What's in your protein shake? Maybe cadmium, arsenic, mercury, and lead...

So, I dropped by to read Melting Mama (who is a very cool, funny, ragingly honest blogger that I like to read regularly), and see a very helpful post for June 1 on the Consumer Reports test of protein drinks. I'm glad she posted this, cause I had tried to find an online source for the test results (didn't want to subscribe again to CR, as I had been a subscriber for years and, really, hardly ever went to the site to get my money's worth.) She has the chart up. Go see it.

I admit it. Yes, I confess. I have several big cannisters of protein mix in my kitchen. (Or, more specifically, under the kitchen table, as I have a storage issue here.)

No, I didn't have gastric bypass. No, I'm not a low-carber. No, I'm not an elite muscle-building athlete.

So, why?

Cause I can't eat before my exercise training session. If I have breakfast (ie, solids), I get crazy reflux when I lie down, invert, etc. So, for almost two years, since I began regular  Pilates training, I've had my cocktail I mix up in a shaker prior to exercising. I noticed on days I didn't use it and caved and had an egg with toast or toast and cheese or something else with a solid, I'd get the mini-acid-reflux pukies. When I had nothing but tea, I pooped out, no energy to finish an hour-long exercise session.

Enter BSN Syntha 6 and Dessert Lean. I liked the flavors (I have banana pudding, cinnamon roll, mochaccino, & chocolate). I liked the ease of mixing with water.I use it in combination with Amazing Grass and Acai Splash (and sometimes Green Magma) to get antioxidants, protein, etc before my workout. It gives me the energy to get through it, and at fifty years old and morbidly obese, anything that gets me through an hour of exercise, I'll take it. :) (Well, as long as it's not illegal or loony or makes me look like a strung-out crack or meth 'ho.)

I never have more than one scoop a day (unlike the Consumer Reports study that uses 3 servings a day as their comparison standard amount). I sometimes have half a scoop.

I also recently got some Any Whey (wish that was in their study) to punch up the protein content in my husband's occasional breakfast waffles and pancakes (as he does tend to NOT get enough protein, usually none to almost none with breakfast,  and has had some muscle loss consequently).

So, for myself, what to do?

Well, I'm not gonna toss it in the trash. The quantities in the BSN as listed (yeah, I use THAT chocolate one) divided by 3 or more (as I use 1 to less than one scoop and only on VIGOROUS exercise days, which is usually 2x, and sometimes 3x a week).

I will not repurchase, however, and will figure out a better way to prep for exercise WITHOUT protein shakes. If that means experimenting with smoothies (ie, peanut butter and milk with banana or somesuch), then so be it.

I don't eat protein bars anymore (never really loved any of them other than Supreme Protein, and that had an amazing amount of calories!). The peanut contamination sort of got me to toss what I had.

However, if you take protein shakes daily--and I assume bars with protein isolates mixed in may have this very same issue, and Consumer Reports should look into that-- or, worse, multiple times a day, it's time to sit down and have yourself a good think and self-talk over it. Definitely don't have it more than once a day (if you're supplementing meals). Start cutting back a bit today if you are using it multiple times a day and have stocked up on the brands with worst contamination (Muscle Milk, whoa, glad I never bought that). If you are determined to continue to consume protein-rich mixes/shakes, then at least buy the ones that did well on the Consumer Reports tests: Solgar Whey to Go, Optimum Nutrition Platinum Hydro-Whey (dang, long name), Six Star Muscle Professional Strength Whey (dang, another long one).


I used to drink EAS myoplex in dark chocolate (the low carb one) back when I did a low-carb phase. I won't be buying them again.

I wonder if they've tested the protein additives--or toxins-- in marketed food programs with protein shakes and protein bars and protein-enhanced this and that? If they're using those whey isolates, etc, just like protein powders, this could be an issue.

Are you drinking protein shakes/mixes/bars? Does this Consumer Report study concern you? Are you going to alter your habits re ingestion of these protein products?

Crazy Weight Loss Methods

Olympic Athletes, like some dieters at large, try crazy, dangerous weight loss schemes, such as those outlined in this article.

These are not new wacko methods, either. I had a boyfriend in high school who was on the wrestling team, and he did the rubber-suit thing and the spitting up and the water pills before weigh-ins. (He was also on the softball team, but didn't do crazy stuff for that, that I can recall.)

Some THE BIGGEST LOSER finalists use nutty methods to get low, low, low for the final weigh-in--including eating lots of asparagus and taking water pills. They can gain as much as 32 pounds in the days after that last weigh-in, because it was water loss, not fat.

It's lucky none of them collapsed from heart failure.

A distressing number of us dieters have at some time come to rely on pills (water or "speed" or laxatives), saran wrap (my boyfriend in high school's sister would sit around all day before a big date wrapped in plastic wrap to fit into her dress better!), eating only X meal bar, drinking only X protein shake, etc.

Anything that is dehydrating is causing you to lose water, not fat. We don't need to lose water, generally. (Some folks have a medical condition that causes excessive fluid retention, and they DO need to lose water.) Even when we eat Chinese or high-sodium, what we need to lose is SODIUM, excess sodium, not water. Water just happens to wash it out, so ironically, we need to drink MORE water to lose excess water weight.

One of the things that causes some of us to overeat is THIRST--ie, not recognizing the mouth-hunger we feel is for water, fluid, not solids, food.

So, getting dehydrated will backfire for dieters. You lose the water, you'll feel thirsty, you end up maybe EATING MORE than you would have, and the water comes back, along with some pounds.

Anything that is very-low-calorie is setting you up for a binge, a fall, a lower metabolism. Anything that is not real food in life-long sustainable meal plans is not gonna cut it except for short term.

And even when something seems safe, cause your doctor gives it to you, is NO GUARANTEE. Remember Fen-Phen? It killed the wife of a former mayor of my city some years ago.

Rely on anything other than good food in smaller portions and near-daily to daily exercise (calories in, calories out), and you may be stepping into the long and wide danger zone of side-effects.

I can understand why these athletes and dieters get crazy. Don't we all wish we could find the magic bullet? Sigh.

But I think some things should not be faciliated. In athletics, for instance, weigh-ins should be minutes before an event, to make sure athletes are discouraged from doing these things. Trust me, no athlete is going to be ABLE to compete dehydrated. They'll pass out. They'll learn to calibrate those scales and stay well enough under that even a scale change gets them in their class.


In real life, I think doctors should be discouraged from offering pills until after a patient has had a round with 1. dietitians 2. behavioral therapists 3. a personal trainer or someone who can confirm they are exercising. In other words, I think taking pills should have the same sort of tough accountability as, say, getting bariatric surgery (where you have to have psych assessments, go on a diet first, etc).

Pills shouldn't be easy. Pills like this should NOT be over the counter, either. That's asking for folks to abuse them. Like Sudafed is now (cause of Meth issues), water and other diet pills should have to go through a pharmacist.

Sounds tough, but I'd rather not have dieters (and athletes) ruin their kidneys and hearts for something bound to fail.

No diet pill has been shown to lead to successful long-term weight loss. And many have side effects that mean folks can't stay on them long. You probably know (or have been) someone who tried some and gained back the weight.

Diets fail regularly, too, we know; but at least being on a sound weight-loss plan means you're focusing on good nutrition--veggies, fruits, lean dairy and proteins, clean water--and not just popping some chemical that'll make you buzzed-hyper (cause it's either got enough caffeine for 12 cups of coffee or has ephedra or has some other "speed" drug) or make you poop your pants.

If you wouldn't let your kid take an iffy drug, why would you let yourself take it?

It's hard to learn to do it right, to put up with gradual losses rather than "superfast weight loss", to tolerate 1 to 2 pounds a week (or less), to plateau. But that's how you do it SAFELY.

And as a bonus, that's one way to maybe avoid the maximum amount of sag. If you lose very slowly, you have a better chance to being able to tone up and minimize the hanging skin (though for folks like me, who got to morbid obese status, there's about a ZERO chance of our evading the hanging, loose, wrinkled skin that losing weight leaves behind. One good reason never to get heavy to start. I wish I had known before about that. Honest to God, I didn't until a few years ago. It's horrifying to me! It might have kept me under 200, those pics!)

Getting to 299 was the big awakening I needed to stop the upward creep and start the slow downward trek. (Very slow, as it turns out.) I did not want to see 300 on my home scale. I didn't. (Though I did with clothes on at the doc's office: 303!)

People have died from using diet pills and water pills. People (including athletes) have died from extreme weight loss measures. People even die on the surgical table for legitimate and medically-okayed bariatric surgery (a small %, but it's a risk, always, to go under the knife.)

Let's find a way to do it safely--all of us. Let's think long-term, not "this week!" Let's not die in our quest to be healthy. Let's be sane.

And when you're tempted to speed things up with an iffy method, remember Karen Carpenter, remember Steve Bechler, remember Patricia Mishcon.

Leave extreme dieting to reckless thrill-seekers...and dumb-ass Olympians.

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ABC NEWS Wants to Hear From You if You're a Kimkins Survivor

Did you do the Kimkins diet? Did you get bad side effects? Did you go down to VLC levels following the plan and had to go to the doctor cause you had bad dizziness, headaches, palpitations, major hair loss, fainting spells, amenorrhea or other symptoms from the diet?

Well, ABC NEWS wants to hear from you:

If this is you and you are willing to have ABC News come to your home this week to speak to you about your Kimkins experience, then please send an e-mail to KimkinsOnABC@gmail.com with your name, telephone number, and a brief description of your story. Time is of the essence on this as they are trying to put this segment together quickly. The deadline for being involved in this unique opportunity is Thursday, January 17, 2008.

They only want to hear from you if you have medical documentation of some side effect from doing this low-fat, low-carb VLC diet.

Do it. Bring the Kimpire down to the dust!

Good Morning America will have something on the Kimkins Diet this coming Saturday. Rumor is that 20/20 is looking into this as well. Let's hope there's lot of adverse coverage of the diet, so people DO NOT GET SUCKED INTO a plan that puts their health at risk and puts money in the pockets of a scam artist she-devil.

Sorry to bring this update so late, but, really, I've not been online much.

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