Weight loss: Truth about magic products

So Christmas, Years Eve and Epiphany are behind us. And since most people eat a lot and move less than usually during this period, many are now dispread to lose weight and rather as easily as it was gained. Businessmen know and that’s why these days’ media are overloaded of advertisements promoting different slimming products.  There are slimming pills, teas, dietary products and creams/gels - all with the same goal: you will lose your weight without feeling hunger, without depression of blood sugar unbalance, without any groove work out or even those which slim you without any more contribution such as regular eating habits or any workout. Salesmen do what they can to catch you, to make you believe.

The most successful trick is the free trial package. It is sent to you just for the freight price or entirely for free. The package is usually for two weeks. But the trick is that the producer informs that you will see first results after one month.

Other trick is to give your money back in case you don’t lose weight. Sounds safe? May be it sounds, but this never work; since you never can proof to the producer that you failed.  Since you don’t do any agreement where you current weight and life style habits are mentioned and agree on some improvement plan, there are no proofs about your diet to be provided to the manufacturer. The manufacturer will always get back to you that the diet failed by your own cause.

What are these magic slimming products? I have tried many of them and I will now share the results and experiences of myself and people I was talking to.

Slimming creams and gels

It can be shower gel, massage gel or body lotion. It promise you to lose 0,5-3cm off your hips and belly in one moth when you using it every morning and evening. The lotion or gel should contain substances heating up and break the fat right under the skin. Common, do you really believe that such process can break down and burn the fat? Well if you heat fat on the pan it becomes liquid and then in temperature 70 degrees Celsius it starts to shrink. But it shrinks due to water lose since water disappears to the air in steam form. The fat is there. You need a temperature lot above 300 degrees Celsius to make the fat burn and disappear. Honestly, who can believe that it could fix fat under the skin? The slimming lotions usually just repair the skin on hips and belly and make it smoother and firmer and decrease cellulite. Optically the waist and hips look slimmer and some mm and/or cellulite can be lost, but we are still in a cosmetic level, there is now fat burn happening. Although I like these products because they make the skin on the back, hips and belly really nice and smooth.  I don’t say no to slimming lotions and gels but I’m aware that they are not really slimming, just make me better other way.

Pills and teas to decrease you hunger

This is one of the most popular groups and I would say the most sold. In fact they can be successful during the first (let’s say) one month of usage. These products are usually on the base of natural fibers and pectin these substances increase its volume in the stomach and it can decrease hunger in some grade, as the person is feels constantly full. However the feelings of full stomach disappear by the time because stomach grows after some time to “make it more comfortable”.

But there is another thing going on, even the stomach is full. It is the feeling of hunger, the “Pavlov’s reflex”. It is habit to eat and of course it is a habit to eat some specific portion in some specific time. Many people, even they feel that stomach is full, push them to eat their regular portions just due to the habit. That’s very difficult to break. And honestly if you can break it, you don’t need any pills. Just break it.

Other versions of supplements decreasing hunger are so called anorectics, which do not full your stomach but they should stimulate some hormones to break the hunger feeling. There is for example extract of hoodia, which should eliminate hunger feeling completely. The most people say that the hunger disappears since the hoodia make them sick. And honestly, that’s the meaning, that’s the effect. Most of the slimming supplements decreasing hunger are actually making you sick and then you can’t eat of course. But not just eat, you’ll probably not make it to the work, you’ll not be able to smell perfume, cleaning substances or other people’s food. If you would eat you would probably throw out or get a groove diarrhea.

Carbo- and fat blockers

These substances should block the carbohydrates and fats in the food you eat to be absorbed by the metabolism. These substances somehow do their job but do not expect too much and be prepared that you will visit the restroom much more often than normally and your stomach will collect lot more gases then normally. It might help to stop gaining weight in short term but it definitely doesn’t contribute to weight loss.

The strongest of these products is Alli which is well known for causing so strong diarrhea so that adult people need to use diapers!

Magic slimming pills

The biggest lie, the biggest bluff: These products usually promise you to lose weight without any diet or work out. Some people using these slimming products believe to them so strongly that they decrease their calorie intake without thinking and awareness. Then they believe that magic pills are working. But it’s really not true. Despite these facts, magic slimming pills are the biggest business with fake products not yet touched by law.

The weight loss is the same process as weight gain. More calories more weight, less calories less weight. Decrease you daily calorie intake by eating less, eating regularly or/and work out regularly, that’s the only way to succeed with the weight loss.

What you might didn't know about Christmas...

We have already passed another Christmas. Did you sing carols, go to church, play Santa Claus or just simply overeat during past 3 days? Those should be the known activities besides visiting of family and friends.

Here is some staff you might didn’t know about Christmas:

-          Nowadays Santa Claus is a hybrid of English Father Christmas, Central European Ghost of Christmas, Danish Yule dwarf, Scandinavian old god Odin, bishop St. Nicholas and Russia Father Frost. His red and white coat was created to promote Coca-Cola in USA in the beginning of 30’s 20^th Century.

-          It is just white lie that Jesus was born on 24^th December. According to Bible and other old scripts he was born between 3rd and 7^th December or maybe earlier in autumn in year “0” plus minus 70 years. The birthday of Jesus Christ was implemented onto 24^th December to give to the ancient pagan Midwinter feast some Christian reason.

-          During Christmas an average European and/or American gain 4-5kg body weight since during Christmas time even the hardest fitness freaks or dieters are making and exception and eat and drink in average 400Kcal every day between 22^nd December and the 6^th January.

-          The applications for divorce increase before and soon after Christmas in Europe. The pre-Christmas stress and Christmas parties are often the reason; however the divorce is always announced to the couple’s children after the Christmas.

-          Fires and other house accidents increase significantly during the Christmas time and New Year’s Eve.

-          Every 10^th European or/and American applies for bank loan for the Christmas presents. And the value of Christmas presents is exceeding the family budget standards in almost every European or/and American family.

-          Every second person celebrating Christmas is feeling stress or/and depression before and during Christmas and promises her/himself that “next year it will be without any meaningless stress.

-          2 of 3 persons celebrating Christmas regret the money spent in presents and food as well as the gained kilos/pounds and promises her/himself that “next year they will not eat and drink so much during Christmas and won’t buy so many unnecessary presents since they give more than they receive.

-          Children are so possessed and excited during the Christmas Eve so that they are not able to eat anything and play or watch TV easily in peace.

-          In Europe (at least) 50% of received Christmas presents are returned to the shops since they are not fitting or the recipient already has it.

Personally I’m not the one who is sending the divorce application or returning Christmas presents to the shops. But I do regret the pound I gained during Christmas. But honestly, after hearing about other people’s feasts and championships in eating, one pound is really not a big deal.

Still there is the New Year’s Eve to go…

Venezuelan beauty queen who makes people angry

Since I have been a teenager I have been interested in watching beauty contest like Miss World and Miss Universe. This year (2013) I have spent some time on checking the contestants of the different countries comparing them etc. In general my opinion is that all the women joining these competitions are beautiful since all young healthy slim women are usually pretty, no doubt about that whoever the winner is she deserves the title.

It is generally very difficult to say if any of the contestants is significantly more beautiful than another; the pick of final top 15/16 and the winner is more and less about nature and taste of the judges then any objective truth – especially in case of Miss Universe, since the extraterrestrial contestants have not yet participated.

This year’s winner of Miss Universe pageant is 25 years old Gabriela Isler from Venezuela.  And at the same moment she was declared Miss Universe 2013, a lot of unpleased, angry and unkind comments about her popped up on internet. According to hundreds or thousands of people around the world Gabriela Isler does not deserve the title; she is “ugly”, old, plastic, fake woman, etc.”

I noticed negative comment against her already since her arrival to Moscow where the Miss Universe was held. And I really do not understand why she woke so many negativities. She doesn’t look like to have plastic surgeries; it is not obvious in her case. There were on the other hand more obvious cases such as Miss Paraguay, Peru and Brazil – all three of them had noses looking all the same. 

Honestly I have been really surprised by the Miss Venezuela. I have seen her on photos both with minor or major make up (both fit her) and plenty of elegance, she won my sympathies by her big smile and lively eyes and also by her generous face expression and gestures which other beauty queens rather don’t want to show.

But people are probably tired of the tradition of Venezuela’s misses getting into top 10 or winning beauty pageants and they also certain that all of them have gone through a plastic surgeries since a document about manufacturing of beauty queens in South America was shown on main TV’s around the world in the beginning of 2000’s. Ordinary people see plastic surgeries simply as faking. People has no proof about any esthetic surgeries of Latino women, they assume that, as it should be a kind of standard. It seems that according to ordinary people, Latino woman can probably not be born with nice shaped nose or moderate sized breasts.

Since Gabriela is not looking underweight and she has round face and round bottom I guess she could have some liposuction around her waist but it is still just guess. I have a cousin and she has always had very thin waist and round hips and bottom, without any liposuction just by nature.  

I can understand that plastic surgeries can provoke people but what about the comment on her age? There is really something wrong in the society which calls women of the age of 25 year for “old”. Gabriela Isler is 25 she looks like 25, is that bad? People dislike plastic surgeries but on the other side they assume that beauty queens should look younger than they really are.  Since 25 years is criticized as “old age” I’m almost 10 year older then Gabriela Isler I should probably already purchase a coffin due to my high age.

Gabriela Isler was also criticized for using of interpreter for answering the final question and for actually not answering it. Well, it is also a tradition that Spanish/Portugal speaking women use interpreters however I have seen also other nationalities to do on international beauty pageants. But there is no rule of beauty pageant saying that the contestant has to speak English. There is also a cultural and social situation in the Latino countries especially Venezuela, which has an impact on language skill of these ladies. They might speak English but they have been told that it is not enough for the international contest so they rather do not take the risk to misunderstand or speak with bad accent.

And she didn’t answer the question: “What is your worst fear…?” Well, I understood that it was obvious from her face that her fear in that moment was a question itself. She answered by her face expression. And she couldn’t start to talk about Venezuelan woman’s fears (such as human trafficking or abuses) it shouldn’t fit to the competition; so she did as top politics are doing, she answered in general and leaded the answer out from “dangerous waters”.  

Let’s have a look on Venezuelan culture and situation of women. At first, the most Venezuelan girls are born “to be beauties”. And it is sitting in the nation’s mentality. Women in Venezuela are grown up and raised to be beautiful, it is their number one priority. The gender equality in Venezuela of women and man is quiet pure in the country, according to different sources. As past years miss candidates told, women try to be as beautiful as possible to achieve a career as models, actresses or TV hostesses. If they should go for e.g. a business career; they have to show much more skills than men.  Also getting full education is a challenge for a woman in Venezuela which can be a reason why Gabriela Isler doesn’t have a full academic degree. It is also interesting to see the how potential misses are prepared to the competition, it is like a drill, like army – posing, face expressions, cat walk, they learn everything to details. But the Miss school doesn’t teach them foreign languages. The question why follows and answer is simple: English could open endless possibilities to Venezuelan beauties and maybe ladies would leave Venezuela for better opportunities.

 Venezuela has unstable politics and economy, high major corruption and it is well known for drug and human trafficking – nothing the nation can be proud of. So still they can be at least proud of their beauty queens.

And I finnish this article with a question: Can all the "anger" but easily just a way of jalousy? ;-)


A typical "ugly and old" woman - Gabriela Isler

She has received negative comments about her look already since her arrival to Moscow, why??

Top 5 most stupid Father’s day gifts

Father's Day means honouring fathers and celebrating fatherhood, paternal bonds, and the influence of fathers in society.

Father's Day was inaugurated in the United States in the early 20th century to complement Mother's Day in celebrating fatherhood and male parenting.

After the success obtained by Anna Jarvis with the promotion of Mother's Day in the US, people wanted to create similar holidays for other family members, and Father's Day was the choice most likely to succeed.

But nowadays everything is about money, shops and services of all kinds want to sell more and more and they use more and more aggressive campaigns to make people buy. They use all possible or impossible events to make a reason for their advertisements and they try to make us feel that we have to buy presents to our loved ones. The Father’s day is also one of the victims of business.

This year I’ve got impression that the Father’s day is just some kind of marketing joke. During last 5 days I have seen different advertising shots on TV or poster or pages in press representing staff which should be suitable as “Father’s day present”. It makes me think if somebody could really be so stupid to 1. create the idea of the “suitable present” and 2. to buy it.

Here is my top 5 list of non-sense Father’s day presents (I’ve seen in advertisements)

5. Home slippers

I guess it is better to forget the day at all then to give home slippers.

4. Men underwear

I cannot imagine honouring my Dad with a package of underpants and it doesn’t matter if it is Calvin Klein since it is my Dad! Is the meaning of the advertisement honouring my Dad’s male organ with contributed to my birth?

3. Nature medicine

Nature products like dietary supplements are always very sensitive and it not a suitable gift at all. If I will give to my Dad e.g. some medicine for better memory, joints or blood pressure, how should he interpret it? And I don’t speak about the nature product for better sexual life (to my Dad? Common!)

2. Heavy tools

It is totally out of scope. Imagine giving your Dad for example chainsaw or mower. Especially in case he doesn’t own any land or wood. But everything is possible in the world of business

1.  (Winner) Medical examination

Can you imagine this: you give your Dad an envelope so he thinks that inside is some kind of nice picture, photo of your Dad with you in a frame or something… But no! There is a card with strange logo and text saying: ”Welcome to our private clinic, our specialists are ready to examine you. This is a gift voucher of value 200€” Ouch! Shouldn’t it be better to spend the 200€ in a luxury restaurant eating some delicious food with your Dad? If you don’t; I’m nearly 100% sure that your Dad should prefer the restaurant!

Who, "in bloody Hell" was the guy, with a hammer, name Thor?

It is not a long time ago I jumped to a discussion about Thor and it was not just a regular discussion. It was during a trial, where I was questioned (and in accordance to low I had a right to question back) about my photo showing me wearing necklace with Thor’s hammer. Nothing illegal, is it? Well, in my homeland Czech Republic where the trial took place, you never know.

The juridical expert was 100% sure that I’m wrong about Thor and his hammer (even he has never studied Scandinavian and Baltic culture). It is funny that people in central Europe can believe that Thor should be some kind of blood thirsty creature, even around whole Europe Thor’s figure was existing as part of paganism or mythology and legends and he was really not anybody “born to be a killer”.

Thor, in ancient Nordic and Asian mythology well known also as Indra, in Baltics and Finland known as Perkunas or (Ukko) Perkele and among Slavonic nations Perun, was a simple good minded “god” or rather mythological person, patron of farmers, workers and slaves. He was a god of thunder, tempest, harvest and fertility. He had been traveling on his coach from dawn to sunset, if he didn’t have anything else to do. That’s why almost half year there is dark like at night in the North according to this myth, since Thor has something else to do so he didn’t ride around the sky, so there was no sunrise and no sunset – funny, isn’t it? Well, Thor’s stories are mostly funny, unlike Odin the ancient Nordic “philosopher”, Thor was using his easy common sense (and even humor sense) to solve his problems. Usually his hammer wasn’t actively used as weapon but just a tool. The hammer was otherwise his weapon against giants, who represented frost, cold and bad harvest (as they were walking on the fields and everything got frozen under their feet, and their breath was freezing wind).

Good example of Thor way of problem solving is the story about the stolen hammer. In Edda it is serious incident but the story is quite funny for us now. Imagine: One morning Thor cannot find his hammer and through the people talks he finds out that giant Trym took it. Since Trym was in love with goddess Freya Trym could do anything possible to get married with her. When Trym had the hammer he could threaten and blackmail Thor and his people in Walhalla to push Freya to marry Trym.

Now you probably wait how Thor reacts. According to the Central and Western Europe understanding of Nordic mythology and Thor, he should go to fight with him he should call his best einherjers (dead warriors who passed to Valhalla* since fall in a battle as heroes) and go to fight. But Thor did something very different. He asked his sly friend Loke for help and together they made up a plan. Thor dressed himself to women wedding dress and covered his face with a Veil. The Loke accompanied him to Trym. In Trym’s place Loke presented Thor to Trym as Freya who is “shy so that she cannot speak but she will marry Trym”. Trym doesn’t see anything strange and prepare a wedding feast. Although Freya was a tiny woman with golden hair and slim legs and Thor had long red hair and beard and his body was shaped by the farmer works, Trym was certain that the bride coming to him was Freya. Feast starts and Trym get drunk. Thor gets out from the women clothes takes his hammer from Trym and hits Trym with his hammer. And as the hammer is a weapon against giants no more fight is necessary one hit is enough to make Trym powerless. Then Thor and Loke return back to Valhalla where Freya is waiting upset that Thor destroyed one of her beautiful dresses.

And that’s the point my friends. Do you still believe that thunder god Thor is some kind of symbol of violence, war or terror?**

So, why Thor and his hammer should represent something bad? Let me remind you that to Thor’s honour a day in a week: Thurs day means Thor’s day in at least 6 European languages (English inclusive). Thor (or Tor, and its women version Tora) has always usual given name in Scandinavia and sometimes in UK and USA as well. (E.g. Norwegian ethnographer Doctor Thor Heyerdahl or British philosopher Thor Magnusson)

The Thor’s hammer as a jeweler can be easily bought as a souvenir in Nordic countries and even top quality jewelries such as Kalevala Koru© have Thor hammer in their collections. Reporters, hosts in TV shows, athletes or musicians, models, professors, scientists and others are happy to wear Thor’s Hammer. Since there is nothing wrong and there has never been nothing wrong with this jeweler and nothing wrong with Thor, he was just little bit crazy. But who isn’t? ;-)

Thor's hammer in Kalevala Koru (c)
Tomi Joutsen - the solist of Amorphis band, photomodel of Kalevala Koru(c) Thor's hammer campaign

*Valhalla in Nordic mythology was the place "hall with golden" roof where hereos live forever and also Nordic "gods" lived there.

**(I skip the fact that the 6 feet tall Thor with a well-trained muscled could wear 5 feed tiny Freya’s dress and not be revealed by Trym despite his long curly red hair and red beard; I need to point out that Thor and Idun are the only two in the Nordic mythology who should have red hair. And when the incident with the stolen hammer occurred, Idun hadn’t yet been born).*

“Invisible” killers and threats we might don't carry in our minds

People are often asking me why in bloody hell I like to watch the NatGeo’s documentary series “Air Crash Investigation”.  Since they do not believe that I enjoy watching people die (well maybe somebody does…) they cannot understand how interesting is to see and understand potential threats and its solutions.

In fact many people use to deny threats and or any bad luck, they are feeling like “It happens to the others but I will not happen to me” and they putting themselves to a jeopardy every day. However people are still somehow afraid of flying or they usually not enjoying it same way as they can enjoy driving a beautiful modern car. And guess what, the threat that of danger in a car is bigger than in the plane. The fact is that usually the plane crash is a bigger catastrophe due to the amount of victims in the same occasion.

I do really prefer the ACI episodes when there are no victims however the investigation and after that the edification is the real point why I like the ACI/Mayday series.

People are so naive and blind in a regular life (without flying) so I decide to remind about real killers and threats which we usually do not see or deny – not because we cannot but we don’t want to see them. Here is my top three list:

Mainly the insidious sly and really powerful killer is obesity. I do not need to remind you that obesity is a condition in which excess body fat has accumulated to the extent that it may have an adverse effect on health, leading to reduced life expectancy and/or increased health problems. Obesity is in fact a global epidemic if concerned as a medical condition. It causes serious health problems and diseases such different heart diseases, diabetes, stroke, migraines, poor mobility, osteoporosis, birth defects or death during delivery etc. Most of the diseases caused by obesity are not curable and even fatal. Despite these facts about 40-49% of modern world population is obese/morbidly obese. Obesity is in fact a killer number one in UK and on the top of killer list also in USA. Imagine that it kills more often than cancer or AIDS.

Next one tasty killer is alcohol. Compulsive and uncontrolled consumption of alcoholic beverages, usually to the detriment of the drinker's health, personal relationships and social standing is well known “medical” condition of alcoholism. Identifying alcoholism is difficult for the individual because of the social role of alcohol associated with socializing in all levels from the purest up to the elite society.  The social aspect causes people with alcoholism to avoid diagnosis and treatment for fear of shame or social consequences. The evaluation of responses to a group of standardized questioning is a common method for diagnosing alcoholism. These can be used to identify harmful drinking patterns, including alcoholism, but the individual condition of the patient should always be considered. In general, the individual’s problem drinking is considered alcoholism when the person continues to drink despite experiencing social or health problems caused by drinking alcohol. However the whole thing is very tricky. Even some person is not experiencing social or health problem cause by alcohol drinking it can be the sly threat or worse a killer. I don’t mean the alcohol poisoning but fatal diseases caused by alcohol consummation such as heart attack, stroke or kidney and liver diseases.  Alcohol is a number one women killer in Finland (breast cancer is number two) and number one killer in Russia.

At last but not least I would like to highlight a killer which the most of modern and developed nations’ population likes, uses almost every day, it is sometimes treated better then family pets. It is a mark of social status and a hobby. Yes, it is a car. I don’t need to speak about symptoms or anomalies which cars cause. But I need to say that it is always the car and the individual driving it or at least stars it to make a potential to kill. Do you think that I perform like a small child, of course we all know how cars works and we know their highly important position in nowadays society.

But since people are afraid travel by plane (in less cases by boat/ship) I would to point out here that more people die or are seriously injured by car crashes or car accidents then by plane accidents. The other think is also the awareness of the danger. In the plane before take-off you are always get a security demonstration which is there to help but negative effect is that it pointing out the danger. You do not get any security demonstration in a car or a bus (to be absolutely clear, a bus is also a car). That makes the situation of accidents more dangerous as many people are seriously injured or died as people don’t know or they don’t care to prevent the accident, do help, to give the first aid. Let’s have a moment to remember where in your car is the first aid set if there is some, if your airbags are functioning if they are there, or worse remember if you ever have bribed the vehicle inspector to get your car through it to be able to drive etc. etc.  

In fact the car accident is number one killer in Poland, within top 3 in Czech Republic, Germany and Italy and probably France, Spain and USA will not be so far from that list as well.

I wonder why there is no documentary series Car Crash investigation. Maybe because there is an uncountable number of car crashes in a history and the number of victims is more than shocking.

In the aircraft when accident strikes the pilots fight for everybody’s lives more or less successfully to end – whatever the end is. Sometimes it is incredible to see what they can do, how much power and performance a human being can deliver under stress.

This is a great story of an aircraft accident with a happy end.

Update on 28.10.2013

Update to ”Invisible” killers:

I have seen something shocking and I have to say, that I wasn’t so exact about obesity.  It can kill itself. I have seen photos of organs which collapsed due to the press of the oversize fat inside the body; there were lungs, heart and kidney.

But that’s true that the opposite of obesity is a killer as well. Mental anorexia, mental disorder leading to starving and morbid underweight, is the number one killer among mental diseases. Mental anorexia or anorexia nervosa is fatal directly if not treated as the patient is starving to death.

One of such stories is the story of Isabelle Caro. She was a French model suffered from mental anorexia from her age of 13. Even she was a successful photo model she terminated her carrier when she joined the controversial campaign “No Anorexia” she was posing without clothes and make up, showing here bones under skin.  She was 165cm tall and her most recent weight was 33kg, her lowest adult weight was 25kg. She died on 17. November 2010; the cause of was a result of her anorexia.

Mental anorexia is result of modern society and desire of slim body or rather skinny body which has been an ideal for models from almost 70’s in 20’s century and culminating in late 90’s when also anorexia started to spread as an epidemic among girls and young women. The ideal of skinny body without any curves was devastating for many of them. Mortality of anorexia patients has reached up to alarming 20%.

Yet there is a still a lot of beauty and modeling contests where the skinny body is preferred. However the biggest international “Miss” contest and events has improved since year 2000 and there doesn’t seem to be any eating disorders among the contestants anymore.

I will probably come back to this topic later again.

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