These days, walking into a fitness shop or nutrition store can feel like a Willy Wonka factory of supplements and powders, each one claiming to help melt fat or boost your energy. Now before I go any further, please understand I am a big fan of supplements (certain ones) and the way they can aid your fitness goals. However there are a bunch of them that are just marketing schemes and ways to trick you not buying them, thinking you need them.
The two supplements I am going to point out to you in this article I find particularly bad because of their glittering reputation and popularity in the mainstream but their utter lack of any real effect or help with your goals. While I am no scientist, the researchers who found these results are and what they found is pretty surprising.
- Raspberry Ketones:
This supplements has exploded onto the fitness and health scene with manufacturers and fitness professionals alike claiming they are extremely potent fat burners, because keytones are the bodies formed when you’re glycogen-depleted and you switch to burning fat for fuel rather than carbs, such as when on a low-carb/ kept diet. But what the science says is a whole different story. Examine.com (an unbiased supplement resource site) found that any positive effects of fat burning from raspberry keytones has only ever been shown in mice. Essentially what they are saying is that to have any real effect on you, a human, the dosage would need to be extremely high, costing you an astronomical amount and that still wouldn’t guarantee results. Your best bet is to forget these pills! - Testosterone Boosters: These babies have been all over the gym, especially with new guys trying to get those “gains” fast! But the truth is, these are just a marketing ploy to make you think you’re making more progress than you otherwise would be. Provided your testosterone levels are at a normal level, being slightly higher or lower doesn’t actually affect how well you build muscle. If your testosterone levels are too low, see your physician because, trust me, they know how to help a lot more than gym junkies.
