Sources: weightloss
Losing weight has become a full-time job for Kirstie Alley. She was a spokesperson for Jenny Craig for a while and lost a ton of weight, so much that she even showed up on 'Oprah' in a bikini to show how much weight she had lost. She even had an overweight-themed show for a while, the one with the subtle title 'Fat Actress.' Of course, Alley gained the weight back (and more, if some pictures were to be believed), so it seems like this is going to be a life-long thing for her.
And us, because Alley has yet another reality show coming up that's going to focus on her weight and health. A&E's 'Kirstie Alley's Big Life' will follow the actress as she tries to lose weight. Of course, ther's more to it than that. The show will also chronicle her duties as a single mom to two teenagers (Alley is divorced from actor Parker Stevenson).
The show starts on March 21 at 10PM. So who's going to watch?
I'm in week five of the Money Diet, where I try to lose weight by counting how much I'm saving every week by not eating junk food. And it's still working. I'm really pretty shocked by my weight loss. When I started this, if anyone had asked me to be truthful, I would have admitted that I was full of bravado and would have predicted that, by now, I'd have stormed a White Castle, scarfed down 132 of their little burgers and would have been waving the white flag.
But I've managed to resist the temptation, and I've lost weight again this week. I'm losing it slowly, which is frustrating, but I know that's what you're supposed to do.
Anyway, here's how I'm doing:
My weight when I began: 264
My weight last week: 250.5
My weight this week: 248
I still have a long way to go before I'm dancing a jig — without running out of breath, anyway — but I'm definitely encouraged. And I'm sure that posting my weight on WalletPop isn't hurting. It certainly helps keep me accountable.
Dieting for all the online world to see has been a trend for awhile now, from what I can tell — people are blogging and Tweeting about their weight loss. For fun, I just typed in the word “diet” in Twitter's search engine, and then “lost” and “pounds.” Here are a few of the posts (for better or worse, mostly unedited) that popped up:
“I'm on that special K diet. And there is nothing special about it!! I need some bacon!!!!!”
“I think diet soda tricks your body and makes it think it's sugary anyway and still makes you fat. Might as well drink regular.”
“Have been on the weight watchers diet for 2 weeks and have lost 4 pounds so far, why is it so easy to put on but bloody hard to lose.”
“Guys I lost 4 pounds in 2 days!! Ow watch out.”
“Just weighed in at WW, lost another 2.”
A lot of people are posting their progress on the web in hopes of getting encouragement from the blogosphere. There's even a scale that debuted last year that, when you weigh yourself, will automatically post your weight to all your followers on Twitter. Good grief.
Anyway, here's my “saving money, losing weight” journal for the week:
- Bag of my favorite pretzels that I used to buy weekly (and sometimes twice a week) but still haven't. Actual savings: $3.29. On pretzels alone, I've saved over $15 in 2010.
- I didn't raid any of my wife's stash of Coca-Cola. In the old days, when I ran out of diet soda, I'd swipe a few cans of her regular soda. I haven't yet, so I'm sure I've saved spending money on at least one case of pop this week. Estimated savings: $8.
- I've been eating a lot of grown-up, healthy cereal like, well, Special K (unlike that Twitter user, I like it pretty well), and I haven't added any sugar to my cereal. Let's say that I had six bowls of cereal this week. My old self would have put maybe two (okay, three) teaspoons of sugar into the cereal, so let's assume each teaspoon of sugar costs 3 cents, so that's 9 cents per bowl multiplied by six bowls. So right there, I saved…54 cents.
- I skipped the fast food outlets, although I did go to a Subway, if that counts. Still, I probably saved at least $5.
- I saw a few candy bars at various convenience stores during the week but didn't buy them. Estimated savings: $3.
- I've been skipping late night snacks (mostly) and second helpings and, um, thirds at dinner. That has to count for something, so let's say, I've racked up an estimated savings of $6.
And that's the gist of how this week went. Not to say I've been ideal at weight loss. For my daughter's sixth birthday, for instance, we took her and some of her friends to Dairy Queen, where I weakened and blew $3 on a small Blizzard. Since I still managed to lose some weight this week, though, I look at that as money well spent. Or at least not wasted.
My total saved this week so far: $25.83
Total saved this year so far: $122.38
The slightly less rotund and slightly wealthier Geoff Williams is a regular contributor to WalletPop as well as co-author of the new book Living Well with Bad Credit.
weightloss
The treatment of obesity by medication is considered by doctors to be a more suitable approach than surgical intervention for the majority of overweight patients.
There are a number of medications used in the treatment of obesity, including the commonly prescribed Xenical (Orlistat). Drugs such as Xenical are designed to limit the body's ability to absorb lipase, a fat molecule. Xenical is cited as having the ability to “block gastrointestinal uptake of approximately 30% of ingested fat” (Munsch, Meyer, & Margraf, 2007).
Rivas-Vazquez, Rice, & Kalman (2003) state that the use by obese patients of weight-loss medications such as Xenical “results in about a 4% greater weight loss” than patients not taking such medication. Munsch, Meyer, & Margraf (2007), who also tested the efficacy of Xenical, found that “patients lost on average 7.7% of their initial weight during the 33.6 weeks of treatment.” The major benefit of drug therapy in the treatment of obesity is that it is non-invasive, and carries few of the significant health risks of surgical intervention. Drug therapy is also considered by many doctors to be a sound long-term solution to weight loss (Rivas-Vazquez, Rice, & Kalman, 2003).
Like surgical intervention, though, this treatment also has a number of significant shortcomings. Powell, Calvin III, & Calvin Jr. (2007) note that “moderate gastrointestinal side effects occurred in about 35% of participants” using Xenical,and “8% of the participants…withdrew from the trials because of serious adverse events” associated with the use of the drug. Munsch, Meyer, & Margraf (2007) also made the point that the drug treatment is not cost-effective, calculating that the average cost of medication per kilogram lost is 139.16 Swiss Francs (approximately 166.20 Australian Dollars).
It must be remembered that the statistics compiled by Munsch, Meyer, & Margraf (2007) and cited above are based on self-reported data obtained from patients over the phone. Data obtained in this way, rather then under the supervision of medical specialists, is open to errors and inconsistencies. This individual data was quantified by a computer program to allow for comparison, however the authors themselves noted that “specific pre-treatment patient characteristics influence the outcome” of their results – as with the results obtained by Inge et al. (2004) and discussed in the previous section, other weight management variables for individual patients were not taken into account. The patients studied by Munsch, Meyer, & Margraf (2007) were also involved in a program of counseling, which – as indicated by the following section – may also have significant impacts on weight loss in obese patients.
It is obvious that the weight lost by obese patients on drug therapy is not as significant as that lost by patients who underwent surgical intervention. However, treating obesity through medication involves far less risk than surgical treatment, and is more appropriate and available to the majority of obese patients. Thus in most cases drug therapy should be recommended before surgical therapy.
Sources
Munsch, S., Meyer, A. H., & Margraf, J. (2007). Weight control with Orlistat in a
telephone-counseling program, Swiss Journal of Psychology, 66(4), 235-241.
Powell, L. H., Calvin III, J. E., & Calvin Jr., J. E. (2007). Effective obesity treatments.
American Psychologist, 62(3), 234-246.
Rivas-Vazquez, R. A., Rice, J., & Kalman, D. (2003). Clinical psychopharmacologyupdate, Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 34(5), 562-566.