The 6 weeks to OMG diet

I took my once in a blue moon journey on the London underground the other day and past a huge billboard advertising The 6 weeks to ‘OMG’ diet by Venice Fulton. The first thing that annoyed me about this diet was the tag line – ‘get skinnier than your friends’….well that really promotes a healthy attitude doesn’t it Mr Fulton.

                Venice Fulton has a degree in Sports science and has come up with what he classes a great diet plan for people wanting to lose weight. I, on the other hand BEG to differ and just reading about the book is irritating me, let alone even putting myself through the pain of having to read the book itself. So if you have read the book and think it’s the best thing since sliced bread then please do comment, I’d love to hear what the book offers that its explanation doesn’t.

                So to start my rant I’ll just take you through the basic principles of this diet. There are 5 key principles Fulton focuses on:

1. Lose fat

2. Get toned

3. Slim down your thighs

4. Flatten your belly

5. Keep your skin, hair and nails growing

….right so the same as everything else….

Then he also has certain ‘rules’ and ‘theories’ that he bases his diet on

                -Fulton states in his book that ‘carbs are carbs’ and that it doesn’t matter whether you get them from an apple or a slab of chocolate cake. Well, I don’t know where he studied his ‘nutrition’ but he clearly didn’t pay attention during class. I won’t bore you with the science, but take my word for it – that statement is WRONG. I’m not going to insult your intelligence either as I’m sure you didn’t need me to tell you that! Just for the icing on the cake read this other sentence of his- ‘broccoli carbs can be worse than soda carbs’…..I mean SERIOUSLY, is this guy for real!!

                -The book encourages people to take cold baths and showers to lose a few more pounds. He stresses the calorie burning benefit of cold water since your body has to use energy to keep your core body temperature at 37 degrees. Yes your body will use up energy but not anywhere near enough for it to become an effective weight loss method. You’ll find yourself slipping into hyperthermia before you’re slipping into that little black dress.

                - Fulton says that breakfast should not be eaten until you have exercised –read my past blog post on eating before exercise to see how miss guided this is. Again, I feel this statement really promotes an unhealthy attitude to diet, fitness and generally towards your own confidence and self-esteem.

-Readers are encouraged to drink black coffee because of its antioxidants (ok I’ll give you that depending on what type of coffee), zero calories (correct again….doing well…), metabolism stimulating properties (ah damn, and we’re back to the cold shower idea!). Caffeine is a stimulant and will slightly increase your heart rate, depending on how sensitive you are to it. The physiological changes from coffee are not strong enough to make a massive difference in your overall calorie expenditure.  He also promotes coffee drinking as it suppresses your appetite. Again, he steers his readers straight back into such a terrible mind-set.

                -The foods he recommends includes green leafy vegetables, chicken, nuts, lean beef, fish, beans, lentils, brown rice and other fresh vegetables.  

Ok, so in a nutshell this diet has all the makings of a FAD diet – simple food recommendations that comply with healthy eating with a list of random wacky rules that are the only thing that will distinguish it from all the other books out there that essentially offer similar ideas. FAD diets do not work, and that is why there are so many of them out there. If one worked there would be no need for more to be made. Nutrition is simple once you know the rules. There is no ‘secret trick’. It’s all very basic, and the more basic you keep it the easier it is to follow, maintain and enjoy – after all it’s going to be a part of your life, every day, for the rest of your life. Do you really want to be obsessing about the temperature of your shower being too hot or the dash of milk you like to have with your coffee?     

The author of this book has a history of helping athletes and celebrities…not really your ‘average Joe’. Athletes’ lives are ruled by their bodies and how their bodies function. With knowledge of athletes I would have expected Fulton to have a better idea of human physiology and what the body needs in order to function optimally. Maybe it was when he moved his attention to celebrities that his mind ended up in the clouds. Celebrities have to look good and they are under immense pressure to do so. They don’t have the time or the energy to think about their diet so will generally get someone else to do the thinking for them and just do what they tell them to do. So yes- if you lived on black coffee and exercised with no fuel in your body you would lose a stack of weight. But you’d feel like crap all the time and you would be a VERY unhealthy person with an ever diminishing life span to look forward to with brittle bones, illness and disease in your pension fund.

So my advice to you is probably pretty clear –Don’t buy this book! If you’re after healthy eating advice and want a nutrition plan that fits around YOUR lifestyle that you can maintain day-in, day-out then please get in touch and I would be happy to help. I am starting my own experiment to show how a very simple diet plan and training program can get desired results – no airy fairy mumbo jumbo – back to basics. I’ve teamed up with Protégé London’s managing director Lewis Thorneycroft. He’s a top class personal trainer and strength and conditioning coach. With the plans in place the trial will be starting soon. I’ll keep you updated with the results!