Celebrity Health Diets: When to listen to celebrity advice

Do celebrities know what they are talking about when they recommend a health product or lifestyle?

Celebrities from Gwyneth Paltrow to the Kardashians are trying to get you to buy into their particular brand of health product.

This in and of itself could be a good thing, in fact some of these products could be really helpful in getting you into shape.

But it may also be a bad thing because a recommendation from a celebrity may not be the most informed source of information about your health (better sources include your doctor or a scientist).

So let's look at some celebrity health products and lifestyles and follow some simple rules that will help us make the best decision.

If the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) says it is not good, that might be a sign.

A health supplement and sexual enhancing drug has been endorsed by the football personalities Jimmy Johnson.

In a commercial, he says that the product works for him and with 1 billion pills sold it must work for the other men who purchased them (which is faulty logic because all we really know is that they purchased it not that it works for them; in fact for all we know a good proportion of the men that purchased the pills could be suffering from adverse health effects because of the pill [though this has not been proven]).

Despite the praise showered on the drug by Jimmy Johnson, the FDA has denounced the drug and issued a voluntary recall for it in 2011.

The spokesman at the FDA said that they have received reports of spiked products, poor regulation of what is put in the pill (including counterfeit and undeclared ingredients) and that it included ingredients that have been banned in the United States (including 1 that is known to cause heart disease.

If the celebrity is a little shady.

I am talking about those celebrities (and I use that word very loosely) that you are not so sure should be celebrities.  These include the reality stars or the 15 minutes of fame on Youtube variety.  These people essentially hit the lottery and have done nothing to deserve your attention.

A lot of the time these people want to extend their paydays and by extension their celebrity so they may endorse things that in the long run (or short run for that matter) are not the best choices for your health.  Snooki and The Situation from MTV's reality hit Jersey Shore are just some celebrities that have endorsed products that are meant to make you healthier but really there are  questions marks about the products efficacy.

Snooki endorsed a cookie diet, but even she has conceded that working out everyday is the best way to lose weight.

The Situation has endorsed a protein infused vodka drink that falls short in terms of it's weight losing abilities.

If it just sounds crazy.

Some diets are just a little too crazy for normal people.  If your job is to look good all day and you have the means to ensure you can maintain your lifestyle then have at it, but if you have a full time job, kids, friends and family or a restricted budget then this diet may not be for you.

Posh Spice otherwise known as Victoria Beckham swore by her 5 Hands diet in which she only ate 5 handfuls of food (which was only berries, nuts and grains) a day.  That sounds great for her, but if you need a lot of energy and you want to make it through the day this may not be the best thing for you.

Gwyneth Paltrow used to live by her organic and macrobiotic diet where she would only eat whole unprocessed foods.  This seemingly does not sound too extreme but when you think about it it has 2 major problems.

The first is money.  How in the world could a normal person with a family possibly maintain that kind of diet financially.  Organic foods way are more expensive that regular foods and could break the bank of us non-celebrities.

The second problem is nutrition. You will have to ban meat and dairy products from your diet. These foods provide important vitamins and nutrients that you will have to supplement in someway to ensure you stay healthy and without the proper guidance you could be putting your health in serious danger.  Ms. Paltrow herself has since relaxed her diet restrictions so even she has admitted that her diet may not be the best way to live your life.

Listen to yourself

The best way to tell if a celebrity diet or lifestyle is a good idea for you is to check with yourself.  Pay attention to what your body is saying to you.  If you feel pain, stop that particular exercise.  If you feel hungry or lightheaded, eat.  If you feel full, stop eating.  If you feel that a particular pill you are taking is making you ill, consult your physician.  Everyone is different and we all have different circumstances we are living in so make sure that whatever you are doing is right for you and makes you feel better.

A Handful of Nose Exercise Questions and Answers

It has been awhile since I have answered any nose exercise questions so here are a few I received recently. See my past posts on:

Nose Exercises Vs Rhinoplasty

Fixing a Crooked Nose using Nose Exercises

Do you actually need Nose Exercises?

Will Nose Exercises make your nose thinner?

His name has been omitted for privacy reasons.

Q

"Hello,

I was wondering if there was anything I can do for a crooked nose that doesn't involve surgery is it true that nose exercises can fix many of these concerns?"

A

Yes, as long as the damage doesn't include damage to the bone or cartilage. See the instructions on the website.

Q

"I have noticed that many of these exercises are making my nose wider is that supposed to be happen? Also will it make it too wide?"

A

"Yes, with the exception of the Nose Narrowing exercise, the other exercises build muscle and that will make a person's nose slightly thicker."

Q

"Are there any other negative side effects associated with doing such exercises? Why haven't doctors recommended them?"

A

They're exercises associated with facial expressions. People wrinkle their nose / etc all the time when they smile, frown, etc, so no, there is no risks associated with nose exercises.

Nose exercises just change the shape of a person's nose slowly over time, either to correct a crooked nose due to damaged muscle tissue or to change the shape of the nose by reshaping the muscle tissue under the skin. Your nose shape is dictated by muscle tissue, cartilage and the nose bone part of the skull where the skull meets the nose. By reshaping the muscle within the nose using exercises it can lengthen, shorten, narrow, or widen the nose - as well as fix problems wherein nose muscle tissue was damaged.

Nose exercises cannot change the shape of the nose bone however. A broken nose (nasal fractures are a common sports injury) can be realigned in most cases to prevent deformity as the broken nose bone will heal over time if it is in the correct position to restitch itself back together, which means nose exercises can be used during treatment and post treatment to keep the nose aligned. Depending on the severity of the broken nose, surgery is sometimes necessary in order to prevent deformity.

Plastic surgeons would never recommend nose exercises because their goal is to get people to buy rhinoplasty. In the case of a severe nasal fracture the patient doesn't have much choice however.
It would be like asking a doctor who does liposuction whether he approves of people just exercising to lose weight. The doctor's goal is to make money so they would likely respond with laughter and saying something like "Well yes, I suppose you could, but how has that been going for you? If exercise was working for you then why are you here? It is very difficult to lose weight exercising so if you can afford it why not just pay for the liposuction instead?"

The vast majority of people who have contacted me about nose exercises actually have very nice noses with a minor problem that doesn't require surgery and is easily fixed by doing nose exercises for several months. I have only encountered one person (who had a very large nose bone protruding from his skull which made his nose unusually large) who could not be helped because the size and shape of his nose was due to elongated shape of the nose bone.

A few people who have contacted me don't even need the exercises. Their worries appear to be more mental and the shape of their nose, in my opinion, is already ideal. They are worrying over nothing.
In your case the muscle tissue has become imbalanced on opposite sides of your nose. Basically the muscles on one side of your nose is bigger than the other side. The nose straightening exercise will build up muscle tissue on both sides, equalizing the muscles on both sides over time and straightening out your nose, and making your nose slightly thicker in the process. When you cease doing the exercises in the future your nose will lose the extra thickness after a month or so and go back to its normal size, but it will have straightened out long before then.

30 Days as a Vegetarian - Day 30

Hello Toronto!

Today is my last day of 30 Days as a Vegetarian.

I admit it has been a fun experiment, but my conclusion is that I am not cut out to be a vegetarian. (I will be having bacon and eggs for breakfast tomorrow morning.)

I have lost some weight around my middle - although I do wonder if I could have lost more if it had not been that huge blip that was Valentines.

My weight as of this morning (my final weigh in was after breakfast) is 191.5 lbs. When I started this experiment I was 197.6, so I have lost slightly more than 6 lbs, which suggests I lost roughly 0.2 lbs day. Mathematically that is 700 calories per day that I was either taking in less food / burning calories through exercise. When you consider the average person should be eating 1800 to 2000 calories per day, 700 calories per day is a huge reduction.

Again, I probably would have lost more if it had not been that huge blip following Valentines. I would probably be around 189 or 190 if it had not been for that over-consumption of food on Valentines.

I am going to continue to eat healthy after this experiment, but meat will be back on the menu as an option. I hope that what I take from this experiment is that I will continue to eat healthier - more veggies and so forth - and I will have a greater appreciation of being an omnivore.

There will definitely be a lasting effect on my diet in the future. There will be lots more strawberry shakes (see photos below of the 3 step process it takes to make a strawberry shake) and I think I will go back to The Duke of Richmond sometime for that black bean veggie burger that was soooo good. I will also be making more veggie soups and stews in the future as I think I am addicted to those now. But it will be nice to have the option to throw in some leftover meat with the soup for added flavour.

Later tonight I am going to be having a veggie burger, veggie pizza and beer during a social event. But so far today I have had cereal and a salad. I will likely have some carrot sticks before I leave for the event in the evening.

This has been fun. I may or may not do something similar again in the future. Possibly 30 Days as a Pescetarian would be fun as I have determined being a vegetarian is not for me.

30 Days as a Vegetarian - Day 28

Only today, tomorrow and Friday left to go for my 30 Days as a Vegetarian.

The end is in sight! I can almost taste the bacon!

I am going to be so happy when this is over.

I do have some conclusions on what has happened thus far.

#1. It is not so much what I am eating - vegetarian food can be equally fattening if it is deep fried, high in carbs, high in sugar, etc. The biggest difference clearly is HOW MUCH I am eating - as clearly demonstrated with what happened on Valentines when I clearly overate and ate too much greasy food.

#2. I also saw larger differences on the days after large amounts of exercise. Clearly exercising does pay off in the waistline department, but the trick for people is to make exercising sustainable. If they lose interest they will stop doing it.

Note - See Day 14 of 30 Days as a Vegetarian to see my exercise routine.

#3. I think for me having exercises to do every day (including shoveling snow) helped with the weight loss more than the process of eating vegetarian. Exercising was by far the biggest factor for me.

#4. Binging on Valentines = Bad.

#5. Eating healthy and lots of exercise on the days following Valentines = Good. See why below...

Yesterday I had leftover veggie soup, potatoes, a veggie burger and caesar salad at Johnny Rockets (as usual for Tuesdays).

This morning before breakfast I weighed in at 192.3 lbs and my waist is 40.5 inches. So evidently the weight gain from overeating on Valentines turned out to be temporary and I have even lost 0.1 lbs in the last 6 days.

30 Days as a Vegetarian - Day 26

Day 26 of 30 Days as a Vegetarian.

Today at noon (after lunch) I weighed in at 195.6 lbs, and yet surprisingly my waist measured only 40.5 inches at the widest point.

So compared to 4 days ago (before Valentines) when I weighed 192.4 after breakfast, I have gained 3.2 lbs in 4 days - most of which happened on Valentines with the ridiculous amount of food I ate.

I don't even want to know what my weight was yesterday (Sunday). All I can say is wow. Binging on Valentines really can make a huge difference to your weight.

What is strange however is that this extra weight didn't go to my belly (possibly because it has not yet had time to do so) as my waist is still hovering at 40.5 at the widest point. I am uncertain WHY or WHAT happened, but if my waist hasn't caught up to this sudden weight fluctuation maybe there is hope this is just temporary.

Update: Today I had cereal, veggie soup, mashed potatoes and peas - and a beer closer to the evening.

30 Days as a Vegetarian - Day 24

Day 24 of 30 Days as a Vegetarian.

Okay so technically I am writing this on Day 25 because yesterday was Valentines and I was too busy to have time to write it.

And honestly I am not even going to check my weight today. I am just going to try ignore everything that I ate on Valentines as it was a lot...

Friday I had cereal, soup and a veggie burger.

Saturday (Valentines) I had:

1. [Breakfast] Cereal + green tea.
2. [Snack] Hot Chocolate from Tim Hortons (while visiting the Toronto Archery Range).
3. [Lunch] All you can eat Chinese food (vegetarian items only), many of which were deep fried.
4. [Snack] Chocolate.
5. [Supper] Grilled Cheese, Fries, Nachos and roughly 2.5 beers at a pub.
6. [Snack] More chocolate.

By the time I went to bed last night I felt like a beached whale and "so full I might burst".

Hopefully if I play my cards right that Valentines food binge will likely be meaningless by the time Monday rolls around. Eating all that food yesterday for Valentines seems to have resulted in a deflated appetite today. We shall see when I weigh in on Monday (tomorrow).

Update - I did go to an event on Sunday where I had a plate of fries (it was the only thing vegetarian on the menu) and a beer. I didn't feel hungry that day and was probably still on a sugar high from Valentines.

30 Days as a Vegetarian - Day 22

Day 22 of 30 Days as a Vegetarian.

Weighed in after breakfast at 192.4, waist at widest point is now 40.5 inches. Huzzah!

For lunch I will be trying something new soup wise, using a lot of chick peas. It will be similar to my old 2013 post titled How to Make a Hearty Vegetable Soup in a Jiffy.

Later tonight I am going to an event (again at 7 West) and will be trying something other than their veggie burger (which was horrible the last time I was there).

Nothing else new to report at this time.

Update - I had the grilled cheese sandwich, a salad and a Guinness. I have determined that grilled cheese, while not very healthy, tasted waaaaaaaaaay better than that horrid veggie burger I had last time at 7 West. I should have taken a photograph of the sandwich and the salad, but I forgot so I will just use a clipart example instead.

30 Days as a Vegetarian - Day 20

Today is Day 20 of 30 Days as a Vegetarian.

Yesterday I had leftover pancakes and veggie stew to eat. This morning I had cereal, I will be having soup for lunch and later today I will be having a veggie burger (like I do every Tuesday and Friday) at Johnny Rockets.

Weighed in this morning at 192.8, waist at widest point is still 41 inches.

I have concluded that my food options as a vegetarian are very boring. I have started searching through recipe books / vegetarian websites looking for recipes that are healthy that I would actually like.

Unfortunately recipe books written for vegetarians seem to think wheat grass can be added to anything and ignores the possibility that most grocery stores don't even sell wheat grass. (And have you ever tasted wheat grass? Yuck!)

Thus what I have started doing is looking through mainstream recipe books (like America's Test Kitchen) and looking for examples of things that are healthy / vegetarian.

Many of the things in some of these cookbooks are quite complicated to make and it occurs to me that I am actually really horrible in the kitchen at anything that doesn't involve meat, pasta or cookies*.

* Mostly because my mother was absolutely amazing at making cookies, squares, chocolate covered peanut butter balls, etc and that such things rubbed off on me.

Note to Self - Visit grocery store and stock up on various things, I am running low again.

30 Days as a Vegetarian - Day 18

Day 18 of "30 Days as a Vegetarian".

Yesterday I think I ate too much food I probably should not have. Why?

Because I was at the Toronto Sportsmen's Show as part of the Toronto Archery Club. I was there talking to bow makers, hunters, fishermen, camping enthusiasts, etc.

DnD Meats Dried Cured Bacon

With respect to food however the healthiest vegetarian foods I could find at the convention centre was vegetarian pizza from the Pizza Pizza stand and french fries from one of the food stands at the convention centre - which is to say, not very healthy even though they are vegetarian.

There was also venison meat and other meat packages for sale, but I knew that was definitely off limits. eg. I snapped a photo of the D&D Meats Dried Cured Bacon, shown here on the right. It doesn't look very tasty, but I betcha it is if you are a bacon lover like I am. Only 12 more days to go!

And today I fell off the diet wagon a bit because I ended up ordering a vegetarian pizza from Domino's Pizza so we could have a treat while watching The Walking Dead later tonight. So I didn't fall off the veggie wagon, but that pizza was most definitely not healthy. Whether this abundance of high carbs food will have an impact on my weigh in on Tuesday (Day 20) we shall find out then.

My weight this morning, before breakfast was 193.3, so the pizza yesterday may have been offset from the amount of walking around I did at the convention centre. I wouldn't have thought walking around carrying bags of stuff I purchased counted as exercise, but apparently I was wrong. My waist at widest point is still 41 inches.

Below are three of the photos I took while at the Toronto Sportmen's Show. I admit they are totally off topic for the vegetarian theme my current posts are on, but I wanted to share them in case any fellow archery enthusiasts are reading.

My girlfriend and I have been discussing what things I might eat after my 30 Days as a Vegetarian is over. Topics include Korean BBQd samgyopsal, a bacon cheeseburger, fish n chips... I know it is only 12 days away but it feels like longer.

Anywho I am hungry now so I am going to go make some veggie stew.

30 Days as a Vegetarian - Day 16

Day 16 of "30 Days as a Vegetarian".

On Wednesday night my girlfriend and I went out for dinner and then to the Royal Alexandra Theatre where we saw "The Heart of Robin Hood" on stage.

We ate at The Duke of Richmond (Eaton's Centre) and I had the Black Bean Veggie Burger + Moroccan Stew. Honest to dragon*, that was the best veggie burger I have had yet. I could see ordering that burger again in the future (after my 30 Days as a Vegetarian is over), just because it was that tasty.

Black Bean Veggie Burger + Moroccan Stew

* I don't like using religious words online if I can prevent it, so I just replace them all with dragon. eg. omidragon.

Weight is currently 193.4 lbs and waist at widest point is still 41 inches.

Later today I will be visiting Johnny Rockets again for another veggie burger and caesar salad. I admit having food in restaurants 2-3 days per week is probably not healthy. For me it seems to be giving me something to look forward to while I am eating salads, mushroom soups, veggie stews, etc.