Awhile back Bob Sturm was flogging George DiGianni's 21 Day Makeover and Full Body Cleanse, which he said he would return to when he was feeling a little "doughy." "Doughy" and "cleanse" are not two words I care to associate with the Admirable Bob, but I must say that I had gotten to feeling a little doughy myself. I'm not a young chap any longer and it began to dawn on me that I couldn't continue to eat fast food and snacks and watch it burn off the next day. I'm tallish and carry weight pretty well, but when the scale got up to 223 . . . .
I didn't need to lose a ton -- 30, 35 pounds or so would be about right. I hadn't tried any commercial remedies except fen-phen, a way long time ago, before they took it off the market (worked great, coupla pills, the weight would come off mostly in the form of sweat and stress and a loss of appetite). Wait, I also tried Fit Foods, which gets people to lose weight by selling them food they really don't want to eat. Too much kale and quinoa. Sorry.
But I must say that Jason "Killer" Kellison's ads for SOTA Weight Loss sounded pretty interesting. I would think it would be tough to lose weight working in a show-bizzy atmosphere what with sponsor catering and grabbing food at odd hours and the like. And that result from a guy who apparently needed to lose a lot more than I did . . . .
So I gave it a try and I'm here to give you a report.
Here's how it works:
You go in and get weighed up. You talk to a counselor about how much weight you would ideally like to lose. More about the counselors below.
They estimate about how long it will take you to lose the weight on the program.
They give you all the food you will need on a week-to-week basis, with two exceptions to be noted. You get to pick the food from their "pantry": 7 "snacky" items, 21 "mealish" items, 28 total items for four eating events per day, up until evening dinner, for a week. You'll see this illustrated below. More about dinner in a moment.
They tell you what you may eat in substitution, and how often and in what amounts, if you must stray from the strict program. Eggs are usually a safe substitute, but there are others. Some you may substitute infrequently or in limited amounts.
They tell you when and how often to eat it. You are to eat a breakfast, a snack, lunch, an afternoon snack -- those are the four SOTA eating events -- and for dinner, a small serving, fist-sized, 6 ounces, of any meat of your choice -- they're not too specific on how it may be prepared, so I sneak in a couple of KFC thighs now and then -- and a couple of cups of vegetables, but not just any vegetables -- only the ones without sugar, like asparagus, broccoli, and cauliflower. (No peas, carrots, corn, the good stuff.) Those are the two exceptions, the evening meat (sometimes I have it for lunch instead) and some vegetables. They would also like you to have a couple of cups of vegetables for lunch, which I usually skip because it's a pain to prepare that stuff in an office.
They tell you what you may not eat -- fruits, lay off the wine and beer (modest spirits allowed, I'm a gin man myself), many other sweetie and salty carby things. Breads, potatoes, starchy things.
And a half-hour daily of light exercise -- nothing too strenuous, nothing to trigger too much hunger but enough to get your heart rate up once a day. A brisk walk will do, although I find that more exercise does not increase my hunger.
And then you go eat that and come back next week and weigh in and get coached up and fill your order for the next week's food. In the meantime, you must keep a diary of everything you eat and when and your exercise and water consumption for them to review when you come in for your up-coaching. They give you a form to use but I created my own Excel spreadsheet. Cheating should be recorded.
Now take a look at this: With the exception of the vegetables and meat that you supply THIS IS EVERYTHING YOU EAT FOR A WEEK up through the afternoon snack. I've laid out a typical seven-day regimen, the four SOTA "meals" you eat up until the evening meal.
With the exception of the bars and the chips -- note you may only eat one of one of those each day -- but including the stuff in the bottles, and I guess that cereal, ALL OF THAT IS POWDER. (Eat the cereal with half-and-half. Surprised? No carbs in half-and-half.) Low carbohydrate, high-protein, powder, to be mixed with water for your meal. You can eat any of them at any time -- that is, you don't have to have cereal for breakfast, and you don't have to have soup for lunch. You could reverse them if you want, or have a shake for breakfast or lunch or a snack. But not more than one chip or bar a day.
MEN AND WOMEN, IF THAT'S ALL YOU EAT UP TO YOUR EVENING MEAL, AND YOU DON'T CHEAT, YOUR BODY WILL HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO SHED FAT, AND A LOT OF IT, AND FAST.
And I did. I lost that 30 pounds. And I cheated a bit. I've done two stints. The first time I lost about 25-30, kept it off for a long time, but had a stretch of travel and vacations and other celebrations that put 5-7 back on, so I went back for a tuneup and took off another 10-15 or so. Just finishing it up, and I am back to how much I weighed about 20 years ago and still losing. Feel good, much more energy, and look a lot better. Man, I feel better just walking down the hall -- I can tell I'm not hauling nearly as much suet. I can tie my shoes without gasping for breath. I just went for a five-mile jog without working too hard when formerly I'd be stopping to catch my breath after a half-block.
Doesn't look like much food, does it? Will you get hungry? Possibly, but I didn't, really. The first couple of days may see you have a pang or two, but they will pass.
The ads are accurate. You will almost certainly lose more than 5 pounds the first week. The rate of loss is likely to slow after that, although if you're really religious and don't cheat, you should keep losing at a good clip. But if you lose two pounds a week, that's still double the rate you'll lose on most other programs.
The food, although not substantial, is generally palatable. The chips and bars are good. The chicken and beef bullion ditto. I did not care for the chili or some of the other soups. The pancake -- no, a terrible mess in the pan. It refused to cook; tried it a few times. The shakes (the bottles) are very good. Some of the mixtures are difficult to dissolve (the cream of chicken, which, when dissolved, is perfectly good, but watch for the bergs of undissolved powder). And at night, you can have your fish or chicken breast or meat patty or filet mignon or whatever youw ant and some vegetables (they encourage the use of butter on the vegs). For meat, I sometimes even use zero-carb weenies (Nathan's my favorite, zero carbohydrates) or sardines/smoked oysters (ditto). Eggs for dinner also a frequent choice.
How much does it cost? A lot. The more you want to lose, the longer you need to be on the program, and you have to pay it all up front -- an incentive to stay the course. It clocks in at about $225 a week, $30-$35 bucks a day. But remember -- they're giving you your food for most of your day. You really do spend less on groceries (no snacks, beer, other forbidden fruits.) They're coaching you up once a week. And after that's over, there's free counseling thereafter. And really -- how much do you want to lose weight, safely, without surgery? Being fat is really, really awful and it is hard to cure. Fat shaming is out, but hell, you know what people think about you if you're grossly unsightly fat? And you know what you think of yourself, and of other fatsos. And, hormonal problems aside, you're both right. You're just fat. SOTA gets it off quickly and safely, if not thrillingly. Its quick results at the outset have got to be one reason people are flocking to it -- there's little waiting to see the pounds start to come off.
(There's also a machine they want you to stand on that shakes up the system a bit, but if you think it looks silly they'll confide in you that it's mostly for older adults whose joints need a little persuading.)
Ah, the counseling. SOTA's secret weapon -- the Cute Chick Counselors. At my location, all of the counselors are young women, or very fit and attractive women of a certain age. You will probably see a different one each week. And when your day to weigh in rolls around, you become very aware of NOT WANTING TO DISAPPOINT THE CUTE CHICK COUNSELORS. Oh, no, you do not want them to see that you've cheated, because if you come in and you haven't lost anything and no cheating shows up on your food diary, they will know you are the worst kind of black liar and the Cute Chick Counselor will be oh, so disappointed. In general, they are as Killer and Ty and others have said -- very supportive, very encouraging, nice, full of tips and tricks and recipes you will ignore because you're a guy and you're not going to do recipes or use those awful, awful no-cal salad dressings they urge you to try to add flavor. Walden Farms, yeah, them's the ones. And the Stevia sugar substitute for your coffee -- both lethal. But you listen and nod your head because they're Cute Chick Counselors and you want them to approve of you.
The one problem I had with the program -- it's boring after a few weeks. After you've lost some weight, the temptation to cheat grows. Resist it if you can, but if you must, make it just a little. Next day you step on the scale, you've put on a pound. You're remorseful. You think about the Cute Chick Counselors. You resolve not to cheat. You fail, a little. But not enough, and the weight will start to come off again.
One thing I wonder about the man/woman on the street is: How does this work if you have a family eating regular meals? How does it work if you don't have a gig that allows you to visit SOTA during their (only) daytime hours? The weekly check-in is mandatory -- if you don't go, you don't get the next week's chow, and the weigh-in is essential to determine effectiveness.
Will it change the way you eat and live, like Killer says? If you go to the continued free coaching, like he says he does, and I think Ty has also taken advantage of, then probably. Me? I have not taken advantage of the free post-program counseling, but the SOTA program has been invaluable in reminding me that the Atkins Diet had it right all those years ago -- carbohydrates make you fat. Calories less important. Snacks and certain foods have lots of carbohyrdates. Find things to eat that don't have high carbs. Eat them, not the carb things. Eat less of them. You'll lose weight and keep it off. Exercise -- good for lots of things, but won't help you much with weight loss.
Being off SOTA has not stopped my craving for Chili-Cheese Fritos and the Taco Bell Combo #3 and Peanut M&Ms, but I'll tell you this -- when I was off the program, I stopped stuffing myself at every meal (felt lousy when I did), made SOTA-friendly choices at most turns, and stopped observing one of my rules, which was "When Food Is Free, You Must Eat as Much of It as Possible." The weight stayed off for a long time, until the aforementioned serial vacations to Hawaii, Chicago, and a Wyoming dude ranch, all within about six weeks, when I departed the wagon too many times.
Nope, best to just stick with the program, eat what they give you, keep cheating really low, pay attention to the permissible substitutes, don't go crazy with the evening meal, and dream about those Cute Chick Counselors.
So I have to thank Killer for his enthusiastic and persuasive endorsement. With a sidelong thanks to Ty and all those P1 telephone endorsers.
Speaking of Killer . . .
He's been doing those ads for a long time. They work. They work on SOTA's target demo -- overweight men approaching middle age who watch more sports than they play.
SOTA has obviously re-upped him as time has gone by.
I think our Killer must be doing pretty well. Thanks, man.
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| Sorry, Jinj, apples are not on the list. |
