Weight Loss Supplements? Don't

The media is full of quick-fix advertisements designed to entice you to try their newest product. The weight loss industry is a multi-billion dollar industry, and it profits from you buying its pills and serums... and lies.

Would it be profitable for them to sell you a product that worked? Then you wouldn't be back to buy more.

They use media strategies and psychology to design their advertisements so you want to buy what they are selling in the hopes that finally, just finally, you will find the magic solution to the weight you've been trying to shed.

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Why You Shouldn't Try Weight Loss Supplements

Just like herbal supplements, most weight loss supplements are not regulated by the FDA. FDA regulation is important because scientists there double check the work of the manufacturer's scientists to make sure the pill does what they say it will do, and that it is safe.

Without this double check, manufacturers can fill supplements with various percentages of ingredients. Often companies will cite a scientific study where their pill lead to weight loss, but they leave out the fact that the pill they are selling you only contains a fraction of the active ingredient, so it won't be in sufficient quantities to work.

So then you should just take more of the pills, right?

Wrong. Because they aren't regulated by the FDA, companies can fill the pills with various ingredients, some of which can be harmful. For example, there have been numerous reports of liver damage caused by the popular supplement Hydroxycut. So many, in fact, that in April 2014 the FDA issued a Consumer Update report recommending that all consumers using Hydroxycut stop immediately. Hydroxycut led to liver damage so severe in one consumer they required a transplant. Another Hydroxycut user died.

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The Truth Behind Before/After Photos

Much of what entices you to buy a weight loss product is that you see another everyday person - not a celebrity, but someone like YOU! - who lost 180 lbs using this supplement. And the proof is right there! Before photo of them posing at the park, so you know its genuine, or maybe its on a backdrop and they look pale and unhappy. Your eyes wander to the right and you see a tanned, smiling, smaller version of the same person. That's what you want.

But is it a lie?

This post by Andrew Dixon at the Huffington Post gives an example of how companies can produce a series shot on the same person, in the same day, that looks like weight loss over months. From slouching to pushing the stomach out to sucking in, spray tans, and flexing, the same man (or woman) can look completely different. Check out one of his "transformation photos" below.

(source)

In fact, according to an expose done by the TODAY show, fake before-and-after photos make up some of the most frequent fraud cases reported to the Federal Trade Commission. They interview one woman, who posted personal photos of her 68 lb weight loss on her blog after a year of dieting and exercise, about how a weight loss tea company falsified quotes from her and used her photos without contacting her. Or they use stock photos for sale and then use Photoshop for "weight loss" (much like they do in almost every celebrity photo shoot).

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Consequences of Weight Loss Supplements

Weight loss supplements fall into 3 categories. They either:

• Increase your energy (stimulant)
• Decrease your appetite (suppressant)
• Decrease fat absorption (inhibitor)

So what?

Well, stimulants raise your blood pressure and heart rate, increasing your risk of a heart attack. The FDA has received reports of death from cardiac arrest due to use of dietary stimulants.

Appetite suppressants may target your stomach or your brain to curb your hunger. Many stimulants are combined with appetite suppressant properties.

Fat inhibitors target your gut to prevent your body from absorbing fat from your food. Unfortunately, this means your fat enters your large intestine and stool, and it's not really supposed to be there. The results are foul smelling flatus and stool, as well as cramping and abdominal pain. It also inhibits the absorption of vitamins that are important for eye and skin health as well as vitamin D, which we have all heard of. These vitamins require fat to help get across your gut cells and into your blood.

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Weight loss ads tempt even the best of us, as we are constantly bombarded by photoshopped images of near-perfect celebrities and models, telling us we are not pretty enough, thin enough, or ripped enough. And that's what they are designed to do, because then they will make a profit.

They are not in the business of taking care of you!

-Bailey