You Are What You Eat--Anybody Else Watching?

Cafe Society
1

I’ve become addicted to this BBC America show. This, despite the fact that the show is pretty much the same exact thing every time, only with different players. The format:

Person or family have horrible eating habits and as a result are massivly overweight, depressed, and ill. Enter diet “expert” Gillian McKeith, who shames them and makes them give poo samples, then puts them on an eight-week health food regimen. There are, of course, problems along the way but Gillian always comes to the rescue. Then eight weeks later they’ve all lost a couple stone and are beautiful and happy and energetic.

I think what I love about the show is how harsh it is. I always thought the people who went on The Biggest Loser were brave to go on national TV with no shirt on. But that’s nothing to this show, where they put the subjects in bathing suits, then do a slow pan up and down their bodies while ominous, scary music plays. And then there are the extreme close-ups of them stuffing their faces. In some cases, you get to witness the victim farting or belching. And then Gillian makes them poo into a clear box and you get to hear them discuss the size, consistency, and quantity of said poo.

Difference between British and American TV, I guess.

And “Dr.” Gillian is brutal, too. She tells them that they’re fat, that they should be ashamed of themselves, that their diets are disgusting, etc.

Despite all this, I find the show inspirational. I know Gillian McKeith has pretty much been discredited–she’s as much a doctor as I am, but basically all we see her do is teach these people how to cook with veggies and fruits and exercise a little. It’s common sense that if people who were living on burgers and fries and ice cream switch to a veggie, fruit, and lean meat diet they’re going to lose weight, and they do. And some of the dishes they fix on the show look yummy.

Also, the shock tactics she uses to demonstrate exactly how unhealthy all the fast food, junk, etc. is, have really helped me with my diet. Every time I get a craving for a burger, I think of the processed meat “dummy” Gillian made and I find it easy to decline.

Anyway, anybody else seen it? Anybody tried any of the recipes?

2

Her “credentials” kind of scare me, she’s gotten into some trouble in the past (and right now I can’t remember where I read that - I googled her last year, when I first saw that show).

However, I suspect her regimen is an improvement over her clients’ previous habits.
Miso soup for breakfast? Ain’t happening.

3

I’m completely addicted to this show–in fact, I had a crisis over it last night because none of the episodes on my DVR were new (oh noes!) I enjoy watching it while alternately eating spinach and lentils with brown rice (wouldn’t Gillian be proud!) and chocolate chip cookies (get a load of this, Gillian!)

All in all, I find the show inspirational. I, too, am beginning to see her face on every bottle of beer and chocolate bar.

That said, she does indeed spout some rubbish. Fortunately, I almost always know what’s rubbish and what’s not.

4

I’ve found her inspirational as well, at least the shock tactics and, since I’m not quite that heavy, the descriptions of what such heavy weights are doing to the physical body of these people is scary enough to eat better! However, I think she doesn’t really give them tools to “live” with what they are eating- I would rather see her teach them how to make similar foods to what they love instead of forcing flax seed and odd foods that no one will like down them.

5

I can’t help but wonder how much the new-and-improved diet costs to maintain. I certainly couldn’t afford the amount of produce she heaps on the big table when she tells them what they’re in for.

6

I was thinking the same thing Juniper. I mean do they really have that much extra income? Its crazy to me that most people end up having to get up extremely early to start making their food. I could not handle that.

7

I hate her and every show she’s in and I hate that trend for prodding and poking and mocking normal people in tv shows. I hate most fat shows. There is a channel here called Sky Real Lives and it should just be called the Fat Channel. The only show of this kind I’ve ever seen that I liked was Fat Man Slim and the poor bastard died shortly after filming.

8

^ Blimey, was it a diet show related death?

Can’t stand GM for obvious reasons (she’s a quack and a shrieky fraud and her science is bad science) but I have read her recipe book, nice recipes and no rubbish ingredients within.

However the menu plan she wrote out in her book is absurd for many mainly because it’d be very expensive to follow it.

For example it really isn’t necessary to consume an entire punnet of Blueberries for breakfast twice a week.

9

I suspect that those people who stopped downing a couple of pints at the pub each night, or smoking a pack of cigs a day found they had a lot more to spend on produce than they thought they did.

I like the show. It has got me thinking a lot more about what I eat and incorporating new foods. If nothing else, I am trying a greater variety of foods, some of which I’d never even heard of before.

I haven’t given up red meat or dairy, but I’ve found when incorporating more grains, legumes and stuff like that into my diet, I have by default been eating less of it and not really missing it.

10

I love the show, but frankly, I just can’t handle that many bubbly enemas for long.

She is quite the quack from what I’ve read about her too, however, you look at the monochromatic fried shit most of those people eat, it wouldn’t take much to improve them.

It seems to be the basic equivalent to a civilian dietary boot camp she puts them through and as I recall, she does say that the first bit is more brutal than the maintenance diet. I love the tables full of a weeks worth of food, before and after. I know they are the equivalent to the before/after glamour shots, but holy bejeebus, it is all one color and well, unfathomably gross when it is all laid out like that.

Disclaimer: I am a Southern Girl through and through, I loves me some Golden Brown and Delicious fried foods, but those folks are off the deep end. Now pass the brussel sprouts!

11

Like Auntbeast, it always astonishes me how the ‘before’ week of food is invariably a single shade of golden-brown–the colour of deepfry.

I think McHeath or MacKeith or… Gillian, misrepresented her credentials, which disillusioned me. I’ll still watch the show if it comes on, though. I’m a sucker for before-and-after makeover shows of all kind, and it does encourage me to eat more fruit and veg. Colour!

I disregard the stuff about colonics and other baloney.

12

I should probably give this show a try–‘How Clean is your House’ never fails to inspire me to clean because I’m terrified of becoming one of those people. I’m trying to eat better and lose some weight, and though I do not live on chips and beer, maybe this will inspire me to cut down on junk.

Motivation through fear and the humiliation of others–probably not the best method, but hey, whatever works…

13

Agreed, roll your eyes at the quackery and get motivated by seeing the good food ideas - and the scary tables full of yucky food. I try to picture my weekly table-o-food when I want to eat junk food.

I read through some of the stuff on Wiki about the show and the host, and one article mentioned derisively the fake grave and tombstone made of chocolate. I saw that episode, and frankly I think McKeith was right about the “Death By Chocolate” inscription on the tombstone. The woman admitted to a “mild” chocolate allergy that had been getting worse over time, and which made her throat itchy, but she still ate chocolate! :eek: If she didn’t knock it off, she’d be likely to someday have that allergy develop into a bad anaphylaxis reaction, which might kill her. Admittedly that’s one incident out of many shows where she yaps on about how young these people will die, but those estimates might not be all that far off either.

14

Here’s a link to a bunch of her recipes if anyone’s interested. I’m thinking about trying the Butternut Squash and Sweet Potato Soup tonight if I can find all the ingredients.

http://www.channel4.com/entertainment/tv/microsites/Y/yawye/recipes.html

15

Oh man. Was in London recently and my friend had me watch this during breakfast. Could have used a heads up about the poop inspection. The host annoys me, but I’ll be damned if she doesn’t have a point. I don’t like seeing all the junk food spread out like that, though, over the table, only to be (presumably) thrown out. Even if it is bad for you, it seems wasteful.

16

I’ve never seen the show. Just out of curiosity, what does she use the poop for? I mean what is she supposed to be learning from it?

17

She uses the poo to demonstrate to her “patients” how sluggish and befouled their digestive systems are, berating them about the consistancy and stench. I’m reminded of Dr. Harvey Kellog in The Road to Wellville: “My own stools, Sir, are gigantic and have no more odor than a hot biscuit.”

I watch it sometimes hoping for recipe ideas because I keep fantasizing about someday being able to cook vegetables and have them be, you know, edible (no matter what I do to them they all taste like bitter dirt) but some of the stuff she cooks scares me. You don’t take away a man’s cheeseburger and give him tofu.

18

So you can tell how healthy someone is just by looking at their poop? Seriously? Like, not going through it but just by staring at it?

19

I can’t stand the woman. Guardian columnist (and qualified doctor) Ben Goldacre has been after her for a while - the chapter in his book Bad Science on her is a thing of beauty (and there’s enough free criticism of her spurious claims availabl for free).

20

I can’t wait for some tubby bloke who, when confronted with week’s worth of pies, choccie and burgers and her ranting on at him, goes mad and bites her face off.