"‘Messiah’ Tony’s Dodgy ‘Diet'", Sunday World, by Nicola Tallant
Quinn Scores Publicity Coup -- But We Expose His Racket For Exactly What It Is
Gym’s €350 plan could result in serious health problems say experts
TONY QUINN'S Educogyms are promoting a ‘dangerous' diet and fitness regime suitable only for morbidly obese patients and extreme body builders, a group of experts has claimed.
The gyms are selling intense 12-day courses involving a bizarre diet of monkey nuts and double cream which they say will result in the body shedding a 7.5lbs and gaining 3lbs of muscle with just FOUR hours exercise.
But today leading experts in the field of health and fitness say the programme could put stress on the major organs including the liver and kidneys and could lead to serious illness. Today we uncover the reality behind the incredible diets which promise the body beautiful.
Beauty
Our probe comes after Quinn's gym franchise carried off a publicity coup by sponsoring former model Andrea Roche's Miss Universe Ireland competition.
The beauty pageant was won by Miss Club 92 Diana Donnelly. As part of her prize she will receive a year's free membership at Educogym where she can prepare for the Miss Universe final which takes place in August at Paradise Island in the Bahamas where Quinn lives as a tax exile.
The former butcher from Dublin has already amassed an estimated €50 million fortune by selling expensive ‘mind' seminars to thousands of people who pay up to €63,000 to spend two weeks in his presence.
Many have complained that they were coerced into parting with huge sums of money and others have reported that unhealthy obsessions with the guru have broken up marriages and caused rifts in families.
A series of exposés in this newspaper have forced Quinn to cancel seminars in recent months as he cannot get the numbers to sign up.
But now he is on a huge push to lure fresh followers through his network of gyms across Ireland.
He wants Educogyms to be associated with as many well known faces as possible and be seen as the choice of the young and beautiful.
The sponsorship of the Miss Universe Ireland competition has been defended by Andrea Roche and Educogym's marketing boss in Ireland Jamie Myerscough.
He denies that the gyms are recruitment grounds for Quinn's seminars in the sun and claims that the instructor's handbook orders them not to sell the conferences to any clients. Unfortunately he couldn't furnish us with the relevant page.
He also failed to come up with the scientific ‘university research' that the gyms quote as proving their diet and fitness regimes work.
"The fact is that these programmes work. I have seen the results. And no way do we sell the seminars through the gyms. No instructor has ever sold a seminar at the gyms," he said.
Scientific
We asked a team of academics and nutrition experts to examine one of the diet and fitness programme's which Educogym dub ‘the scientific approach that really works.'
"This is bordering on witch-doctor science," one expert said. "It is totally unsuitable for people wanting to lose weight or get fit. I don't think I have ever seen a diet quite like it."
Educogyms are the brainchild of the Mucky Messiah Tony Quinn who has claimed he came up with the concept while meditating. A team of his devoted followers has paid him a small fortune to open up franchises across the country. And he rakes in cash from them every month from the sale of hundreds of his health supplements.
The gyms use specially designed machines that the former butcher calls ‘The Time Machine' and which he has told his inner circle were a ‘gift from God.'
They claim that their programmes were developed through university research conditions but Sunday World has found no evidence of any such controlled testing of the weight loss system and experts are flabbergasted at such claims.
The diet which is devoid of carbohydrates and heavy on fat is usually sold for €350 but clients are then asked to stump up €95 for the 22 Quinn supplements they need to take a day as part of the programme.
Clients visit the gym for 20 minutes every day where they undergo heavy weight lifting exercises.
DCU Professor Niall Moyna reviewed the diet and Criona Tobin who is conducted a PHd under the leading nutrition expert said: "This diet will make people feel sick. It is essentially starving the body and forcing it to operate only on fat. The brain needs carbohydrates for fuel."
Leading weight loss expert Dr Eva Orsmond said she would only use the diet for morbidly obese patients – and warn them to take no heavy exercise.
"There is a high chance that heavy exercise as recommended on this type of diet can cause micro tears in the muscles, sometimes leading to permanent damage," she said.
Tissues
TV doctor, Mark Hamilton, said overloading the body with fat it is forced to burn puts a strain on organs and tissues.
"I have always championed a balanced diet and a change in lifestyle to maintain a healthy body. I would need to see decent evidence that a diet like this worked.
"The principal of a balanced diet has been researched for a long time and it comes back time and again as the best way to maintain a decent body weight. Diets come and go but realistically we have to be very cautious of diets and anything that promises such dramatic results in such a short space of time."
One of the UK's top nutritionists, author Anita Bean, said she was stunned when she saw the diet.
"This is bordering of witch doctor stuff," she said.
"Anyone who would stick to this diet over any period of time could do their health and their performance a lot of harm.
Last night Jamie Myerscough said: "Educogyms work. The proof is out there. We do lots of different programmes and lots of different diets. All our programmes are supported by the university research."
But he admitted he had not seen the research.
It Looks A Little Bit Too Fishy
Quinn's Educogym diet comprises of five Amino Energise tablets and one Mind Alert capsule on rising followed by a spoonful of the performance enhancing Creatine which is used by body builders and athletes.
Breakfast is loaded with protein and fats with choices including olive oil, double cream, redskin peanuts and oily fish.
Five more Amino Energise tablets, sold in the gyms and in Tony Quinn health stores, and another Mind Alert are to be downed mid morning.
Lunch is made up of more fat in the form of meat and double cream washed down with more monkey nuts.
The diet instructs that five more Amino Energise tablets be swallowed mid afternoon before a dinner of more protein and oils.
Article sourced from Dialogue Ireland: