Fed Up Movie - A must watch for everyone

I've spent the last couple of days watching Fed Up; a movie I've been meaning to add to my list of must-sees for a few months now.  I'm super glad I did.  Unfortunately it was one of the most depressing things I've seen in a while; showing the obesity problem (in USA mainly) as it is today, including through the eyes of children who are doing what they think is right to try and lose weight but are failing.  It also showed the fast food and processed food industry's true colours, manipulating studies and sometimes downright lying about scientific findings to suit their arguments and safeguard their profits.

Now obviously this is a one-sided documentary and some people may disagree with some of the facts or issues discussed within it, and this blog is just my personal/professional opinion too, but you can't dispute the fact that people are fatter and unhealthier than they were 30/40/50 years ago and that there has to be a reason for this.

I'm not going to go into the whole argument as I don't have the time or inclination (and the film has done a pretty good job of giving us a good chunk of the information we need) but it's now obvious that we need to take control of what we put in our mouths and start to be more aware of what is actually in our food so we can make informed choices about what we are eating.

My favourite quote from the film was "junk is still junk even if its a bit less junky" which partners my philosophy brilliantly.  If you're eating reduced fat biscuits/cake/meals/snacks it doesn't make it healthy.  Real food is healthy, so eat that, not some food-esque collection of unpronounceable ingredients which markets itself as healthy.

If you become a client of mine, you will learn that you don't need to carry on with a diet of rice cakes, Weight Watchers chocolate cake bars and skimmed milk.  You can eat butter, steak and full fat milk and still be healthy.  KEEP IT REAL!


Some of the rather worrying facts the film highlights:


Health insurance companies are investing billions of dollars in fast food companies.
Why?  Because they're keeping people ill and means they need to spend more on getting themselves healthy again therefore a bigger insurance spend.  (Obviously this isn't relevant to the UK but the concept still is).

 Fast food companies are still arguing their products do not contribute to the rising obesity levels.  Apparently, McDonalds don't advertise junk food, they advertise fun and happiness through Ronald McDonald.  Really?!?!
The majority of high schools in the US serve fast food on a daily basis and most worryingly of all, a portion of fries and a slice of pizza both count as a vegetable portion in school meals.  Words fail me!

Governments and food companies are still promoting exercise as the cure to obesity.  'Eat Less, Move More', 'Let's Move' and exercise programmes sponsored by Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Cadbury etc are just a few examples of this.  Yes, exercise is an important part of living healthily but promoting it as the best way to lose weight over food choices is at best clever marketing, at worst downright lies.  A quote I love is 'You can't out-exercise a bad diet' and it is so true.  It is so much easier to not drink a Coke than it is to add an extra 30 minutes walking into your day.


On a slightly more positive note, the film did show that the UK has taken more steps than the USA has to try and help the obesity problem.  We no longer allow food advertising on kids TV channels, we don't have the amount of fast food in our schools as the USA do and our food labelling shows the percentage of daily sugar allowance where it doesn't in the US.  Also, our food portions thankfully haven't reached the mammoth proportions that you find across the pond although we are seeing more instances of this over recent years (belly buster breakfasts anyone?!).

Overall, the basic message from the film has to be that you have to take control of your own health and the food that you are using to fuel your body, as the food companies sure don't have our health and wellbeing at the top of their priority list.

Watch it now, and learn this for yourself:

Fed Up Movie 

Meal replacement, don't do it!

Wandering round Tesco recently, I came across their 'Ultra Slim' meal replacement products. Investigating the 'Summer Strawberry' shakes further, I realised just how horrendous they really are, hence the need for a blog post about them!

It's a tempting idea; just drink a couple of shakes a day without having to worry about making food and the pounds will just fall off.  Yes they might (in the early days), but at what cost to your longer term health and weight management capabilities.

Let's start with the packaging:

Front of box

Clearly marketed to women; the hourglass shape on the front reminding you of the shape you 'should' be.

Summer Strawberry flavour and some pictures of strawberries; must be good for you, fruit is healthy, right?

No artificial flavours, colours or preservatives.  Because you wouldn't want any artificial junk would you?

Nutritional information on the front so you can see how low calorie and good for you it is.  It's quite low fat and only 200 calories, winner!









Now let's look a bit deeper and see what these are really all about.

This is the ingredients list:

Ingredients - Summer Strawberry Flavour

1. Spot the strawberry.  Nope, I couldn't find it either.  The vague 'natural flavouring' could be strawberry based but then it could be hundreds of other things too.

2. Main ingredient is fructose, which is sugar.  Seriously?! The main ingredient in something intended to replace real, nutritious food is sugar?  Sounds like a great idea!



3. How many ingredients which are actually food can you see?  At a stretch, milk protein, whey powder and the beetroot aspect of the colouring could be classed as food.  Otherwise you need a chemistry degree to know what everything else is.  Again, you're replacing real nutritious food with a bunch of chemicals; another great idea!  Remember though, there's no artificial flavours, colours or preservatives so it must be good for you (hoping you're getting the sarcasm here!).

Onto the nutritional information:

'Nutritional' Information - you're kidding right!

* worth mentioning that the 'per portion' figures are including the skimmed milk which you add the powder to.

The first thing that strikes me is that out of 100g, 44g is sugar.  That means that 44% of your 'meal' when you have one of these is sugar.  There are so many reasons why this is not a good idea but for now, just understand that it isn't a good idea.
Each serving is 25g of sugar - we'll remember that for later.


Each serving is 200 calories which may sound like a positive thing as you would think less is more right?  Nope!  Too few calories a day (which we will look at more in the next section) will initially lead to weight loss, but isn't even vaguely healthy and not maintainable in the long run .  Part of my main philosophy is not being afraid to eat; you don't need to limit your calories to this extent and you shouldn't.

The only vaguely acceptable thing is the 15g of protein per serving; the majority of which will be from the milk.

A day in the life of an Ultra Slim user:

So this is what Tesco recommend your day of 'eating' should look like whilst using their programme.  Let's look a bit closer...

Breakfast - a shake.
So 200 calories and 25g of sugar.
A nice blood sugar spike to start the day, ready to crash a couple of hours later leaving you starving and craving the wrong foods.  Not many calories either which won't keep you going for long.

Morning snack - an apple or an Ultra Slim snack.
The apple wouldn't be too bad for a snack choice generally but when coupled with the shake breakfast you've had, its more sugar and no protein or fat to try to fill you up.
Even worse would be the Ultra Slim snack, more non-food to not give you any nutrition for even more of the day.




Lunch - Another shake or Ultra Slim snack (200 calories and 25g of sugar for the shake).
Blimey, is there any chance of some actual food throughout the day!
More sugar, non-food and limited everything else.  You're bound to be starving by this point!

Afternoon snack - carrots.
Again, not too bad as a general snack, at least it's real food and has got some natural vitamins rather than the added stuff you get in the Ultra Slim products.
But, no protein or fat again so you'll still be starving!

Dinner - chicken salad.
Real food, at last!  Salad will give you plenty of vitamins and minerals, especially if you include a wide variety of vegetables with it.
The chicken will give you some protein (that isn't milk!) so there may be a chance of you not wanting to eat your cat for a short time afterwards in contrast to the rest of the day!
Still no fat though of any type and I can't imagine they intend for you to have an oil-based dressing with it .  Fat really isn't your enemy and you need an amount of fat each day.  Clearly they've forgotten this basic nutritional fact.

Supper snack - a pear.
Oh look, another sugar based snack with no protein or fat, I can see a pattern forming!

So let's look at the day as a whole.
Breakfast                200 cals            25g sugar           15g protein             3g fat
Snack 1(apple)         60 cals            10g sugar          0.3g protein          0.2g fat
Lunch (shake)        200 cals            25g sugar           15g protein             3g fat
Snack 2 (carrots)      20 cals           2.8g sugar          0.4g protein          0.1g fat
Dinner (approx)     300 cals              2g sugar           30g protein             4g fat
Snack 3 (pear)          86 cals            15g sugar             1g protein             0g fat
Totals                     866 cals           75g sugar          62g protein          11g fat

In a word, terrible!  866 calories isn't even vaguely close to the amount that you need to nourish and keep your body going.  A 30 year old woman (5ft 7 tall and weighing 11st) burns about 1500 cals a day just being alive and yes a calorie deficit will make you lose weight, but it can't carry on indefinitely and you're not doing your long term health any favours by creating that much of a deficit.

75g of sugar is a lot considering the very limited amount of food you're consuming.  Admittedly some of it will be natural sugar from the fruit, but the added sugars are bad news. Excess fructose can lead to fat deposits around the organs and in the liver, cause insulin resistance which can lead to type 2 diabetes and can lead to a cycle of cravings and binge eating.  None of these are especially helpful for losing weight and being healthy. (Info from http://authoritynutrition.com/why-is-fructose-bad-for-you/).

Protein is part of every cell, tissue and organ in our body and is necessary for repair and growth. Government recommended levels are around 46-56g a day, although studies have shown this is well below the amount needed for optimal health. (http://authoritynutrition.com/how-much-protein-per-day/).  Our example 30 year old woman, who weighs 11st and is 25% body fat would need 80-100g a day to maintain and have a hope of building muscle.  Over half of the protein comes from milk too which may be OK on some days, but ideally you need a variety of protein sources to ensure you get the full range of amino acids you need for optimal health.  Protein also helps you feel full and can make it easier to lose weight through boosted metabolism so it's a bit of a no-brainer really!

The amount of fat people should be eating is a bit of a hot topic at the moment, with the low-fat guidelines of the last 40+ years being challenged through a number of studies which show that fat isn't the enemy it has been portrayed as (more on this in a forthcoming blog post) and that excess sugar causes worse health problems than excess fat.  Even if we take the government recommended level of no more than 70g of fat, you can see that our Ultra Slim day is well below that.  Fat is necessary for energy, the proper functioning of nerves and the brain, vitamin transport and a number of other functions.  If you limit fat to this extent for long periods of time, you are certainly not doing your body any favours.

To sum up:

 You do not need to replace food with high sugar, nutrient-empty shakes to lose weight.  They will not do your body any favours in the long term.  If you want to get healthier and lose some weight in a more sensible and nutritious fashion, then contact us to get started.  If you are considering using these (or similar) food replacements, please don't.  Your body will thank you for leaving them on the shelf.