The latest ripple in the yoga news involves actor Alec Baldwin’s wife, Hilaria Thomas, a yoga teacher of eight years who is being sued for negligence during her yoga class at Yoga Vida in lower Manhattan.
According to witnesses, Huffington Post blogger Spencer Wolff, who is filing the lawsuit against Thomas, did not listen to Thomas’ cautionary instructions. Suffering from an injury due to crashing through a window while attempting to do an inversion at the wall, Wolff claims Thomas’ negligence is the cause of his physical and emotional injuries.
It is no surprise classes in New York City are packed to the hilt with people striking their most impressive yoga poses. Competition doesn’t take a back seat in a city that never sleeps, and no one wants to be disqualified from the rat race. That is the energy in New York, take it or leave it. However, no matter how hard people work to do their absolute best in the presence of others, there will never be an excuse good enough to deny responsibility for his or her own actions.
Read Full Post >
Nine counties in California weren’t buying the “too good to be true” claims of Sensa, also known as “the sprinkle diet.” The counties took the product to court arguing that the company made false claims regarding their product’s weight loss efficacy. The attorneys won and now Sensa has to pay.
The counties of Santa Cruz, Alameda, Marin, Monterey, Napa, Orange, Santa Clara, Solano and Sonoma took the company, Intelligent Beauty, Inc., the makers of Sensa, to court this week after the product had freely advertised that users could lose weight by sprinkling flavored crystals on their food. As part of the settlement, Sensa, can no longer make any claims of weight loss without having scientific evidence to back the claims. The company was required to pay $800,000 in penalties and will go toward the enforcement of consumer protection laws.
Read Full Post >
Depending on the number of unsatisfied Ab Circle Pro customers who come forward, the fitness gimmick brand stands to pay out $15 million to $25 million in refunds, per a settlement between the brand and the FTC. The government agency has cracked down on over-hyped health claims in recent years to protect citizens from idiotic, empty promises like the Ab Circle Pro delivers. 
Honestly? Three minutes a day of mild exercise to lose 10 pounds in two weeks should be filed under “too good to be true,” and it is. The FTC isn’t having any of that noise.
According to the announcement on the FTC.gov site, “the defendants promised that a three-minute workout on the Ab Circle Pro – a fiberglass disk with stationary handlebars and two knee rests that roll on the edge of the disk, allowing consumers to kneel and rotate side-to-side – was equivalent to doing 100 sit ups. In the infomercial, pitchwoman Jennifer Nicole Lee compared the Ab Circle Pro to a gym workout, saying, “You can either do 30 minutes of abs and cardio or just three minutes a day. The choice is yours.”
Nothing is ever a substitute for hard work, not even a nearly non-existent workout. With a calorie-reduced diet and exercising at least 30 minutes moderate to high intensity workouts most days of the week, a healthy rate of weight loss is one to two pounds each week. A claim of 10 pounds in 2 weeks is not only not realistic but it isn’t healthy either. As far as toning your abs goes, well, that takes a lot more commitment to overall lifestyle than three minutes a day. If your entire workout regimen can happen in less time than a TV commercial break – you’re doing it wrong.
“Three minutes time is less than a warm up. Your muscles don’t even get loose in 3 minutes time – it takes about 5 to 10 minutes,” commented fitness expert Kelly Turner. “But let’s assume you did 5-10 minutes of light exercise before you hopped on. I can do 71 crunches in a minutes. Three sets of 71 crunches isn’t even an entire ab workout. No exercise, no matter what you are doing, is intense enough to create massive changes within your body in three minutes- even if done every single day.”
Read Full Post >
Twenty-nine-year-old Zumba instructor Alexis Wright of Kennebunkport, Maine has been charged with 106 counts of prostitution, invasion of privacy, and more. She’s also giving Zumba class a bad name.
The Zumba and fitness instructor has been charging men for sex for the past 18 months, which has generated about $150,000 in income. Police suspect around 150 people of being clients, and they’ve now begun releasing the list of names of those involved. So far only 21 have been named and can be found on the local newspaper’s (York County Coast Star) website.
Wright is also being charged for secretly video taping some of her clients. These incidents appeared to have occurred in Wright’s dance studio as well as an office space she had rented out across the street. Some people were suspicious of the young woman while others were clueless of the illegal activity taking place.
Read Full Post >
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is refunding consumers who purchased popular weight loss pills under guise of false claims. The courts ruled that consumers were deceived by the supplement marketer and that the company must pay. Today, the checks start rolling out.
The weight loss supplements attached to these false claims are Thermalean and Lipodrene. These supplements were marketed by Hi-Tech Pharmaceuticals and were advertised to be clinically proven to cause substantial weight loss. The weight loss claims also included a 19 percent loss in total body fat.
Rebecca Tushnet covered the specifics of the trial when it was in progress on her False Advertising and More blog. During the trial, it was discovered that the products had not been tested, just the individual ingredients. Some of the specific claims about the supplements stated that one could lose 30 pounds in two months, up to 125 pounds. These statements were found false due to the fact that the only evidence was that the active ingredient could lead to a two-pound weight loss per month.
Read Full Post >
