The Way I See It
By Joseph C. Phillips

Miracle Weight Loss

I am never surprised when the Food and Drug Administration announces that yet another weight loss drug has made false claims about the ability of their products to help people effortlessly shed pounds. The world, it seems, is full of people trying to make a fast buck offering quick and painless fixes for people’s problems. Selling snake oil is perhaps the world’s second oldest profession. That would make buying snake oil the world’s second oldest pastime.

I am amazed that it is necessary for the federal government (or anyone else) to warn adults that there is no such thing as a pill that will shed unwanted pounds while you sit on the couch eating potato chips.

There is a reason people that eat junk food all day rarely look like fitness models. In the long run, the only way to lose weight and keep it off is sensible nutrition and exercise. You must burn more calories than you consume. There is no easy way around it and the FDA needn’t have to forewarn any of us about what we already know.

Alas, there remain an endless stream of people offering short cuts in a bottle and just as many lined up to throw away hard earned money.

I consider it my civic duty then to offer an alternative to the miracle elixirs currently receiving so much federal scrutiny. If one of your New Year resolutions is to finally lose weight, forget about stapling your stomach, binging and purging or risking your health on risky appetite suppressants. Come to my house and eat dinner with my children. If that doesn’t kill your appetite, nothing will.

My wife and I do teach our sons table manners. Remember, though, that the reason children must be taught manners is that they do not come by them naturally. My sons are no exception. The three of them eat like a pack of puppies. I put the plates on the table and jump back before I lose a hand. The food begins flying like wood chips at a saw mill. You have never heard so much slurping, burping and smacking of lips in your life. We use a plastic table cloth as no meal is complete without milk or juice being spilled all over the table. The real dietary payoff, however, is after dinner. Whatever didn’t make it into their mouths is on the table…on the floor…on their chairs…the walls. It’s everywhere! I am seriously considering redoing our kitchen in concrete. I’ll put a big drain in the middle of the floor and after dinner, I can just hose the whole room down like they do at the zoo.

If you are still in need of motivation, you can go upstairs and take a gander at their bathroom. If that doesn’t dampen your desire for food, you will certainly get a good cardio work out as you run screaming from the sight. It doesn’t seem to matter how often we clean or what products we use, their bathroom always looks as though a tornado has just come through: toothpaste spread from one end of the counter to the other, soap all over the place and water on the floor. At least we think its water, with three little boys you can never be too sure. And the smell! The ionic breeze air purifier we purchased from the store melted. Between that and their bedroom we have started telling guests that we are using the upstairs rooms to raise sheep.

What I am offering is a completely natural dietary supplement. (The only potential side effect is that it may cause an aversion to children. Of course, that may, in fact, be a benefit.) This program is 100% guaranteed. If you want scientific proof, you need look no further than my wife. After 13 years of marriage and three children, she is the same dress size as the day we were married. She owes it all to the regimen I have described. That and the 30 miles she runs each week.

Send me your ways of seeing it at Josephcp@netlistings.com