Fitness Classic's Archive

HAD MY PHIL
by Liz Neporent

      I hate Dr. Phil. I change the channel as fast as I can when I hear his booming voice berating yet another one of his hapless victims into submission. I think he represents the worst in pop psychology - finding the weakest in our society and bringing them to their knees in an effort to boost his own ratings.
     What fights are to Jerry Springer, tears are to Dr. Phil. Take a complex human being with many layers and many years of psychological trauma, tell him to stop acting like a baby, make him cry before the commercial break and pretend you're the greatest thing since Freud.

   So, when the good doctor pokes his shiny pate into my world, the world of fitness and weight control, by publishing a book called The Ultimate Weight Solution, my antennae go up. I'm interested in reading this book because I want to see if the oversimplification he exhibits on his show is reproduced on the pages of his book - and so, is due for a trashing - but I also want to see if he gets anything right.

    The book highlights seven keys to weight loss, two of which are nutrition and fitness. His advice on nutrition boils down to keeping your portions small and dividing your plate into four parts (one part meat, one part starch, two parts fruit and vegetables). His fitness advice amounts to exercising more. I applaud this basic information and the fact that he doesn't even mention the word "protein" until page 162, but these chapters are woefully inadequate, loaded with junk science, and glossed over in pretty much the way I'd expect from Dr. Phil.

    I'd like to be able to end the review there but there are still the other five keys to discuss.

    The five keys deal with the root emotional aspects of why we eat too much and move too little. They explore things like what we believe about ourselves and how important these beliefs are to the weight-loss process, how to manage a fattening environment, and the power of emotional support. As much as I hate to admit it, all of this Oprah-fied therapy makes a lot of sense. It's as shallow as anything else that comes out of Dr. Phil's mouth, but it makes me think about how often we fail to address these issues as deeply as we should.

    Most people who are overweight don't care about the science behind weight loss and calorie balance. They want to know why they are fat and how they can stop being fat. While the fitness industry is busy pushing things like functional training, Pilates and Bosu, Dr. Phil is offering up short, multiple choice quizzes that provide people with a broad-stroke look at their motivation. Is this a bad thing?

    I don't think fitness professionals ask enough Dr. Phil-type questions such as, "Who do you blame for your weight gain?"; "Do you find yourself eating when you're tired?" or "Does your desk drawer look like a convenience store?". It strikes me that these are good questions for people to explore and that once they know the answers they'll have a certain amount of understanding - and thus control - over their weight-management fortunes.

    Dr. Phil reaches the population that has been difficult for the fitness industry to reach - the 80 percent of people who don't exercise enough to meet the minimum requirements set forth by the Surgeon General and the two-thirds of Americans who are now considered overweight or obese. We understand that people gain weight out of frustration, exhaustion, boredom and fear, but do we address these issues past acknowledging them?

   People are listening to Dr. Phil when they should be listening to people who are knowledgeable about health and fitness. I think we should take his approach and run with it. So I say, buy his book. Read it. Correct the pseudoscience. But use all his gooey pop psych to help make your training more effective. I still hate Dr. Phil, but I think he's got something to offer all of us.

Fitness Classic Nutrition Dilemmas Diet Concepts
Exercise Ideas Strength Training Healthy Mind Fitness Opinions