Over at 43 Folders, Gordon Meyer praises the Powerseed, a gadget designed to help you lose weight by flashing a little green light every 30 seconds (a signal to take a bite of food). He likes it as a general purpose mindfulness tool.
[W]hile it is marketed primarily for weight loss, it turns out to be a useful reminder/timer for virtually any activity where mindfulness is important. It’s a sleek, battery-powered pod about as big as the end of your thumb. It offers both visual and audible queues, and operates in a couple of different coaching modes. The basic idea is that it is a discrete coach that prompts you to “check-in” with yourself. It signals both short and long regular intervals, which are useful for being aware of time passing, as well as performing different routines are each mark.
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its a good idea. Keeping your mind on your goals is a big part of losing weight.
Of course the best diet i've found is: eat healthy, exercise, burn more than you intake.
That diet failed on me twice before for the simple fact that i just didn't do it. A lot of people think perfectly good diets don't work because they don't actually follow them.
The last time around the fact the scale told me i weighed 220 pounds kept the diet in my mind. I lost about 10 pounds in a little over a month.
How would I lose weight by taking a bite every 30 seconds? That's about 20 sandwiches an hour....
I have been using the the countdown timer in my Timex Expedition watch for 10 years now to do just this.
jim.cowling: It's a mental thing. Not wolfing down food as quickly as possible allows your brain to process that you're full and makes you feel satiated.
Makes you feel satiated, maybe. I'd just run out of bread.
I thought this might be a good tool for a lot of things, but HOLY CRAP! $49.95 for an lcd diode and a logic circuit? Even throwing in the sprightly packaging and the helpful 20 page booklet, that's what, $3.75? I am definitely in the wrong business.
Ahem, $50 for a small blinking light?
now can we have a version which mimics my nagging, jewish mother, for authenticity? a small black device which emits the voice of an embarassingly ethnic stereotype?
"don't eat so fast - you're going to choke !!! now stop, chew, chew - OK so now take another bite. your father, God rest his soul, he would be horrified to see you stuffing yourself like that... what, you don't want any more? full already? you're going to starve not eating like that - here, have some more, but remeber to chew slowly !!!"
oy.
'd rthr wr crcfx rnd my nck -
t wld rmnd m nt t t t mch (Jss ws nt vrwght... bttr nsprtn thn Vlr Brtnll!) nd wld ls kp th vmprs wy
Glancing at the clock on my wall: FREE
This would be counterproductive. One of the best ways to eat less and end up satiated is to concentrate on the taste, texture, and warmth of the food you're eating and on the process of chewing and swallowing. Waiting for an LED to blink takes your mind off the sensual aspects of eating and puts you in a state of constant anticipation, which would leave you nearly as hungry after you ate as before.
A gadget can't cause you to be mindful. It can only direct your attention away from yourself and your goal and toward the gadget. The best and only way to be mindful: remove all distractions and be mindful. It takes practice, not a gimmick.
Yes, there are plenty of mindfulness exercises that won't cost you $50. Paying close attention to the little voice in your head that repeats "More stuff! More stuff! More stuff!", returning to your breath, and considering where that voice originates is one of them.
Not only is it too damn expensive, I'd lose this thing so fast that it wouldn't even be funny.
#12: Jack, it will probably be stuck beside your Zen Desktop Water Fountain, or maybe your cat buried it in the sand of your Zen Desktop Rock Garden. Also check behind your Desktop Zen Gong and around the pile of Feng Shui-inspired decorating books. Did it get tacked to your Wishboard by accident? Or maybe it's somewhere in that giant pile of Wayne Dyer paraphernalia PBS keeps sending you. If nowhere else, maybe it's somehow gotten trapped in the dvd player with that copy of The Secret.
hmmm... what if,say, you took a bite and chewed it before swallowing every four breaths?
How DID we measure time before clocks?
This is why other countries hate us.
A Magic 8-Ball is more useful.
"Ahem, $50 for a small blinking light?"
But what if we call it the iPowerseed?
The more I thought of this, the more I was reminded of Mitchell and Webb:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=tJSlRyQfho4
I have to agree $50!?!?!? This is an instructable begging to be written.
OK guys, How about cutting some slack? The $50 price point was for a beta market test. Manufacturing and startup costs for a beta product are always high because of low volume and high expenses for tooling, etc. The price should come down significantly with increased volume.
Press coverage understandably focuses on the tiny Powerseed eating coach because it’s unique, and visually interesting. Still, it’s just one tool for implementing the cognitive strategies described in the 112-page companion guidebook.
In addition to teaching mindful eating skills for the dinner table, there are strategies to confront cravings, emotional eating and negative thoughts that often derail our weight control efforts. We also place great stress on getting enough exercise — it’s an essential element of a balanced weight maintenance program. In other words, the value build is in the overall approach—the system.
The Powerseed coach is just a focusing tool to intentionally disrupt ingrained eating patterns, counterproductive thoughts and daydreaming so that eating becomes an intentional, cognitively engaged, present moment experience.
When people do this they can listen to their body’s messages of hunger and satiety, actually taste and enjoy their food, and avoid consuming hundreds of mindless calories each day. Yes, eating in this manner does slow the pace of eating for most people but this is a secondary benefit, not the purpose. Think of the Powerseed eating coach as an attention-focusing device instead of a bite timer and you’ll be on the right track.
The real test of a product’s effectiveness can only be rendered by those who seriously pursue it. 85% of customers surveyed say the Powerseed System was better than other weight control programs they had tried.
The old cognitive dissonance scam; "I've laid out fifty bucks for this gimmick so I better make it work or look like a complete gorn"
It works.
It doesn't give queues, it gives cues. It isn't discrete, it's discreet.
I hope that wording isn't from a published review.
Hucksterism! "The $50 price point was for a beta market test..." In other words, to see if you could get away with it. Last time I saw one of these gizmos it was being marketed as a wear-round-your-neck amulet to 'focus your aura' or some such shite. If people want to pay silly prices for stupid products that's up to them - but all these things do is undermine people's ability to take responsibility for their own lives. Wanna lose weight? Eat much less, exercise lots more. And if it's hard to remember that - try harder.
Oh, it comes with a BOOK!?!
Where do I flush, er send my money?