Sensa: The Easiest Diet Ever–Not.
Sensa, the latest dieting craze, promises that you can lose weight and eat what you want - by sprinkling food with a powder that makes you feel fuller faster. -By Patricia Marx
A cardboard box the size of an extremely large pound cake has arrived. Inside are several double-sided plastic salt-and-pepper-style shakers, each housing 20 grams of white powder. This is not what you think. The granules are called Tastants, and they are the slim-inducing component of the Sensa Weight-Loss System.
What is Sensa? It is the Jewish mother of diets. Setting no restrictions on what you may put on your plate-or how much-Sensa practically pleads, "Eat. Have some more! You want butter with that?" Its sole requirement is that before partaking of food, you dust it with Tastants, specially formulated scent and flavor combinations that "help trigger the brain mechanism that signals when you are full," according to its Web site. It promises that you will shed pounds without ever feeling hungry. In a clinical study of the system, reports the company, 1,436 participants lost an average of 30.5 pounds over a six-month period without changing their usual diet and exercise routines. (A one-month starter kit is $59; a six-month package is $235.)
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It sounds too good to be true. I call the inventor of Sensa, Alan Hirsch, who is a Chicago-based neurologist and psychiatrist who specializes in the treatment of smell and taste loss. When you feel full, Hirsch explains, it is because the body is releasing more of the hormone leptin (which increases satiety) and less of the hormone ghrelin (an appetite stimulant). Has he done clinical studies to find out whether Sensa triggers this process? "No, we have no biochemical evidence," he says very genially. "It's a theoretical construct of how people lose weight."
As for Sensa's proprietary scent/flavor combinations, they include ingredients that can also be found enhancing foods like yogurt, ice cream, and baby food. Through trial and error in the lab, Hirsch's team discovered that certain tastes and smells promote the feeling of fullness more than others. "Why spearmint is more efficacious than peppermint, I don't know," he admits. But if someone eats primarily for emotional reasons rather than physiological ones, I ask, would Sensa work? "We haven't looked into that," he says, open to the possibility that Sensa might not be as effective on people who eat because of, say, stress or boredom.
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But what the heck, I'm in. I have pretty much spent my whole life dieting anyway. Michelle, the perky spokesperson on the DVD that was enclosed with the box, instructs me to sprinkle the "sweet" Tastants on, for instance, fruit, desserts, pancakes, cereal, and Jell-O. The "salty" Tastants are meant for pretty much everything else, including cheese. Sweet-and-sour pork, it would seem, is anybody's guess.
"The best news of all," says Michelle, who goes on to demonstrate shaking the crystals over everything from a sandwich to a bag of pretzels, "Sensa is incredibly easy to use. In fact, if you've ever seasoned your food with salt and pepper, you already know almost everything you need to know!" Good news indeed. My favorite foods are Sweet'N Low, Splenda, and NutraSweet, so I excel at sprinkling. The Tastants, she explains, interact with the nerve receptors in one's nose to send appetite-suppressing messages to the "satiety center" in the brain.
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What is this "sodium-free, sugar-free, calorie-free, gluten-free" stuff made of? In addition to soy and milk ingredients, there is tricalcium phosphate, silica, maltodextrin, and natural and artificial flavors. The first two ingredients are anticaking agents, and the third is a corn-derived carbohydrate often used as a vehicle for flavoring ingredients. I have a three-month supply of Tastants, with separate shakers featuring unique scent/?avor combinations for each month (the theory being that this prevents the body from building up a resistance to one particular smell).
I apprehensively open the lid to the compartment that contains the salty Tastants for month one. They smell like tortilla chips with spicy seasoning. Could the aroma be cheddar and paprika, possibly with a pinch of oregano? On second sniff, I detect ... what? A musty room? Sweat? The sweet Tastants have the odor of a citrusy sort of candy, Pez or Pixy Stix, for instance, with a soupçon of St. Joseph baby aspirin.
READ MORE ON THE WRITER'S TRIAL RUN WITH SENSA HERE>>
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Reprinted with permission of Hearst Communications, Inc.
