'Biggest Loser' Creating Huge Demand For Weight Loss Coaches

Brooke wants to be the "Bob" or "Jillian" in YOUR weight loss success

This press release from a weight loss coach is demonstrative of the tremendous impact of the hit NBC television show "The Biggest Loser."

With the success of the contestants seen by millions of people week after week, "The Biggest Loser" (check out the new book about the show!) is having a direct impact on people all over the world who want and need to be inspired in their own weight loss efforts. With an estimated two-thirds of Americans currently either overweight or obese, this is a subject that will not be going away anytime soon.

As we have seen from the personal trainers on "The Biggest Loser" (Bob Harper and Jillian Michaels), they can be incredibly motivating for people to not only diet right, but to stay focused on making the lifestyle changes necessary to keep their weight under control forever.



That is where somebody like Brooke Castillo comes in. She is one of many weight loss/life coaches springing up to fill the need for a "Bob" or "Jillian" in your life.

"If you have ever tried to diet or exercise on your own, you know how hard it is," Castillo writes in her press release. "You get frustrated when you don't lose the pounds, you start to think you'll never be the person you want to be, and in the end you start to find little ways to cheat - which starts the cycle all over again."

OUCH! That sounded awful familiar, didn't it? Almost TOO familiar from my days as a walking, talking advertisement for failed diet after failed diet. That is, of course, before I started livin' la vida low-carb!

Castillo said the contestants on "The Biggest Loser" have an advantage over most people because they "receive encouragement and education on healthy lifestyles through weight-loss coaches."

"Thousands of people watching the show have seen the advantages of having a coach, and many are deciding to hire their own," she continues in the press release.

Whether they intended to or not, the creators of "The Biggest Loser" have now created a demand for weight-loss coaches all across the United States and around the world. What a job opportunity for an energetic, motivating individual to dive right into at a time in the history of the world when inspiration and perserverance are so sorely needed when it comes to dealing with a weight problem.

The philosophy of Castillo and other weight-loss coaches is for overweight and obese people to "be motivated and really have a desire to change not only your body, but also your lifestyle."

For more information about Brooke Castillo and the services she can offer you in your weight loss efforts, please visit her web site at FuturesUnlimitedCoaching.com. She has a new book that is not out yet, but will soon be available from Amazon.com called "If I Am So Smart, Why Can't I Lose Weight?"

E-mail Brooke at info@futuresunlimitedcoaching.com for more information about her services as a weight-loss coach and tell her "Livin' La Vida Low-Carb Man" Jimmy Moore sent you.

Of course, you could also visit my friends Julia Havey and Jeremy Likness, both of whom have overcome weight problems and become weight-loss/life coaches themselves.

The continuing impact of shows like "The Biggest Loser" is creating a huge demand for people who can help others succeed in their weight loss journey. Maybe I ought to consider becoming a weight-loss coach someday.

But, as I tell people all the time, I don't feel like I've "made it" long enough yet. Give me another year or two and let's see how well I keep the weight off. If those 180+ pounds I lost in 2004 can stay off until 2007, then maybe it will be something for me to look at. Until then, I have to be vigilant in my efforts so I never become the 410-pound beast I once was.

Be sure to check out all my previous columns about "The Biggest Loser" by clicking here.

'The 3-Hour Diet' Is Nothing New Under The Sun

Is THIS really the next weight loss fad to sweep America?

Contra Costa Times published a reprint of a New York Times article detailing the alleged latest and greatest diet book to hit bookstore shelves this year and one that is expected to be, according to the publisher, the bestselling diet book in 2005. Oh really. I can't wait to hear why.

It's entitled "The 3-Hour Diet" (now with a title like that, it sounds like this diet is just another "fad" waiting to happen!) by a San Diego-based fitness freak named Jorge Cruise. His "8 Minutes In The Morning" workout books have been moderately successful and allowed him to appear in the media many times over the past few years.

Interestingly, the subtitle of Cruise's book caught my attention much more than the title -- "How Low-Carb Diets Make You Fat and Timing Makes You Thin."

Okay, so Cruise is yet another anti-Atkins mouthpiece, but he's come up with some kind of eating plan regarding "timing" that makes people lose weight. I was somewhat intrigued to see where he was going with this, so I decided to look into this "diet" he was recommending that was supposedly so much better than livin' la vida low-carb.

Basically, Cruise says people can still eat carbs, fat and sugar and lose weight on his diet. The so-called secret to the diet is protecting the body against starvation by eating a light to moderate amount of food every three hours.

Sound familiar? You got it, that's exactly what Dr. Atkins recommended people who follow his plan to do. In fact, eating often is encouraged strongly as part of a low-carb lifestyle. It keeps your body satisfied and you never get hungry.

If you allow your body to go several hours without eating anything, then it will start storing up body fat to protect itself from starvation. Cruise's answer to this is for people to eat every three hours. Yet, he also recommends they eat less than 1500 calories a day in multiple small-portioned meals of various ingredients and proclaims this way of eating will help them lose 2 pounds per week. No doubt. He even offers his readers a journal in his book to keep track of their calories while doing his diet.

Does this new "hot diet" sound like something you may have tried before? Do we REALLY need ANOTHER low-calorie/low-fat diet book telling us we are doomed to eat nasty rabbit food or limited portions of our favorite foods just to lose and maintain weight loss? This concept is NOTHING new under the sun and looks strikingly like the portion-controlled concept Weight Watchers has used for many years.

At a whopping $25.00, "The 3-Hour Diet" book is a huge ripoff for people looking for a lasting way to weight loss and improved health. Cruise has not really come up with anything that most of us haven't heard before many times while dieting. His publisher and he are hoping the hype and buzz about the book will make it fly off the shelves. And it probably will.

But here is what a New York nutritionist named Mindy Hermann said about Cruise's diet and how it's no different that what's been out there for years.

"In the end, it's all about calorie control for all diets; it's just the path that the person can take to get to calorie control that varies," she said. "There's always a promise, always a hook or a gimmick. There's got to be some way to lure some person in."

She makes a good point that most diet books out there make "a promise ... hook or a gimmick" to get people to buy them. However, I strongly disagree with Hermann's assumption that less calories automatically equates into weight loss.

I probably ate MORE calories than I ever have as I was losing 180 pounds on Atkins. While calorie control is absolutely necessary for every other diet out there because they are mostly based on portion-size and calorie intake, Atkins did not have these restrictions on calories, fat or portions. Eventually, though, as your body begins to get smaller and smaller, you find that you don't need as much food as you used to eat. The body automatically adjusts to your smaller size and your food intake follows suit. That's why a low-carb lifestyle works and all of these other methods failed for me in the past.

If this is the next big thing in weight loss, then I would HIGHLY recommend you go back to what is considered the Bible of real lasting weight loss -- "Atkins New Diet Revolution."

Don't be fooled by the slick marketing campaign being given to Cruise's book just because he's a nice-looking, tanned spokesman for a low-calorie/low-fat lifestyle. Neither he nor his publisher have your good health in mind with this book. They only hope to line their own pockets with gobs and gobs of money by joining the "anything but low-carb" line of attack that is so prevalent in the media today.

One final thought. Isn't it interesting that of all the weight loss plans out there, Cruise chose to mention "low-carb" by name in the title of his book? Hmmmm. Me thinks he knows it works and is trying to lure obese and overweight people away from the success they would have on low-carb. It won't happen if you don't fall for it!