Ah, but now I am pontificating. So I will show great self-restraint and just give you my thoughts on this book in my trademarked and smart-aleck format.
Hook: David Kirsch helped supermodel Heide Klum get back into her Victoria’s Secret skivvies only eight weeks after giving birth to her second kid, and he’s going to share his secrets with us.
Gimmick: Kirsch promises a 14-pound weight loss in the first two weeks of the program through an incredibly restrictive diet, and claims that rapid weight loss is healthy and beneficial. There seems to be a preponderance of evidence to refute the position that rapid weight loss is healthy and beneficial.
Inconsistency: Kirsch says that he was against all kinds of rapid weight loss programs and changed his mind only when approached by ABC, who wanted him to design a rapid weight loss program for the television show Extreme Makeover. There isn’t too much data to indicate that rapid weight loss is beneficial and there certainly wasn’t any ground-breaking study that made Kirsch change his mind. The way the book reads, Kirsch became a proponent of rapid weight loss because he was offered a job by the ABC network. Not a good reason to change your mind. But hey, that’s just me.
Glaring Omissions: There are several. First of all there isn’t any real discussion with regard to Kirsch’s theory that rapid weight loss is beneficial or necessary. Despite being told rapid weight loss is good, Kirsch never really tells us why rapid weight loss is necessary. We don’t get too much real evidence to show us that rapid weight loss is beneficial either. And while there is a decent bibliography, we don’t get enough specifics about studies that Kirsch uses to support his various positions and statements.
Also, Kirsch doesn’t seem to recognize that people of different sizes have different caloric requirements to support their basic metabolic needs. For instance, a 225-pound person needs more calories than a 150-pound person to maintain muscle and support other vital functions, yet meals in Kirsch’s Phase 1 never contains more than about 975 calories.
Article comments
1 - Natalie Bennett
This article has been selected for syndication to Advance.net, which is affiliated with newspapers around the United States. Nice work!
2 - Carrie
David makes it very clear that this should only be done for two weeks. Since you read so much of the book, you should have read that as well. It's just a quick fix. No one said to live by this book for the rest of your life. People,,,,,,,,,,it works!!!