Good news for couch potatoes Ð the end of the diet is nigh

Date Published: 09-Jan-2013

You’d have to pity poor old smokers and fat people in January – because you cannot turn on a television this week without being hit by a tsunami of ads to help you give up the fags or shed the pounds, all in the pursuit of a new you.

Frankly, it seems utterly ludicrous to take on either ambition at a time when half the country is up to the same trick – better to wait for a quieter time when nobody really notices, so that your inevitable failure is less painful.

But good news could be on hand for those who don’t want to bow to peer pressure, those who are quite happy to stay eating buns on the sofa – because a Government Minister in the UK has admitted that all of these crash diets aren’t worth the effort.

Indeed Jo Swinson, the Liberal Democrat Equalities Minister, wants to ban bogus crash diets and outlaw celebrity-endorsed quick fixes – on the grounds that they don’t work.

Now we’ll ignore that fact that, if the Brits started banning things that didn’t work, the Lib Dems themselves would be first in the firing line – because Ms Swinson might well have a point.

If you want to lose weight, lose it gradually – not by drinking nothing but cabbage soup for a few weeks until you smell like the inside of an old sock.

And as for taking little tablet supplements instead of your dinner, well you’re definitely losing weight alright – but it’s from the grey mass between your ears, if you think this is the key to a new you.

Indeed even us rounder people know that it’s about controlling the size of the portions you eat; it’s about more of the five a day fruit and veg, less pizza and burgers and more exercise.

But if, quite frankly, you couldn’t be bothered, then the Yanks have come up with a lazy man’s way to a new, slimmer you – they call it CoolSculpting and all it means is that there are experts who will freeze the fat out of you as you read a fitness magazine.

Your doctor will place a device on the target areas that pulls the fat bulges in between two cooling panels in order to freeze the fat cells beneath the skin.

The treatment takes about an hour, depending on the area that is being treated, and is described as ideal for “anyone who has exercise-resistant, unwanted bulges of fat.”

Or what we tend to common refer to as fat, lazy people.

The drawback is that the cost of CoolSculpting starts at $750 per area – and each love handle is considered one area – and it can take about two to four months to see a noticeable reduction.

Nonetheless, the end results are said to be long-term and are ‘ideally maintained by healthy eating and exercising’ – or presumably by going back for more fat freezing sessions as January edges onto the horizon.

Two notes of caution at this stage – CoolSculpting is only available in the US as yet, and even there, you’ll find other health and fitness experts against it.

Dr Michelle Copeland, for example, who is a New York plastic surgeon, says that CoolSculpting can leave a visible transition line from where the fat was frozen and where it was not, which she refers to as a ‘step off deformity’.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.