After work Friday, I walked over to the Royalton Hotel, a boutique hotel designed by Phillipe Starck, who also designed my apartment building. The hotel actually began its life in 1898 as an apartment building called the Hotel Royalton. So what was this New Yorker doing in a hotel? 

A few weeks ago, Unilever invited me to an event at the Royalton Hotel that was taking place during BlogHer, the ginormous blogger conference that came to town last week. While I wasn’t going to BlogHer, I still partook in the festivities…like a foot massage with Suave’s new lotions.

And some little chocolate truffles…

And talking to the I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter people.

And getting my hair did?

It was a fun event, and I enjoyed walking around trying out some of Unilever’s food and beauty products. The one product I was not a fan of was Slim-Fast. I talked to two of their nutritionists, and I was pretty shocked that a nutritionist would say that something like Slim-Fast was a healthy and safe way to lose weight. Anything that has you “replacing” meals worries me—it’s not sustainable. Once you’ve lost the weight and you stop the shakes, you haven’t learned anything about portion control or balanced meals.

Most troubling is the tag line on their products—“because who has time to lose weight slowly?” That’s not what it’s about. It’s not a contest to see how fast you can lose weight, it’s about doing it safely and healthily.