There weren't. In fact, I sort of wish I'd saved the webpage, just to be able to show my children someday when teaching them how to determine if a website is reliable. Does it claim to be written by an impartial expert without giving any credentials about the author? Does it provide a glowing review without a single negative? Does it pretend to offer a scientific experiment that turns out to be one self-reported case study? Does it fail to offer explanations for why "scientific" choices were made? Does it claim larger-than-life results? Do all links within the website point back to itself? Is there a pop-up alert when you navigate away from the page, asking if you really want to do that and turn down such an amazing offer? Yes to all? Well, hmm.....................
The main ingredient in the diet pills in question (and it took a little reading before I even got to the part where I learned that this "diet" involved several "natural" supplements) sounded familiar to me, so I googled it independently. Know what the ingredient was?
The pregnancy hormone.
Yes, some wackos decided that hormones that prepare a woman's body to nurture a fetus for nine months would somehow make people lose weight. Considering that women gain a heck of a lot of weight during pregnancy, the logic here baffles me. (I'd also like to know how they extract this hormone in order to put it in pills. After all, home pregnancy tests are designed to react to that hormone, and we all know what women have to do to those little sticks...)
The article I was reading went on to say that claims that the hormone would cause weightloss were scientifically unfounded and selling it was actually illegal (or perhaps they were working on making it illegal--I can't remember the details, this was some time ago.) I was therefore surprised that I kept encountering these ads on a well-respected news website.
The ads did disappear after a time, and I don't know why. Unfortunately due to the nature of cookies and web-crawlers, the ads on my blog will probably now include this one, if it still exists. Don't click through if it does--unless you'd like a laugh.
I'm happy to report that, without any help from diet scams, I have met my goal of attaining pre-pregnancy weight, and have maintained it for a few months now. And I'm not just talking pre-Kal'El weight, which was about ten pounds higher than pre-Zaxxon weight. No, I've reached pre-Zaxxon weight. And I am thankful. Babies have permanently changed my abdomen, but at least I'm no longer carrying around the extra pounds. And I'm more than happy to share my "one weird tip," absolutely free of charge.
Water.
I decided, more for overall health and not with the intention of using it to lose weight, that I needed to be more hydrated. Instead of trying to carry water around with me wherever I went, I just decided to use the bathroom as a mental stop. After using the bathroom, I grab the cup I keep in there, fill it up, and down it. It didn't take long for this to become habit, and the last ten pregnancy pounds slid off pretty quickly. I believe this was partially because my stomach was fuller before meals, so I ate less. Whether it helped in other ways, I can't say, but I can say that it worked. I can also say that I've gotten slightly healthier in other regards, most notably with skin. I used to get chronic eczema on my hands, and while I still get flare-ups, they are far less common now. There have been a few other benefits as well, but I don't feel I need to delve into those topics on this blog.
Me, ten weeks with Zaxxon, before I started to show
Me, immediately after Zaxxon
Me, about ten weeks with Kal'El
Yes, it's not a huge difference, but lots of pants still didn't fit.
Me, immediately after Kal'El
Me, now.
Woot!
1 comment:
Wow!! Congrats on the goal, and you look great! Water. Water. Will remember that. (Funny thing is I've been trying to cut back because I go to the bathroom so dang much!)
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