How Safe is Sensa Weight Loss-Part 2

Lately we have received a lot of interest in our Sensa blog post. So much so that we felt that it might be a good time to do a follow up blog.

Being a professional hypnotist doesn’t make me naive to the realities of the world. And although I often promote the benefits of using hypnosis as a standalone item in place of diets, pills, medications and drugs, I also understand that things like nutritional value and proper exercise are also part of a well-balanced and healthy lifestyle. I simply feel that before people run out and begin purchasing that “new breakthrough” item a few things ought to be considered beforehand. That being said, let’s begin.

My personal opinion is that I am much more concerned about trying something that I know very little about, then I am about using something that I already know to be unhealthy for sure. My reason for this is simple. At least if I already know that something is harmful for me I have the choice based on all the facts-NOT to use that item. However, when there is a lack of data about a product due to no long-term studies being performed...well let's just say that I am not sure that I want to be a test subject for any company.

So let’s take a look at what Sensa is anyway.

This fad is often called “The Sprinkle Diet”. The premise is that by sprinkling some granules on your food before you eat will help you eat less and in return, lose weight.

These sprinkles were developed by Dr. Hirsch, who focuses his studies on taste and smell. The sprinkles are supposed to heighten the flavor of the food, making sweets sweeter and salty food saltier, tricking your brain into thinking you’re full. The Sprinkle Diet promises you that you can eat whatever you want without a thought for nutrition or health and that you’ll still lose weight because you’ll eat less.

So for many people this sounds like a dream come true. We have suddenly found the magical key to the entire kingdom. We have located that missing puzzle piece and solved all of our weight problems. If Albert Einstein were alive he would be scratching his head in disbelief at what we have accomplished. After all, this idea sounds even more awe inspiring than putting a man on the moon. Or is it?

Let's take a closer look at some overlooked factors.

When people talk about an item being safe or dangerous and healthy or unhealthy, there are always several factors involved in determining that outcome. For example, I could write an article that says “Cigarettes Are Safe.” And in my article I could go on to explain that I have had a cigarette sitting on my coffee table for 30 years now and it has not killed me so far. And so, in a sense this would 100% true. However, once I light that cigarette and begin smoking I am now playing by a whole new set of rules.

For that cigarette to actually be considered a harmful item I would most likely need to smoke many cigarettes every single day for an extended period of time before I begin to see exactly what affect smoking has on me. So this in and of itself, is what’s wrong with simply implying whether something is good or bad for you. A lack of knowledge and understanding about all of the factors involved.

So let’s look at why sprinkles may not be the best choice.

The #1 major flaw with The Sprinkle Diet is that the majority of people who are overweight and/or obese eat when they are NOT hungry and DO NOT stop when they are full!! If you’re overweight you’re very likely an emotional eater, a compulsive overeater, a binge eater, a food addict, or some combination of these. So even if The Sprinkle Diet tricks your brain into thinking it’s full, if you have any of these eating disorders you’ll still overeat just like you always have. It won’t matter if you think you’re full or not!

The second thing to look at is that there is no nutritional education involved. This item is all about eating the very same fast food, processed food, and junk food which contains sugar, unhealthy fats and loads of sodium. And these are the items that bring your metabolism to a slow crawl. So if you put weight loss aside and only look at health, you are still be eating the very same foods as before which causes inflammation in the body, the #1 cause of disease.

The third thing to consider is that there is no exercise plan. The Sprinkle Diet does nothing to promote regular cardiovascular activity or strength training because it is designed to be a "quick fix". Therefore, even if it does help you lose weight your body will only look thinner but that does not mean you are healthier. Remember that people who suffer from anorexia or who are diagnosed with cancer frequently lose weight. But that does not mean that their bodies are healthier for it.

The forth reason on our list is the lack of long term results. If you find that the Sprinkle Diet does work for you and you are happy with the results then you will have to continue to use those sprinkles forever. Realistically could a person do that? Sure, if the item is still available in the future and if you’re willing to continue paying $60.00 every month for the rest of your life, assuming that there will never be a price increase.

Number five is that the product is relatively new. They can call it "safe" all day long but the reality is that nobody truly knows what the long-term affect of putting these sprinkles on your food will be on your health in years to come. Look at Splenda for example, that’s a sweetener that greatly enhances the sweetness of your food and has been around for a while. Yet we still don’t have any idea what the long-term health effects are from using it.

And the last reason is that there is a lack of naturalness. Although we haven’t found the actual ingredients posted anywhere, the media reports that, “the sprinkles are non-caloric and contain artificial and natural ingredients approved for use in food products”. This is very misleading. After all, what else is currently approved for use in food products but necessarily healthy? Crystalline fructose, sodium, high fructose corn syrup, Splenda, MSG, and plain old table sugar just to name a few. Although these are all approved for use in food products, none of them are truly healthy for you and they certainly don’t help you lose any weight.

And so to wrap things up...The Sprinkle Diet does nothing to help you understand why you are overweight and why you overeat. It’s not a cure for depression, low self-esteem, a lack of nutritional understanding, emotional eating, a sedentary lifestyle, or unhealthy habits. So it’s a $60.00 a month POSSIBLE short-term fix with no long-term health benefits and to date, unknown long-term health risks.

And as for the health studies…Dr. Hirsch states that he did a “peer reviewed clinical study of nearly 1,500 people who used the sprinkles on everything they ate without changing their diet or exercise routine” and found that there was an average weight loss of 30.5 pounds in 6 months.

However, we don’t know who those 1500 people were. We don’t know if those people were already leading a healthy or semi-healthy lifestyle by exercising regularly and eating healthy the majority of the time. Because if they were, then most likely they were already on the path to losing weight anyway. So naturally if you give The Sprinkle Diet to a group like that then of course you’re going to see weight loss because they’re already working on it!

My conclusion: if you are considering dropping $60.00 or more per month for those sprinkles I strongly urge you to put your money into something that will give you a lifetime of healthy results. Spend 1/2 of that monthly Sprinkle Diet money on something like hypnosis, which can help you by encouraging you to eat healthier. And maybe take the money that you saved and invest it into something else that will actually make you feel better about yourself. No matter how you slice it, Sensa is just another unnatural magical mask that hides the root cause of something rather than actually fixing it.

Lose Weight With Hypnosis