO TAKE SUPPLEMENTS but y’all need to do your research before spilling out haterade.
I wish the Winter Shape Up post was already up! I do weights VERY early on Mondays and I was hoping I could hop on here and get the newest circuit. Guess I’ll have to switch up my routine, but that’s okay – I love your blog and your opinions/advice have given me more energy and a more positive feeling about my body. Thank you!