There are countless companies hocking easy ways to lose weight, and some of the greatest offenders in the diet industry can be found on television commercials that promise quick results with little to no effort.
I had to watch it twice to believe it was for real, but, truly, this commercial for the Amazing Swedish Diet is the worst thing I’ve ever seen.
Take a look for yourself.
Half-naked blonde women disguised to look Swedish donning happy face underpants, obscene hand gestures, and lyrics like Eat some yummy things like chicken, fish and veggies / Eliminate unwanted fat and ugly wedgies make us think this commercial surely must be a joke. Right?
Wrong. The Amazing Swedish Diet does, actually and horrifically, exist.
Essentially a meal replacement program, the Amazing Swedish Diet is just another gimmick diet. Officially called the Swedish Diet Botanical Cleanse and Nutrient Concentrate, it’s basically a liquid vitamin supplement. It claims to gently boost metabolism, decrease appetite and aid digestion to improve weight loss. It consists of a mixture of juices (aloe, apple, mango and orange, among others), a mixture of botanical extracts (includes Ginseng, Green tea, Yerba Mate and Guarana among others) and a mixture of additional vitamins and minerals, (B complex, vitamin C and chromium). Many of those supplements are familiar to weight loss veterans.
The basic premise of the diet cuts out breakfast – which many health experts deem as the most important meal of the day – and replaces it with a small cup of the Amazing Swedish Diet Elixir, a green/brown liquid, and water. During the diet it is recommended that you refrain from eating meat or drinking alcohol. In small print on the side of the bottle you can read the words Enjoy a sensible lunch and dinner…walk or exercise 20 minutes a day.
If you’ve ever tried to lose weight, you know that this is standard advice.
The website offers “proof” that the diet works in the form of a one-week study, performed in Puerto Rico. During this trial 36 dieters swapped out their breakfast and lunch for the juice as well as a protein shake. No mention was made of dinner in the study. At the end of the week, the average amount of weight loss was seven pounds. That is an impressive amount, but it you dropped your caloric intake that low, without the supplement, you’d still lose around the same amount of weight. In other words, the weight loss is almost certainly due to the decreased calorie load and increase in physical activity as opposed to the anything the Amazing Swedish Diet supplement may be doing. It should be noted that health experts advise safe weight loss of one to two pounds each week, which can be accomplished, in part, by trimming 500 calories from your diet each day.
If you’ve got weight to lose, don’t rely on results from a bottle – even one advertised by blonde models wearing platform high heels and gyrating on mopeds.