For the past 2 years, I have been an avid reader & subscriber of the magazine Zest.  For those of you who aren’t familiar with this publication, I’ll save you trouble of Googling it: “The UK’s Top-Selling Women’s Healthy Lifestyle Magazine”.

Key word: “Healthy”

It accredits itself as being the ultimate guide for women with expert health, fitness, nutrition and beauty advice, practical plans and challenges to follow.  Zest thrives on the notion that it’s healthy when in retrospect, it’s anything but.  Consider a sample day within its Flat-Tummy Diet Plan in the June 2011 issue:

On waking: Mug of slightly cooled boiled water with freshly squeezed lemon or lime and 1 dose of probiotic fibre

Breakfast: 2-egg white omelet with purple-sprouting broccoli

Snack, mid-morning: 100g lean white meat and a quarter of a cucumber

Lunch: 1 chicken breast with steamed asparagus

Snack, mid-afternoon: 100g lean white meat and a quarter of a cucumber

Dinner: Steamed cod with steamed pak choy

Before bed: Probiotic fibre in a glass of water

Are these people for real?? Is this meant to be appetising? Are we, as a society, that desperate for a flat stomach that we have to resort to this kind of menu plan?  Or better yet, are we so vulnerable to believe that being in shape requires such neurotic behavior??  The above menu plan barely works out to 500 calories a day, a third of the general calorie guideline to lose weight. Since the formula for weight loss is to burn more calories than you consume, the fools at Zest many people erroneously assume that a dramatic cutback in caloric intake results in rapid weight loss.  When dropping your caloric intake, your metabolism responds by slowing down and puts your body into starvation mode- where every calorie possible is conserved. Engaging in a diet like this will likely result in no weight loss and maybe even weight gain.  More than just that, where are the carbs for energy? Where are the healthy fats for glowing skin and radiant hair?

Magazines like Zest promote the notion that ‘healthy’ and ‘weight loss’ are in line with eating the bare minimum.  Health is all-encompassing and stretches beyond looking good.  Being healthy means being happy and having the energy to live life to the fullest. I don’t know about you but if I have a flat tummy, you can damn right believe that I want to look my best and feel my best too…not Lil Miss Cranky pants reminiscing about bread and pasta, having stinky urine, and putting myself at the risk of gout.

As part of a monthly subscription, Zest is a steal.  But whether it costs £1 or 10, I do not want to contribute towards the spread of such misleading information.  Yes, you might be able to keep up with this kind of diet for a week and ‘win the battle’ but believe you me, you’ll ultimately end up losing the war.

Zest, shame on you for unwarrantly grabbing the title of a ‘healthy’ magazine!