The fitness industry, and especially the sports nutrition industry is full of supplements that are out for your money, and do not have your best interest at heart. If you have channel surfed late at night, then you must have surely come across various brands and products that promise to help you lose pounds and burn fats in no time, while also claiming to give you a six-pack within a few weeks.
These products are not just sold on TV but are marketed and sold by various renowned sports nutrition brands as well. So the question begs to be asked, what exactly are in these fat burners? And are they really effective?
The ingredients:
As always, we at HYP first analyze the ingredients to understand what exactly do these fat burners do. One of the most popular fat burners in the market uses green coffee extracts, along with L-Carnitine in its ingredients. They claim that green coffee extracts help increase one's metabolism, thus increasing your body’s ability to burn fats faster. They also claim that L-Carnitine helps the body break down fats and to push them into the bloodstream to be used by the body as fuel.
So what's true?
While studies have shown that green coffee extracts do help increase one metabolism, these studies were extremely inconclusive and these claims haven't been backed by hard evidence. L-Carnitine is an amino acid that these brands claim to assist your body in burning fats faster. These claims are questionable at best and aren't evidence-based.
Should you lose hope in your weight loss battle?
Absolutely not! You need to accept the fact that there are no shortcuts in getting fit and sticking to a workout routine and a diet plan will help you lose weight. It comes down to basic physics and that will always remain unchanged, which is, that to lose weight you need to be in a calorie deficit. Your calories consumed need to be less than your calories burned through the day. And before you go on a drastic calorie deficit, which is highly unrecommended and outright dangerous, you should save your money by not purchasing these fat burners and instead consult a dietician who will help you with a nutrition plan.
Questions?