In the land of (Dr) Oz ...

[FutureizNow]

Ok, i happened to turn on Dr. Oz while in the gym on the eliptical.
I didn't catch the whole thing, but apparently he has created the "fast food diet", for people on the run I guess who can only eat fast food.

The idea that you can actually eat pretty heathfully and potentially lose weight while eating fast food is impressive. It goes to show you that the public can influence large corporations to change their behaviour.
The concept of the diet I think is to eat 1500 cals a day, and keep the fat below a certain amount.

I had no idea that Dr. Oz was living in the land of also though . For one, making a diet with an arbitrary number of calories is absurd. The caloric deficit should be based on one's basic maintenance requirement (daily energy expenditure) as everyone on fitday realizes. While 1500 may be a realistic starting pont for the average person, it may not be suitable for the petite or the very large, creating too large or too small a deficit, or potentially none at all. There was no discussion of this concept that I heard. Too complex for lay people I guess!

Two women ate carefully chosen items at various fast food joints, and lost about 5 pounds each. Wow! Impressive! But what did they lose? Was it water, fat, muscle or waste weight? What percentage of each? There was no DEXA body scan done before and after, but if there was I suspect that it would be mostly water and waste weight the first week. The women weighed around 165 pounds each to start, and did not appear to be very active. I'm estimating they ate at a 500 daily deficit, so at most they lost 1 pound of fat. Perhaps another pound if they exercised A LOT, which is highly unlikely.

Was there a word about this? Is it too complex for the audience. He warmly congratulated the guests for losing 5 or 6 pounds and that was it.

Well is this a problem? By implying that you can lose weight healthfully eating fast food, Dr. Oz is playing into the hands of the big corporations which happen also to support his show. Let's drive consumers to <entere fast food joint>. I'm not anti-corporation or occassional fast food, but if that is the reason for his lack of information then I am not impressed!

Secondly, while he points to certain factors like calories at fat, he mentions nothing about fibre. He pulled a cucumber out of a sandwich and said "this is golden". One cucumber slice golden? A 10th of a gram of fibre.
Fibre, Vitamins, Minerals, anti-oxidant content, omega-3 - all overlooked in the exictement of losing 5 pounds.
Edit: I do recall he recommended something like 5 fruits and vegetables combined per day.

So while it is fun to watch, it is absurd for a Dr. (really?) to be promoting this as a diet.
Hopefully he and the rest of the viewers will wake up, from this technicolor dreamland, soon.

[KellyDierick]

A bit late maybe to be reacting to this post but I found it very interesting.

It is indeed very strange for Dr. Oz to be promoting that kind of diet, without going into the details of nutritional values.

We get some American shows on tv here and compared to our own or British programmes, they are very low on actual information.
It's as if they are trying to keep the viewers dumb. Once you start paying attention to the way they talk about certain subjects, it gets very annoying.

I have noticed this with Dr. Oz too. Talks about a problem and offers one solution. Et voila, that's it! As simple as that! No more worries!
But hardly any valuable background info whatsoever. So as soon as you start thinking about it some more, you realize that things don't always add up...

So they are indeed misleading a lot of people. It's a disgrace!
But then again, there's so much bullshit out there it's hard for anyone to keep focus.

[frenchhen3]

Just talking about this very subject and this very program with a friend yesterday. He gives you just enough information to make you look ridiculous. "Hey I am on a fast food diet!"

[volleyballgranny]

Dr. Oz...there are no words. My mom told me once, "Dr. Oz says there is no reason to take supplements, so I'm thinking about cutting them out." Dear God in Heaven! I sent her a copy of the DVD FOODmatters. It took her about 6 months, but she finally watched it. She called me to let me know that now she understands why I was upset with her for thinking about stopping the supplements.

You can watch FOODmatters on Netflix, but if you (or your mom) don't have Netflix, order a copy from their website. They advocate juicing, and I don't agree with juicing (too many calories/carbs, not enough fiber for my body)--but the film does not focus on juicing and it really explains modern food concerns (lack of nutrients, etc) very well.