I'm a new man!

[Burbage]

It's about diet, not exercise. If you eat the wrong things you will become ill, a conditon also known as obesity. If you eat the right things you will maintain a fit body.

[Sardonicus]

first of all congrats and excellent news - so do you party now with some Big Macs? (1st thing I had when I went off my 10-day fast in Thailand at one of those detox places - then back on clean food)

this all sounds instesting, is it proprietary, can you read it in a book somewhere?

there is a guy in my office who did something similar, though he won't talk about it, he went from large to thin in about 9 months, he looks like a different person and the first time I saw him I didn't recognize him

he did say it was 'medically-guided' but no drugs or surgery

It's basically a hormonal based diet. Meaning that an adjustment to your HGH is done through a sort of reprogramming of your system. This in turn allows you to lose weight rapidly while not feeling hunger. It also teaches you how to eat properly to avoid insulin spikes which in turn create cravings/hunger which starts a vicious circle feeding on itself. During the diet a fine balance is maintained to avoid insulin response and keep serotonin levels at a point that doesn't cause hunger. This coupled with the fact that it's about an 800 calorie diet causes rapid weight loss. The program is all non-processed foods, and you have to drink 2 to 3 l of water daily to stay hydrated to keep flushing toxins out of the body as the body processes the stored fats and releases the toxins stored in the fat cells. The program is supported and monitored with 4-weekly blood tests to help monitor your liver & kidney functions. Works a beaut! The only problem is you will lose muscle tone (not tissue, just tone) as an 800 calorie diet will not support any exercise regime. That will be starting tomorrow!

[sundaymorningstaple]

Sardonicus,

Yes it is proprietary. You cannot buy it off the bookshelf. Every diet is created specifically for the individual and no two are exactly the same. It's created by various data accumulated by the doctor over a span of 25 years. You have to submit a series of two blood tests before he will even accept you as a patient. Generally he will not create a diet for those under 17 or over 62. At 60 I was getting close! The individual you spoke about sounds like he may well have been on the same programme.

Most of the people who do the programme are referred by others who have done the programme successfully as well, just as I was referred by Baloo. I'm now ready to "Pay it forward" to anybody else who is serious about losing weight and correcting their eating habits that got them that way in the first place.

Burb........ Spot on! Obesity is a sickness of the body that is often created by an underlying emotional problem. Fortunately, in my case this wasn't so. Mine was caused by only eating like driving a vehicle, filling up only when the tank got empty (A habitual training of the body probably to not acknowledge hunger, but done unknowingly by me) Therefore I eventually only ate once a day around 9:30 ~ 10:00 at night and then nibbled until bedtime. Not the right way to eat by a long shot, hence the weight gain since I quit active commercial diving.

[nev]

Good job on losing the excess weight sms, now the hard work starts. Maintaining the ideal weight is the most difficult (at least for me, it is). Changing a lifetime of bad eating habits is never easy - my body is a constant work in progress. Even after (almost) 3 years I still struggle not to slip into old habits of eating whatever whenever and not exercising enough. The road gets harder from here on, but you can do it!

[Fyn]

Congrats SMS. Fantastic news and well done.

[Kooky]

Tas - sounds like your friend may need to look at her diet if it's not good, but she should concentrate on losing inches, not pounds. Or is it centimetres, not kilos?

I lost 11kg when I got my issues diagnosed, fairly easily with a combination of change in diet and the correct meds/supplements, but in 2 years of training 3 times a week I lost virtually nothing. Lost a couple of kg one week, put them on the next, but I did lose a couple of inches off my waist, and I believe as we get older that's a very important measurement.

Baloo, SMS, I saw you do it, the results are amazing (and Baloo has maintained it long enough for me to be convinced) but 800 calories a day to fuel a grown man scares me. I'm living with the consequences of crash and yoyo dieting in my 20s, albeit not medically-guided, and I sincerely hope there is none for you.

[Burbage]

I probably eat less than a 1000 calories a day.

You should also remember that you don't necessarily use all the calories you eat. Some are unavailable to human digestion and some are simply in excess. In the end, calories is a pretty poor measure of energy from anything except simple carbohydrates, which you shouldn't eat anyway. The big question is whether you store the excess or excrete it. Your body is capable of both. The target of a good diet should be to excrete and not store.

[Kooky]

Well I've obviously been designed to store that which I shouldn't, e.g., chocolate, and not that which I should, e.g., calcium, BHRT, as they're not working.

[baloo]

The programme isn't a calorie counting programme per se. Where I found it different is that it tells exactly what, when and how much to eat. There is no room for your own judgement. Most other diets tell you what you can't have. The classic Atkins excercise of believeing 6 eggs and 2kg of bacon for breakfast is "ok" is not tolerated.

I can honestly say that while I was on the prgramme, I never felt weak, tired or hungry except for the latter stages when I had burned up most of my excess fat and my body started telling me it was ready for more food. I think for me, one of the most important things I learnt on the programme was how to listen to your body. It tells you what it needs and when it needs it. You just have to learn, listen and obey.

[Possum]

Isn't it funny that when we look in the mirror we don't see what other people see. I have one friend that is so skinny she is almost bones but when she looks in the mirror she sees a bloated blob!! I often feel like slamming her head against a wall when we get into the shape discussion! I have started looking for body doubles to show her what she actually looks like but have yet to find one. I find it really fascinating that with clothes sizes numbering a handful and people numbering in the millions that it is so difficult.

[Burbage]

Of course, if you're trying to lose weight you should be depriving your body of exogenous energy, you want it to burn up endogenous fat.

[baloo]

It works the other way too Poss. When I was losing the weight I had plenty of people telling me to stop, or that I had lost enough, yet I was still in my high 90kgs with at least 20kg to lose before I was considered in the normal range.

[Possum]

..... You just have to learn, listen and obey.

I knew crackers would make a good husband out of you one day

[Fat Bob]

Isn't it funny that when we look in the mirror we don't see what other people see.

I think in my case that's down to teh size of the mirror. It's a shaving mirror.......

I saw baloo just when he started (he still looked like he was using centrifugal forces similar to Jupiter's to launch golf balls around the place) and after he finished, and though he did look like Skeletor, that was only because I was used to the old baloo. The body looked so much healtier, he diod a good job. He's still an ugly SOB overall, so didn't really matter either way!

[Kooky]

I wonder, does sms suddenly look so much more Italian too, or was that just Baloo?

[sundaymorningstaple]

Kooky, it scared me as well. After careful research I accepted the fact that this program is different than all the others as it makes it absolutely clear that it is a weight loss program and not a fitness program. It even tells you NOT to exercise as the program cannot support the exercise and it will actually cause just the opposite effect. This program was designed originally for the Morbidly Obese and for them exercise was totally out of the question anyway. The principles are the same now. The program does exactly what is says it will do. The other health benefits that is gives is hinted at but at the same time, not guaranteed. So all of that is a plus. It works, and there are thousands around the world who are living proof of this.

Baloo's learn, listen & obey is the one thing that all of us who have gone through the program learn how to do. It's a lot of newfound knowledge and is probably the last 'diet' we will ever need. Most who have come to this program have tried almost all other diets with mixed results and most regained the weight as well.

[sundaymorningstaple]

Don't think I look Italian, but at the moment my face does look drawn and very thin. However, it is starting to fill out a bit again and will continue do to so for a while. The gaunt look is normal at the end of this diet but the face is one of the first things to recuperate. I still look recognizable, some, like those who have been obese since childhood, don't even recognize themselves as they have never seen the skinny person that was residing inside of them. I'm only 4kg lighter than I was at 45 when still a commercial diver.



Edit: to remove duplicate post

[Burbage]

Any diet that's based on good physiology and nutrition will work and continue working. Trouble is that most of them are not.

In Woolworths they have about thrity different types of ham, and they cut all the fat of. They even proclaim on the packet that it's 97% fat free. But there's nothing wrong with eating fat (unless you want to sit down to a plate of lard every day). But this kind of rubbish from the supermarkets leads people to thinking that eating fat is bad, when it's just marketing. What they DON'T want you to think is that eating sugar is bad, because 90% of their products contain sugar.

In MacDonalds (unfortunate I know) they have a brochure which proudly claims that a big mac contains 5%of your daily recommended amount of sugar. WHAT daily recommended amount? The recommended amount of sugar is zero.

This shit is why there is an obesity crisis. People depend on their government and their food suppliers to tell them what is dangerous to eat, and they are being let down badly.

[Kooky]

What kind of supplements are you advised to take? If the diet is very low fat, it could be your skin suffers from lack of good fats.

I watched the Gillian McKeith programme last night - she gets on my nerves but her ideas are similar to those I occasionally attempt to follow - and she was dealing with a 20 stone woman who ate half a tub of butter every day (pus cream cakes and chocolate bars galore) and she was actually deficient in the Omegas!

edit: didn't see Burb's post but am saying roughly the same thing.

[baloo]

A good mutli-vitamin is all that was recommended. Omega 3 oils is often used to help stop the skin drying out but that wasn't something the clinic stipulated, it was more what the people on the programme did.

The only caveat on the mv was that it had to be low in B3 (or was it B2) because B3 had been known to increase your appetite.

[sundaymorningstaple]

It was the B6.

[sundaymorningstaple]

Most on the diet actually find that their skin becomes softer rather than dryer primarily because most people drink to little fluid and therefore the 2 to 3 litres of water daily tends to make the skin rehydrate. I know my is softer and not quite like the leathery old coot I was!

[Lili Von Shtupp]

Hi SMS. That original post of yours is incredible. What an amazing, amazing story. I wish you the best of luck with your new lease on on life!

Baloo - I've met you. You look great. These stories are really something.

I read with interest because of my dad who for his whole life has always been the big guy. Tall (6'5") and heavy - I think he fluxuates between 230 and 240 lbs?

He's tried virtually every diet and fitness craze, including back in the 70s when he was told to jog to control his weight. Now as a result of the jogging he's destroyed his knees - they were punished by the impact of his weight. He's in constant pain and next month goes in for his third knee surgery.

My mom's in a panic beacuse if he gets to a point where he can't walk, nobody can lift him. He's in physical therapy 3 times a week but that's for his knees, not weight loss. I think lately he's been doing Atkins.

So I thought this Cohen plan might be exactly what he needs, until I read your later post that people over 62 can't do it. Dad's 68.

I worry about him all the time. I wonder if there's a way for seniors to do a similar plan?

[sundaymorningstaple]

Why are certain ages excluded from the treatment (below 15 & over 62)?

The Doctor makes some exceptions, but these are based on the particular individual's profile. They are an ethical practice and both have and feel an obligation to the client and their success on the program. These categories do not respond well enough to the treatment because of various factors such as psycho-social-environment-profile, existing HGH levels and an unsuitable blood profile. However, if someone is older than 65, they can still approach the clinic and they will contact the Doctor, because as I said, he does make exceptions occasionally. It may require the submission of blood tests and a medical report. I'm not sure.

As this programme depends primarily on recommendations from one to another, it is in their interest not to take on those who may well not benefit from the program. If, however you want to look further into it, contact me by PM and I'll give you some additional links.

[JJ]

Any pointers on the actual ongoing costs of the program... i looked on the website here and its 750bucks for the personally designed eating plan etc. Assume on top of that you have the blood tests - but just idly wondering if there were monthly costs on top of that.