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Sarah’s Real Story
Sarah was a 42 year old woman who was overweight, about 87kg but her preferred weight was 60kg.
She was busy working and raising a family and understandably she wanted an easy option to lose weight. She also had a preference for natural therapies. She read some google blogs about natural weight loss pills, detoxes and other programs including the bhcg diet. I saw her intermittently but not so much for weight loss as she had other priorities but I always asked how things were going there. Each time I saw her it was a new supplement or magic pill.
After about 6-9 months I asked her how much money she had been spending on all these things. She admitted she hadn’t added it up but was “probably many hundreds”. We went through them and added it up… $1800 in 6 months…and her weight hadn’t changed.
We talked about what else she could have used this money for considering her busy life, perhaps a meal program like lite n easy, perhaps a personal trainer or health coach, perhaps even a casual cook! We reviewed the evidence for all of these supplements and natural therapies and she had no idea how little evidence there was. She assumed because it was for sale and natural it must be at least somewhat effective.
So, I reminded her that the most natural thing she can be doing is to eat real food, move well, sleep well and so on. So we went back to basics but also picked some options that do work like green tea and apple cider vinegar.
I saw her some weeks later and she had started to lose weight and she was pleased she was saving money. Interestingly she used the money to order a pre-planned food box with recipes that got delivered to her for about $60 a week and all she had to do was cook it up which she enjoyed. This was cheaper than the previous programs she was using that were not helping her!