Do you want to lose weight long-term this year? Then avoid watching the upcoming 17th season of The Biggest Loser, the less-popular-than-before show. Why? It’s “everything that’s wrong with weight loss in America, as Dr. Yoni Freedhoff says:

Guardian: ‘It’s a miracle no one has died yet’: The Biggest Loser returns, despite critics’ warnings

Studies show that The Biggest Loser not only breeds prejudice against people with obesity, fat shaming also lowers will power, increasing the risk of gaining weight.

By faking fast and huge weight loss (a Biggest Loser TV “week” may be three actual weeks) the TV show gives entirely false expectations. And starvation diets combined with 10 hours of intense exercise a day is impossible to do anyway, if you have a job. So even the contestants are set up to fail eventually.

A former season 2 contestant recently said that the reason NBC never does a reunion is “because we’re all fat again“.

Do you still want to lose weight? Here’s simpler, smarter and more sustainable advice: How to Lose Weight

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Do you need a personalized nutrition plan to lose weight? Do you need your DNA, microbiome and blood sugar responses analyzed and a computer algorithm to tell you what to eat?

That’s what some people are believing, after a kind-of-interesting new study:

TIME: Why Losing Weight Is So Hard for Some People

However, while personalized diets may be of some use they are not necessary to maintain a perfect weight. We know that for certain. Why?

Before the modern food environment there was no obesity epidemic. People did not have computer-assisted personalized diets and still they had no obesity epidemic.

And look at any species of wild animal eating real food. They maintain their weight just fine without even knowing what DNA is.

There are definitely genetic differences between people. Some have an easier time gaining weight than others. Some have to watch what they eat more carefully. But there’s no strict need for personalized nutrition.

Just make sure to eat what the human species evolved to eat. This does not include any added sugar, finely ground flour or processed junk food. None. And it most certainly did not involve preparing meals every three hours.

No living thing in its normal environment has ever needed a computer algorithm to tell it what to eat.

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Do you want to keep eating the same food and live the same way and still lose weight? Now there’s a way!

A new medical device – AspireAssist – is implanted as a tube into your stomach. This means that after eating you can enter a bathroom and empty your stomach contents into the toilet (yes, really).

Mail Online: The ‘eat like a pig’ slimming device that will turn your stomach: Controversial product pumps users’ stomachs after food binges

Not surprisingly some people report weight loss and improved diabetes after implanting the device. And perhaps it could even be a good idea for someone. At least we’re not removing healthy bodily organs as in many other kinds of obesity surgery.

The Problem

The problem is that this procedure isn’t really necessary. There’s no need to surgically implant a new tube into the stomach. We were born with one! It’s called the esophagus and people have been using it to throw up unwanted food for a long time… by just putting two fingers into their throat. Yes, it’s the eating disorder bulimia.

While bulimia may help people lose weight it’s likely never something that medical professionals recommend for weight loss. Bulimia sounds so nasty, it needs a rebranding. And now it’s here: the AspireAssist device.

It’s the cleaner way to do bulimia.

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Does chocolate help weight loss? And can you trust nutrition science news in the media? My answers would be “probably not” and “certainly not”.

Check out this story on how all kinds of media were easily fooled by a recent fake study, eagerly reporting that eating chocolate speeds up weight loss:

I Fooled Millions Into Thinking Chocolate Helps Weight Loss. Here’s How.

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