Читать книгу Only Fat People Skip Breakfast: The Refreshingly Different Diet Book - Lee Janogly - Страница 26

Save your money. Any treatment undertaken in a beauty salon which claims to make you slimmer by applying ointment, clay, slimy gunge, or attacking your thighs with nasty-looking instruments, tight bandages (to squish the fat into submission?), electrical impulse treatment, or whatever, is a complete waste of time. Little electrical impulses to stimulate your muscles will have no impact on the surrounding fat. Similarly, there is no such thing as a ‘non-invasive’ face-lift.

You should also be wary of suggestions made by the attractive, slim beauty therapist attending to your vulnerable thighs while you lie prone in your cubicle. A white nylon coat and a name tag do not confer instant qualifications upon the wearer. The letters after her name are probably her postcode.

Aspiring beauty therapists are indoctrinated with three key phrases: ‘Breaks down the fat’, ‘Increases the circulation’ and ‘Gets rid of toxins’ (sound familiar?). Therapists are instructed to repeat these phrases at intervals during each consultation with a client, in the firm belief that said client will not dispute this. Asking for a more detailed analysis, ‘What do you mean it breaks down the fat?’ will elicit the response, ‘You know, it breaks down the fat so that it can be carried away by your increased circulation’. Don’t bother to ask ‘How?’ or ‘Where does it get carried to?’—she doesn’t know and you will only confuse her.

You will certainly be lighter when you leave the beauty salon—by at least 50 or 60 pounds – but only in your wallet. And news travels fast, so if by the remotest chance any of these anti-fat treatments worked then nobody would have any fat. Surely this should tell you something. However, there’s no telling some people – and with time on your hands, fat on your thighs and money in your pocket, the choice is yours.

You could even join Cherie Blair on her Detox Slimming Machine. Appearing svelte and slim(ish) at the Labour Party Conference in October 2003, the prime minister’s wife was reportedly very enthusiastic about her three-times-a-week slimming treatments to get rid of ‘toxic waste’ and reverse years of ‘digestive abuse’. The treatment consists of lying on a couch and being attached to 32 electrodes that emit electrical currents to tap away at the ‘intestinal plaque’ lining the colon and intestines. A course of 12 sessions costs £695. A laxative would have the same effect at a fraction of the price as would taking a natural product like psysllium or ispaghula husk, marketed in the UK as Fybogel. You are also advised to go on a strict detoxification diet—eating only fruit, vegetable soup and salad with a small meal of chicken and rice for dinner. Oh really? No sausage, bacon and chips then?

Let’s talk toxins for a moment. A toxin is a poison usually produced in the body by bacteria. Health Encyclopaedia, the medical guide used by the Royal Society of Medicine, suggests that bacterial toxins are extremely dangerous, and if they enter the blood in more than minute quantities, the effects are always serious. If you suffered the build-up of toxins suggested by these so-called ‘health experts’ you would probably be dead, and the idea that you can be ‘cured’ of toxins by electrical stimulation, colonic irrigation or a detox diet is ludicrous. Not one toxin, as the term is understood by the Royal Society of Medicine, can be removed by any detox programme.

As Amanda Wynne, a spokesperson for the British Dietetic Association tactfully put it: ‘I can’t really comment on this so-called detoxifying process but the diet doesn’t sound hugely nutritious to me. You can lose between one and two pounds a week quite easily just by eating healthily and exercising—and save yourself £695.’

If you have that much money to spare, why not go for surgery? Plastic surgeons have developed a technique to get rid of the ‘orange peel’ effect of cellulite by snipping the ligaments just under the skin to produce a smoother look (Tucks R Us?). Unfortunately, this doesn’t eliminate the fat; you just look smooth and fat instead of lumpy and fat. Fatso intacto.

The only plastic surgery that will effectively protect you from all of the above is to cut up your credit cards.