UPDATE: January 2014, the FTC has won a settlement against Sensa (The Sprinkle Diet). Click here to learn more!

You’re asking “Does Sensa  work?” however since you ARE a  smart, spiritual, high-achieving woman, you already know that there is no shortcut to weight loss.

You already  know that there is no magic pill or magic sprinkle that will give you permanent weight loss since that all begins on the Inside.

There is no Sprinkle Diet  or Sensa  that you could put on your food that would give you the change in your mind that you already know must change…IF you truly desire to be done once and for all with your life long food and weight struggles!

You already know that you MUST change your Inner Self so that you can easily change your lifestyle, to drop the fat…and keep it off. But still, you wonder… “Hmm, does Sensa work? Is it possible?”

Before we get to “Does Sensa work” I must share with you that yes, it’s true: Your Mind leads your body. And therefore the lifelong struggles you’ve had with food and your weight have always come from the inside. If you were to heal the Root of your struggles then you would never again Google for such things as “What is Sensa” or “Does Sensa Work”.  Questions like that would not even come into your mind if you were to achieve permanent release from your tug-o-war between food and your weight!

It takes not just a change in lifestyle, but a change in MIND style if what you desire is permanent weight loss. You must become a naturally slender person On the Inside First. Do That and permanent weight loss is a snap. It’s easy and effortless, just like one of my weight loss coaching clients has achieved through my step-by-step proven System to Permanent Weight Loss and maintenance. And she used to say to herself for years, “I can’t stop eating!”

The trick is that you MUST become a match on the Inside to the body you desire on the Outside. Once you do that, the you would not even consider Googling “What is Sensa” or “Does Sensa Work” or “The Sprinkle Diet”. Once you become an inner match to the body of your dreams then you’re already living permanent weight loss and maintenance. It’s just not any big deal anymore!

On the other hand if what you really want is to lose weight again…and again…and again…then you would be looking for the next quick fix like Sensa. A band aid. The next fad diet, magical sprinkle diet  or magical powder that you can put on your food that will do nothing to change your mindset, your lifestyle, or your Mind Style.

You might even drop a couple of pounds using a band aid Sensa diet or a quick fix Sprinkle, but as long as your Inside matches an overweight body on the Outside…well, you get the picture.

Opt for a fad or crash diet and there are no tools given to teach you how to take control of your own thoughts, emotions, and life so that your body will follow with permanent, struggle-free weight loss. Sensa sprinkles, powders, pills, shakes, or diets do not resolve the Root cause of your symptoms – your symptoms  being your eating behaviors, your exercise behaviors, your inconsistent healthy actions, and the excess fat on your body.

Attacking the symptom with Sensa or any other magical cure does not get to your Root issue and the Root must be healed to obtain permanent weight loss.

Sensa, a.k.a. The Sprinkle Diet

There’s a new fad diet being advertised. It’s called “The Sprinkle Diet” (also known as Sensa) and the premise is that by sprinkling some granules on your food before you eat that you’ll eat less and lose weight.

The sprinkles were developed by Dr. Hirsch who focuses his studies on taste and smell. The sprinkles are supposed to heighten the flavor of the food, making sweets sweeter and salty food saltier, tricking your brain into thinking you’re full.

The Sprinkle Diet (Sensa)  promises you that you can eat whatever you want without a thought for nutrition or health and that you’ll still lose weight because you’ll eat less. The same video that you’ll see in this link to CBS (UPDATE: 4 years after I wrote this article CBS removed the video I had linked to, which is interesting that CBS did so – see a new article from CBS Warning You about Sensa the Sprinkle Diet!) was what I saw on my local news and the woman who says she has lost over 20 pounds eats all of the sugar-filled, processed, addictive, metabolism halting foods that I choose to stay away from. They will not help you lose weight but even if that isn’t your concern, those foods will not give you high energy.

Here’s an even better article from CBS News to replace the video they chose to remove: Patti Stanger’s Diet Product Based On Dubious Science by CBS News

The MAJOR Flaw

Below I have put together a list of the reasons that I think The Sprinkle Diet is NOT the solution to overeating, however there is one flaw that is so glaring it deserves to be separated from my list below.

The #1 major flaw with The Sprinkle Diet is that the majority of people who are overweight and/or obese eat when they are not hungry and do not stop when they are full!! If you’re overweight you’re very likely an emotional eater, a compulsive overeater, a binge eater, a food addict, or some combination of these. This is why you continually ask yourself, “Why can’t I stop eating?”.

So even if The Sprinkle Diet tricks your brain into thinking it’s full by using “ingredients” that (according to the news cast) do not need the FDA’s approval (which doesn’t really mean anything anyway), then you’ll still overeat just to eat because you do not base your eating behaviors on physical hunger. You put food or drink in your mouth for reasons besides physical hunger and physical hunger is the only thing that Sensa can “fix” for you.

Therefore it will not matter if you think your brain is chemically altered by the ingredients (MSG)  in Sensa to tell your stomach it is full. And then, unfortunately, you’ll be wondering, “Does Sensa work for anyone who is an emotional eater??”

But….if you are not interested in permanent weight loss, which requires healing the Root cause of your food and weight struggles, then if you are willing to force yourself not to emotionally eat because The Sprinkle Diet has your body tricked into feeling full, then that is of course your choice to make.

5 More Reasons Sensa The Sprinkle Diet Won’t Work

(IF You Are Serious About Achieving Permanent, Struggle-Free Healthy Weight Loss…Without Deprivation, Willpower, or Struggle.)

Here are 5 more reasons that I don’t recommend The Sprinkle Diet, a.k.a. Sensa:

1. 1. No nutritional education – This “Sensa diet” is all about eating the fast food, the processed food, all of that food that contains sugar, unhealthy fats, loads of sodium, the highly processed food that will bring your metabolism to a slow crawl (hint: whole foods speed up your metabolism and help you quickly shed pounds). And if you put weight loss aside and only look at health, those are the same foods that lead to inflammation in the body, the #1 cause of dis-ease (you can learn all about that in YOU On A Diet – a must read). If you care about your health and not just losing weight, The Sprinkle Diet / Sensa  is not the way to go.

 

1. 1. No exercise plan – The Sprinkle Diet does nothing to promote regular cardiovascular activity or strength training. It is designed to be a quick fix and if it does help you lose weight your body will only look like a thinner version of your “fat self” – that’s what happens when you leave out exercise in your weight loss plan. I don’t know about you, but I want to reshape my body with exercise, not just lose weight.

 

1. 1. Lack of personal growth – Those little sprinkles in Sensa  will not help you learn why you overeat and why you gained weight in the first place. The Sprinkle Diet doesn’t promote personal growth and pride in accomplishment that comes with the achievement of healthy lifestyle changes that include regular physical activity. It does absolutely nothing to help you solve emotional eating or the bottom line issues that are driving you to overeat.

 

1. 1. Lack of long term results – If The Sprinkle Diet works for you and you aren’t concerned with making lifestyle changes you will have to continue using those sprinkles forever. Isn’t this the same as being on appetite suppressants forever? Could you do that? Sure, if they are still available and if you’re willing to continue paying to put  Sprinkles of Sensa on your food  for the rest of your life, then then question you might ask yourself is “Who is in control of my eating and exactly Why Is It that I can’t stop eating?”.Additionally it is not known what the long term results will be on your health from putting  Sensa on your food – look at Splenda for example, that’s a sweetener that greatly enhances the sweetness of your food, and we don’t have any idea what the long term health effects will be from using it. You can also  go to the main Sensa ingredient MSG, and research that.

 

1. Lack of naturalness– If you’re into a lifestyle of whole, clean foods then you would not choose to  use The Sprinkle Diet because it definitely isn’t natural. I is interesting that the media reports, “The sprinkles are non-caloric and contain artificial and natural ingredients approved for use in food products”.Well what else is currently approved for use in food products and isn’t healthy? Crystalline fructose, high fructose corn syrup, Splenda, natural flavors, MSG, and plain old table sugar. None of them are healthy for the human body, they don’t help you lose weight, and they mess with the chemical balance in your body.The human body thrives on whole, unprocessed foods, it’s so very simple. The Problem is that if you are not able to DO THAT without any struggle, to treat yourself with high value and priority in your life to care for your body, mind, and YOU, then there is No Diet that will ever solve the Inner Problem you have. And, no diet is supposed to do that!!

The Sensa  Sprinkle Diet does nothing to help you understand why you are overweight and why you overeat. It’s not a cure for depression, low self-esteem, a lack of nutritional understanding, emotional eating, a sedentary lifestyle, or unhealthy habits. It’s a possible short term fix without any long term health benefits, much less any lasting Inner Transformation, which is what MUST occur IF you are serious about ending the struggle.

And What About…

Here’s something I question about the reports on Sensa  The Sprinkle Diet – the Dr. Hirsch states that he did a “peer reviewed clinical study of nearly 1,500 people who used the sprinkles on everything they ate without changing their diet or exercise routine” and found that there was an average weight loss of 30.5 pounds in 6 months.

We don’t know who these 1500 people were and the line that they “didn’t change their diet or exercise routine” set off a red flag for me – let’s say that those people were already leading a healthy or semi-healthy lifestyle, exercising regularly and eating healthy the majority of the time, so they were already working on losing weight. Well hey, if you give The Sprinkle Diet to a group like that then of course you’re going to see weight loss – they’re already working on it!

It would be different if it were specified that the group of 1500 were sedentary, sugar addicts who needed to lose on average 100 pounds each – then  if it was stated that they did not  change their diet and exercise program, while it’s still not a healthy way to lose weight (you’re certainly not getting fit), it would be a true study.

What Does It Cost You…In Your Body, Mind, Emotional State, Health, and Your Long Term Success (or lack thereof)

How can you put a cost on long-term health consequences we know nothing about at this time? Well…MSG has been thoroughly documented in Excitoxins by Dr. Russell Blaylock, M.D.

And what about the cost of lost time? The lost time in searching for yet another quick fix when this one does not give you the permanent weight loss that you desperately seek? (Does anyone truly want to keep losing and gaining weight for the rest of their lives?)

What about never gaining power over YOU? Over this lifelong food and weight issue you’ve been struggling with? What about the cost of more exercise equipment, diet books, junk food for your binges, bigger sized clothing for your weight gains after the Sensa fad diet or Sprinkle Diet fix, and the cost of smaller sized clothes that you can only wear temporarily after a weight loss that IS temporary rather than permanent?

And the biggest cost of all….the emotional, mental, and spiritual DRAIN. The drain of constantly looking for the newest and brightest fix in the hopes that This Sprinkle, this powder, Sensa, or  this pill, diet, shake, gym membership, or weight loss clinic will finally be the answer for you, when none of them are addressing the Root Cause of your unhealthy, inconsistent behaviors!

When it comes right down to it, don’t you deserve to do everything you can to provide a healthy, top-notch energy-filled life for yourself? It’s up to you of course, you have to make that decision for yourself, however you could start treating yourself like you would treat your own best friend and give up the hunt once and for all for the magic pill, the quick fix, the next fad diet….for after all, don’t all of those quick fixes for the next Sensa fad  add up to a lifetime of continual searching? Of course you agree that in the end  your endless searches  just aren’t worth it because all you end up with is more frustration and more searching!

There is no magic fix for an Inner Problem and overweight is just a Symptom of what’s going on on the inside .

Overweight is not the problem, it’s the symptom of an inner problem and a band aid solution like Sensa, Sprinkle Diet or any other magic pill, powder, shake or diet won’t help you heal whatever is going on on the inside… because it doesn’t address the Inner YOU! Your Inner Self. It is simply another physical “solution” in a long line of physical “solutions” that does not address your symptom – your symptom of excess fat on your body and your symptom of consistent, unhealthy behaviors.

When you address the Root of the problem instead of attempting to attack the symptom over and over again, you will finally have a permanent solution to your food and weight struggles. But that comes from healing the Root. Band aid “solutions” like Sensa, a.k.a. The Sprinkle Diet do nothing to get to the Root. They are only a sprinkle of Sensa  laid on top of the symptom.

Here’s to your health and to you finally getting the help you desperately need in order to finally heal The Root of your lifelong food and weight struggles. (How do I know you desperately need the help of a proven, professional mentor? Because you’re still reading this!) That is, if you are ready to Become the YOU You’ve Always Known You Could Be.

Sure is a lot more Fun than staying in the struggle with food and your weight, but that’s a choice that only you can choose for YOU!

Update 6/20/08: Another name for The Sprinkle Diet is Sensa which you can find the full ingredient list of The Sprinkle Diet/Sensa: (scroll down to “Ingredients” on linked page)

1. Maltodextrin
2. Tricalcium Phosphate
3. Silica
4. Natural and Artificial Flavors
5. FD&C Yellow 5
6. Carmine
7. Contains Soy and Milk ingredients

NOTE: Numbers 1,4, and 7 above are all listed on this page as highly common names for ingredients that MSG is Hidden In. A manufacturer is only required by law to state that MSG is in their product when it contains the ingredient Monosodium Glutamate as an ingredient, which is 100% MSG. As long any ingredients containing MSG is anything less than 100% in an ingredient, then by law a manufacturer can state that their product does not contain MSG. Of course this means that one product can contain multiple ingredients which MSG is hidden in, which could then total more MSG in a product than unaware consumers realize.

Very tricky but as long as YOU take 100% personal responsibility for YOU by educating yourself on exactly what you are ingesting (and the documented side effects in the brain and body) then of course it is your choice and your responsibility to add up all of the hidden MSG amounts in Natural and Artificial Flavors, Maltodextrin, Soy, and more.

This is exactly what I mentioned in reason #5 above, that I wouldn’t be surprised if the ingredients contained natural flavors/MSG: Natural flavors/natural flavoring is another name for MSG and maltodextrin very likely contains MSG.

Note that the Sensa Sprinkle Diet list of ingredients (scroll down to “Ingredients” on that linked page) states at the end that, “there are no stimulants, drugs or MSG”. According to this page the FDA currently no longer endorses food manufacturers labeling their products as “No MSG” when in fact they contain ingredients (such as Natural Flavors, Corn and Maltodextrin), which are commonly known to contain MSG.

When you see that ingredient/word “MSG” or “Monosodium Glutamate” that is 100% monosodium glutamate. Food manufacturers have been labeling their products as “No MSG” because they don’t have that specifc word/ingredient on their ingredient panel. However there are a massive number of other ingredients that are commonly known to contain MSG (like Natural Flavors and Maltodextrin), which you can read about and further research here and here.

Now when you have several ingedients in one product that each contain less than 100% MSG separately, how much MSG do you end up ingesting? Ingredients such at Natural Flavors can contain anywhere from 30% to 60% MSG.

If you wish to verify with a food manufacturer whether or not their product contains MSG what you need to do is ask them for a “free glutamate acid” test (do not use the word MSG with the manufacturer as they will have a way out with that verbage) and if that test comes back with any trace of free glutamate acid then there’s your answer…it contains MSG.

Since you likely already have great knowledge in nutrition, you know that MSG is a “flavor enhancer” that affects your brain (ever wondered why you are hungry shortly after going out for Chinese food?).

To learn even more research all of the links I’ve provided for you in this article to educate yourself about the various names and health ramifications of MSG as well as checking out Truth in Labeling.org. You can also refer to the articles I wrote re: natural flavor and MSG.

Update 6/25/08: If you want to learn even more about the health dangers of MSG as well as learn more about the topic of how it is craftily hidden inside many different ingredients that are not even named “MSG”, please read the article I wrote in 2008 re: MSG.

If You’re Serious About Getting The REAL Solution to End Your Food & Weight Struggles

If you’d love to stop wondering WHY you’re so smart and successful professionally BUT you can’t stop emotional eating, you can’t stop binge eating, you can’t lose weight and keep it off and you’re forever struggling with food and your weight… if you’d LOVE to put an end to your food and weight struggles once and for all then click here for your first step. Apply for a complimentary weight loss discovery session with JoLynn Braley, the permanent weight loss coach, and find out if it’s a mutual good fit for you to end your food and weight struggles once and for all using JoLynn’s proven system. Click here to get started now!