Can 12 hours and Dh1,499 get you in perfect shape in UAE?

Running on the treadmill for hours, forming running groups to lose the extra kilos piled over the years, watching each morsel that you bite into and still not getting a body that you fantasise … all this can be quite frustrating.

Starting and sticking to a strict diet regime can be one of the most difficult things to do. It takes years of hard work for people to shed and maintain weight when some of us believe that simply looking at fatty food is making us put on the kilos.

For the disheartened ones, losing weight now seems easy, or so claims a new advert from a Thai Spa. This new deal in the country promises you to get “fit and fabulous” with their slimming package (which includes several sessions), all for just Dh1,499.

The deal comprises of five sessions, each of Ultralipo, velasmooth and LPG CelluM6. Each session is about 40-50 minutes long. Even if we consider each session lasting 50 minutes, the total time an individual will spend to get a well-toned body is only 12.5 hours, just half a day. Really?

Doctors at Al Noor hospital warn patients/overweight people to be wary of quick fixes.

“You may be tempted by fad diets that promise fast and easy weight loss. The reality, however, is that there are no magic foods or quick fixes. Special diets such as low-carbohydrate diets may produce weight loss in the short-term, but the long-term results don't appear to be any better than other diets.

“Similarly, you may lose weight on a crash diet, but you're likely to regain it when you stop the diet. To lose weight — and keep it off — you have to adopt healthy eating habits that you can maintain over time,” as per the obesity centre of the hospital.

Even though some believers have subscribed to the promises made in the advert, a few customers that this website spoke with will not buy what is being sold to them.

“If losing weight was so easy, nobody would be overweight. How can anybody do it so quickly? It has to be the hard way and losing weight for over-sized people is a lifelong chore,” said a reader who did not wish to be named.

With an ever increasing girth of UAE residents, such deals will get some takers. A recent study shows that UAE is currently considered to have one of the highest rates of obesity in the world.

But some of those bogged down by weighty issues wouldn’t mind half a day in the spa and doling out Dh1,500, clinging to the hope it may just work. But will it?

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