Ever since the Harvey Weinstein story broke and Gwyneth Paltrow became one of the first actresses to go on the record about him, I’ve been reevaluating her and giving her a pass on most things. Does the fact that Gwyneth is a victim of a sexual predator change the fact that her Goop is full of lies and nonsense? No, it doesn’t change anything. I just haven’t felt like yelling at her about her Goopy nonsense lately. But I guess I need to dust off my old Goop-hate, because my God, Gwyneth’s Goop is STILL THE WORST.
First off, Jezebel reported last week that Gwyneth’s upcoming In Goop Health summit is already running into some well-deserved bad press. The In Goop Health thing is a total scam – it’s just rich white women paying exorbitant amounts of money to be told that they’re “stressed out” and they need magic, healing stickers and crystals to help them, at the cost of $500 per sticker or whatever. It’s fake science and it’s a summit for snake-oil saleswomen. One of the saleswomen is apparently an “expert” in how HIV doesn’t cause AIDS (????) and AIDS antiretroviral drugs actually cause deaths. Sure. You can read more about this person here at Jezebel.
In addition to the In Goop Health summit – which, let’s face it, is going to be a cash cow and trainwreck – Gwyneth has also been Gooping along with her favorite subject: peasants are too fat and they must receive advice about unhealthy crash diets so that they can stop being so fat and peasanty. Goop recently published a piece by Tracy Anderson (shocking) wherein Tracy recommended a diet that would help you lose 14 pounds in four weeks, just by cutting out gluten entirely and “going very low carb.” Oh, and replacing all of your meals with Tracy’s meal replacement bars. It wouldn’t be a Goop post if there wasn’t someone shady doing a cross-promotion. Anyway, after professional dieticians were like “this is f–king awful advice,” Goop had to issue a statement, as did Tracy:
Gwyneth Paltrow’s company, Goop, is once again coming under fire for its controversial advice concerning health and weight loss. The company is fighting back against claims that it is endorsing an unhealthy and “potentially harmful” diet plan after it recently published weight loss advice from celebrity fitness guru Tracy Anderson. In a statement to E! News, a representative for Goop said, “We would never advocate for an unhealthy diet or extreme routine. As Tracy said in the interview, you should make choices based on what is best for your individual body.”
Anderson, who has worked with celebrities like Jennifer Lopez and Madonna, wrote that if women wish to see fast results and “do a 14-lb. weight loss in four weeks,” they should “get off gluten and go very low carb.” Anderson also suggested her meal replacement bars, which she claimed are a “healthy combination of protein, energy and flavor that will satisfy you and support your weight management or weight loss journey.”
Anderson’s claims were quickly challenged by Harley Street nutritionist Rhiannon Lambert, who told the The Independent, “I am in complete shock that this article has been published as this has the potential to harm a lot of relationships with food.” Lambert particularly criticized Anderson’s assertion that cutting out carbs and gluten will speed up the weight loss process, saying, “It is not sensible to eliminate whole food groups or make drastic dietary changes which are not sustainable.”
In response to the sharp criticism the article has drawn, a spokesperson for Anderson told E! News Wednesday, “Over the course of her 20-year career, Tracy has consistently practiced owning a 1-2 lb. weight loss per week when someone has unhealthy weight to lose. Owning a 1-2 lb. weight loss per week is different than simply dropping 1-2 lbs. per week, which causes people to hold onto unhealthy weight. Of the 14 lbs. that someone could effectively lose in a month—if they have excess weight on them—the goal is to own 8 lbs. of that, which is aligned with Tracy’s practice of not living on extreme diets.” The spokesperson added, “Tracy does not advocate for processed foods existing in a healthy diet.”
Basically, neither Tracy nor Gwyneth actually came out and issued personal statements along the lines of “we’re sorry for consistently promoting fad diets, junk science and body-shaming masking as wellness, but we’re trying to make money off of fat peasants and rich bitches.” And what would happen if they did issue that statement? I bet In Goop Health would still be sold out. Because we are living in Peak 2017, where every stupid thing is embraced and applauded.
Photos courtesy of Pacific Coast News and Backgrid.
Reminder that Goop is still trash promoting trash “health”
I dont understand why people look for advice in some Hollywood twat. She does not look healthy, she is not a doctor, she is not a nutritionist- so why of all people is an actress equipped to give sound advice is beyond me. Whats next? Legal advice by goop?
lol. Goop as an investment counselor!
And yet she looks unhealthy to me. Dull complexion, brittle hair, off the wall nonsensical musings. I don’t see her as a paragon of health.
This.
I also believe she has an early form of osteoporosis caused by her diet.
Pretty sure that Goopy is just a woman who has become convinced that her disordered eating is actually some sort of secret key to health.
She does have early osteoporosis, she’s admitted as much. NO ONE should listen to this shill or her shady wannabe-health-guru
They both look older and harder than their ages. The tanning and bleached hair don’t help.
Her face always has a raw look to it
And doesn’t Health Goddess Paltrow smoke?
Actual, real science & decades-long, extensive studies have proven the damage of smoking, so I hope she doesn’t think depleting essential nutrients, dry cleaning her genitals, and drinking lambs’ tears is counterbalancing anything, cuz her skin & hair CLEARLY shows otherwise…
I’ve always suspected that all her meddling with her diet is because she has multiple physical problems and is looking for ways to feel better. She may be a bundle of undiagnosed allergies and intolerances, for example. (No, lab tests aren’t that helpful because of their inherent limitations. Better than nothing for children, but adults need to be detectives and eliminate/reintroduce and then avoid eating the same thing every day, since the tendency toward developing allergies and such seems to be what is inherited ). Or she may use up certain vitamins and minerals too rapidly, as can happen with allergies or stress. Or she may have unusually high inborn needs for some of them, or malabsorption problems.
She does also have the typical obsession with being thin characteristic of her occupation and social class and might also be prone to eating disorders, but I think there is an underlying fragility there as well that she’s trying to address in her own way. She just needs much better guidance than she’s getting. The pursuit of thinness doesn’t really help. Her healthy weight is likely to be much higher than her current weight and she is likely restricting calories too much, especially the good fats such as in nuts and seeds if she is into low fat.
I think you’re being very kind to Goop. I tend to think her problems are of the mental variety. Plus she is a spoiled rich white woman who has been over indulged all her life. Her hair and skin show exactly how harmful her diet is. And then there are the cigarettes….
She once had an eating disorder and I have found sometimes people who have not completely healed from their ED switch the problem over to another eating disorder and that is an obsession with “healthy” but extreme diets that makes them feel like they are just trying to be healthy but underneath the obsession with thinness is still there.
ITA. If someone like JLo was peddling some elixir of youth, I would be down for it…she really does look healthy!
If that’s what we would look like buying their trash, then no thank you. The two of them are not exactly pictures of health and wellness
These grifters have no relevant education on these subjects. They should be shut down.
This. So this. Why are they experts on these matters? Also they are not the poster childs for good health
I don’t get the difference between “owning” 2lbs lose and “dropping” 2 lbs. What the heck are they talking about?
That puzzled me too Carol. Is this some crazy diet language that I don’t speak?
That was confusing me too.
I didn’t get that either! Maybe dropping means that you starved yourself to get it and owning it means that you got it through healthy, long-term lifestyle changes. Just a guess…
I thought the “HIV-AIDS” resource person went to a top med school. She is an actual MD.
No processed foods? I guess protein bars grow on trees, then.
SPOT ON!
Exactly. I was down with a sinus infection the other day and couldn’t muster up the energy to make anything so I ate one of my son’s protein bars. Nasty. It reminded me why I don’t eat energy bars of any kind, I’d much rather stuff a sandwich in my pocket for a long hike.
Bars are my last resort, because I’m on the go a lot and if I’m going to go for a long run midday I need the calories without having a big meal sitting in my stomach. Except… they’re disgusting. Almost across the board they’re gross.
Your son must be eating the protein bars aimed at athletes. Today there are actually much tastier ones available for regular people who just want a quick meal on the run.
But if you’re feeling awful, everything might be tasting like cardboard from either the illness or the medication. Some antibiotics really kill the joy of eating for me – I remember being delighted when I was down to just one milder-mannered antibiotic and peanut butter actually tasted like peanut butter again.
By the way, nomeatathlete has a great universal recipe for making your own energy bars. They tell you the amounts to use in certain categories (like grains, nuts, seeds, fruit, oil) so you can mix and match the ingredients as much as you want. They can be frozen also. The recipe is simple enough that even I could do it, if I just got a little more organized.
I don’t eat them because like you I’d rather eat food. On long hikes I pack food with healthy fats, protein, and whole carbs. Protein bars don’t make me less hungry, but you can make your own if you are motivated and have food intolerances. I make some for my kids and for people with kids who have poor appetites or are picky it is a way of sneaking some nutrients into something that is a treat.
Annabelle- You can get or make good energy bars with plenty of protein from whole and natural ingredients. Technically anything we peel, mash, blend, or cook is “processed” but usually that refers to commercial foods that have a lot of things in them your great great grandmother wouldn’t recognize. Check labels or make your own.
These people are rich. They can afford the best. They don’t pick up their protein-energy bars in the discount bin at the Dollar Store. And they can have their cooks make up a batch of bars for them….
Lol, yeah, I’m sure her protein are SUPER processed.
What the hell does “owning” a weight loss mean?
Thank you for asking and I hope someone can explain it
Thank you. My very question.
Yes, thank you. I felt like my brain was short circuiting. Word salad, a la Trump.
I was wondering that also. what’s the difference between “owning” a weight loss and simply “dropping” the weight loss. Maybe it’s her excuse to allow that “dropped” weight to be put back on. 14 lbs in a month is unhealthy and you are likely to put the weight back on.
I read it in reverse, as in “owning” that fat because “you” are **responsible** for not keeping your trap closed and eating too much food.
Yes I still remember that 600Cal diet plus 2hrs of exercise a day TA promoted. She is UNQUALIFIED to offer diet and nutritional advice.
Gluten does not make people fat. There were times when I was eating quite a lot of my own seitan – that’s pure gluten and I didn’t gain weight. In theory, if I only ate seitan, my weight would have dropped and I would have become malnourished. But no, it would have not made me fat.
These two hate themselves and hate people who don’t fit their “standards”. Really, these two should eat more, the brain needs nutrients too. AND, out of all organs, the brain has the HIGHEST requirement of energy – which comes from FOOD.
If you’re actually sensitive to gluten (with an allergy), you can drop weight more quickly than expected. Happened to me once my food allergies were diagnosed. Most likely this was due to a lot of water retention, which happens when you eat your allergens or intolerances. I was eating plenty, just not my allergenic foods and I also was rotating foods to make it easier to spot any remaining problems. That means eating fewer foods at a meal (even just one or two) but larger amounts and more meals per day. It all works out to a healthy diet with enough protein and fiber and sufficient calories per day.
Carbs also absorb more water (3x as much). So when you don’t eat carbs you shed a bunch of water weight immediately.
In the context, I think that she means sustainable. With healthy diet and exercise a 1-2 pound weight loss weekly is attainable and sustainable (with maintenance and plateaus) whereas you ‘can’ lose 3-5 pounds a week on a fad diet but you are most likely to regain that weight and possibly more.
i.e. I gotta lose 10 pounds before this wedding, reunion, trip, etc.
Ah, then there’s already a better word for it — ‘sustainable’!
I wouldn’t necessarily classify 14lbs loss in four weeks as a crash diet. It’s reasonable for someone carrying a lot of extra weight, but even someone with less weight might have that high a loss the first month due to considerable loss of retained water. (Water retention in the body tissues is actually a large fraction of the weight in those TV cases of people who are several hundred pounds s bedridden.)
Two pounds per week is considered normal and safe if you start at a high enough weight (maybe at least in the neighborhood of 200 pounds) but as you lose, the rate should go down.
Now if she’s talking about someone who is 130 pounds and wants to lose 14 pounds in 4 weeks – yeah, that’s a crash diet. People with lower body weight really have to do it more slowly. There are guidelines but at some point you should avoid faster than 1lb per week and then half a pound per week.
I think it means fat loss as opposed to fluid loss which is easily regained.
Not that I’m condoning Anderson’s advice, I think she’s a rip-off merchant, but the only time I’ve managed to deliberately lose weight by controlling my diet was low-carb (ie not through stress or illness). That said the general advice re diet is balanced and cutting out processed foods.
There is good evidence that low carb can be healthy. Diabetics in particular can benefit from very low carb, even aiming at 20-50 grams per day. You just have to be smart about your other food choices. A less rigorous low carb diet might be in the 100 grams range, which isn’t that hard to achieve. I track food and although I don’t restrict carbs, apparently about 150 grams carbohydrate per day is actually pretty normal for me if I’m not eating junk. If I needed to do it, I don’t think it would be difficult for me to get that number lower.
@jwoolman – actually for type 1 diabetics it has been shown that the substitution of fat for carbs was associated with higher A1c levels, about a full percentage point, and the American Diabetes Association recommends that between 40 – 50% of a diabetic’s diet should be carbohydrates. Mr. Jaded has been type 1 for 28 years now and monitors his diet strictly. If he doesn’t get enough carbs at each meal his blood sugar levels drop precipitously. I had to rush him to the hospital a few months ago when he’d had a high protein dinner, didn’t check his blood before heading to bed, and I woke up in the middle of the night with him in full diabetic seizures so strong he dislocated his shoulder. I don’t know about type 2 diabetes so can’t comment on the efficacy of a low carb diet for them.
@Jaded My mom has Type I as well but several others in my family have Type II so hopefully I can add on to what you are saying and clear up the difference.
Type I diabetes is an autoimmune condition that is insulin-dependent (used to be known as juvenile diabetes). Type II is non-insulin dependent and used to be known as adult-onset diabetes. It was also the one associated with being overweight.
The difference in carb intake of the two is that with Type I, your body generally doesn’t produce ANY insulin and needs the added glucose because as you pointed out you can go into seizures without the proper carb balance in a meal. Whereas with Type II your body uses glucose/carbs inefficiently and can easily become overloaded so it’s better to eat more proteins and fats and limit carbs.
I think what she was trying to say was that she wants women to lose fat and water weight as opposed to just “dropping weight” by vomitting, taking laxatives, getting a hair cut, amputating a limb…etc. But another way of “owning” weight loss is through liposuction. You paid for it, you “own” it. Let’s be honest, Tracy, that is what you really meant, right? (Now everyone buy her new soap bars!)
WTF is “owning a 1 -2 lb weight loss”??? And how is that different than losing 1-2 lbs? This $hit is so stupid.
And how exactly does one “own” an 8 pound weight loss while losing 14 pounds?
Given that English is not my mother tongue I am happy to know I’m not the only one who didn’t understand that ‘owning’ thing.
I wondered that also. I have never heard of “owning” weight loss, and English is my native language.
My best guess is that she is differentiating between water/bloat weight and fat/muscle loss. e.g. when you first go on a diet, you may lose drastic amounts of weight in the first week or two because you are shedding a lot of water (this will be especially true if you go from a low-carb to a high-carb diet). But the water weight will come right back on the instant you have a “cheat” meal of, say, a good loaf of bread or some ice cream. If you then revert to regular healthy eating, the water weight will come off again within a few days. In contrast, your fat and muscle can’t just come on and off overnight, that weight change takes time and is unlikely to be impacted by an individual meal.
The meal replacement bars are unnecessary and unhealthy, but cutting most carbs and gluten for two weeks is an excellent way to lose weight. I eat no gluten and restrict my carb ms and eat a healthy primal diet and I am in excellent shape at 50.
Peasants and rich people are too fat! It is killing people!!!
Yes that can work, but as you sound like a sensible person it is safe to assume that you ate enough calories, as in not 600-800Cal as per their “expert” advice.
Protein bars do not necessarily provide nutrition. They do provide energy through sugar in its many forms. Check labels and see. No matter how natural they are meaning more natural ingredients and less or no nasty stuff. Healthy weigh loss is achieved in time through balanced meals and incorporating all macro nutrients plus water and exercise. It’s not easy to avoid all carbs. Better exclude heavily processed stuff and artificial sugar.
Each meal does not need to be balanced. Look for balance in the entire day’s eating or even over a day or two or three. The body can store nutrients, including amino acids from proteins, longer than was originally assumed when protein complementation in a single meal and the revered balanced meal in general were considered dogma. Otherwise I doubt the species would have survived.
Long ago there was an interesting study of babies’ food choices when they could select from a variety. They tended to eat what seemed terribly unbalanced at each meal, but when the calculations were done – it turned out that their choices balanced out over the course of few days.
I was at my healthiest when following a rotation diet for allergy control. I hit all the basic food groups for me in a day, but single meals typically included only one or two foods. I return to that method when under a lot of stress and my tracker confirms that I’m getting all the macronutrients needed, just in installments.
Hi barbcat, I am happy what you are doing works for you!
However, I think with Tracy Andersen, she advocates almost zero low carb, like carbs only from veggies. While working out. Just, no.
This will definitely make you drop water weight rapidly, but as my friend who is a dietitian registered to be working with eating disorders will tell you ( and thus sees people who have been low carb to drop weight and are scared to eat carbs), your body actually needs that water for all sorts of things – it is not there for no reason. The water weight all humans have helps the kidneys, liver, skin, intestines etc function and repair. One reason among many why crash dieting (where you tend to drop a lot of water weight) is bad news. And why you regain fast when you start to eat again – it is probably the body holding on to a bunch of water it had lost, so you feel puffy.
I am sure you are not so low on carbs this is a problem for you! But if you or anyone start to feel carbs (or fat) are the enemy, that is a sign To get thee to an eating disorder specialist, as any diet needs carbs, fat and protein.
The brain likes carbs but can get its energy also from breakdown of fats. The body isn’t stupid, anything as important as the brain has alternatives to Snickers bars….
Cutting anything out will generally help you lose weight until you learn how to work around it. Meat, sugar, carbs, fat.
I will tell you that before fashion weeks or shoots with swimsuits or anytime a model or actress needs to reduce bloat this very low carb type diet is done, but it should only be for a very short time and in my view professional purposes.
This is bad health advice. I can’t speak to dieting, but I do know our bodies need all the food groups. Her “diet” is hard on your kidneys and liver and doesn’t take into account if someone has silent fatty livers or kidney disorders. Until someone has a complete physical including, if possible liver and kidney imaging, extreme eating can be dangerous.
Goop and Tracy are charlatans profiting off insecurity and a society that makes women feel like our bodies aren’t good enough. It is despicable considering both of them have spent tens of thousands on their bodies with surgeries.
And another thing some actresses get lap bands to lose weight even if they aren’t obese. Again making women feel inadequate and spreading lies when if you read this YOU ARE ENOUGH AS YOU ARE! I promise you are. It is hype, and it is false.
You may have endocrine issues or food allergies or GI problems or even parasites or insulin problems, and that is medical. These two fools DO NOT have the answers.
Maybe we need some curvy beauties in the world to take up a little more space and live in their power. We aren’t supposed to look the same, and all of us should not be made to feel like we should. If you feel like you would like to lose, then that is up to the individual but if you don’t that is cool too. Healthy and fit does not equal skinny.
When your head looks like it’s so heavy your neck is going to fall over, you might want to consider changing your diet.
“One of the saleswomen is apparently an “expert” in how HIV doesn’t cause AIDS (????) and AIDS antiretroviral drugs actually cause deaths.”
Unbelievable. Or not since this happens in Goop’s “universe”? I hope that person is not allowed to speak at the “function”. This is utterly outrageous.
this is so dangerous. And people actually listen to this bullsh*it
Thanks for mentioning it’s DANGEROUS. That’s what it is.
This is disgusting. I read the Jezebel link and yeah this is a woman who identifies as a holistic health psychiatrist. Hint: Do not take your HIV/AIDS health and medication advice from a holistic health psychiatrist who denies that HIV causes AIDS.
She is also anti-vaccine, most any kind of medication, and spreads memes telling people with cancer that they shouldn’t trust chemotherapy.
Good for Dr. Jen Gunter for going after this and sticking her neck out to debunk all this woo-woo crap and lies from Goop that are actually harmful to women’s health. It’s nice that Gwyneth Paltrow is not just satisfied with being a has-been nepotism beneficiary and is actively contributing to the anti-science dumbing down of America.
I think there have been considerable improvements, but the original drug cocktails they were using for HIV positive people and AIDS really were pretty deadly on their own. I remember one case where a mother decided to stop the drugs for her child because the child’s quality of life was so awful on the drugs. She had already seen another child die while on that regimen, and she knew how the drugs themselves had interfered so much with enjoyment of a short life. The government was forcing it, unfortunately.
So that attitude toward HIV drugs may originate from earlier times. Current drugs are less harsh and apparently more successful in fending off full-blown AIDS. But there have always been HIV positive people who avoided the drugs but instead focused on building a strong immune system, which can also work. HIV is a virus and a properly functioning immune system is crucial. I think one problem with the early anti-HIV drugs was that they interfered with natural immune function. This is a problem with chemotherapy and radiation treatments for cancer also, although research now is aimed at finding more specifically targeted drugs delivered only to tumor cells with minimal damage to the healthy cells.
Current drugs are “apparently more successful”–yeah clearly! Because HIV/AIDS is no longer a death sentence.
Building up your immune system (?) doesn’t treat an existing HIV/AIDS infection. Medication is necessary. Ask any (mainstream, not Goop-brand synergy seeking) board-certified infectious disease physician.
No excuse for Goop giving the views of this ‘holistic psychiatrist’ her platform to spread misinformation about disease in 2017.
I can’t stand this type of rhetoric. Of course, these people can sit around and get through a day on 600-800 cals because they have people doing all the other stuff for them, like working at a job, cleaning, laundering and picking up kids from school. If a “normal” person ate this way they would be dragging themselves around feeling like crap. And I’m sure plenty of women do do this on the quest to be thin. It’s sick.
They both look hard and older and TA’s body shape is beyond ODD she has no waist and why does she work out in tops where they barely cover her. I must admit I do like Gywneth’s legs but that’s it she too has no waist.
I hate Tracy Anderson.
I had to lose 13 pounds in 5 weeks and, while I’m not advocating for Goop or TA, my primary care and nutritionist both gave pretty close to this same advice. It was not intended to be a sustainable loss nor did they advocate this method for healthy weight loss, but as a means to an end. I had to do it due to an insurance requirement that my doctor missed in reviewing the clinical criteria for a procedure, had limited time to meet it before I would have to wait 6 months and start the process again. Sucked, but I did it and worked. And gained 5 pounds back as soon as the insurance approval came through.
I read “trash diet” instead of “crash diet”. Oopsie.
Works either way.
I love it when Kaiser goes in on the Goop lol sooooooo goooood
Is anybody envious of their parched skin and straw bleached hair? Nope.
I think this is so we’ll talk about her. Winona is in the hottest new series anywhere, and Gwyneth is a cooch crystal peddler. /shrug
Lol!!!
If stupid wealthy women want to purchase everything an actress tells them so they can be like her then I say let them. I don’t feel sorry for them.
Tracy doesn’t have a body I even remotely desire to have or workout for, I’m judgmental when it comes to workout gurus. If your body is boxy from working out muscles that make you boxy (heavy Oblique/side work & trying to make hips smaller on top of it), trying to make that butt smaller/wider versus popping it out, nope not doing your workout. Can see why some women may what that type of shape but personally sticking with weights and Barre. Plus, her diet restrictions are ridiculous.
I also wish everybody would stop using the euphemisms “juice cleanse” and “detox.” Both of these are CRASH/STARVATION DIETS. Please call them what they really are. And beyond being just a severe diet, the “cleanse” or “detox” usually adds cayenne pepper or some other ingredient that is known to irritate the GI tract for a laxative effect. Abusing laxatives is not new, and it’s unhealthy. Please do not use the innocuous (or even helpful!) sounding words “cleanse” or “detox” — they are starvation diets, period.
Dear Gwynnie has more wrinkles and skin damage than I do. I’m 57.
Will she ever “own” being a shill who is shortening people’s lives?
When will they both go away?? I worked in the health industry for years in NY. My colleagues and I would always get so fed up with Anderson’s non sense nutrition BS. I had so many clients who would buy into this, until they learned what worked for their bodies. Every single one of us is so different (underlying auto immune issues, allergies, illness, genetics, etc). It’s impossible for a ‘one plan fits all’. When lunies like this have a platform, they could educate actual wellness, but instead spew trash. I want to shake both of them by the shoulders. Maybe give them a hug after…
I hate when people use skin as an example of a bad diet. I eat healthily but have bad skin due to PCOS. I hate when people assume I eat badly because my skin reacts awfully to my time of the month.
Yes I feel similarly. Bad hair and skin aren’t always connected to diet. Some people just do have thin hair or hair that doesn’t grow or skin that gets zits. Diet can only do so much but other issues, such as genetics and hormones, play a huge role.