Use caution if you use thermogenic products at all and never use them if you are sensitive to stimulants and/or have a history of heart disease, high blood pressure, thyroid disorders or any other medical problems.

If you’re not sure if ephedra products are safe for you, check with your doctor first.
Most of your results will come from hard training and a good diet. There are no magic pills. Why is it that people just don’t seem to get this? It’s human nature, I suppose. We all want instant gratification, so it’s awfully easy to be swayed by the glossy four-page magazine spreads with those mind blowing (doctored?) before and after photos.

Certain supplement companies are partly to blame for our obsession with fast results. Instead of teaching and educating the public about healthy, sensible, slow and steady permanent fat loss, they tease and tempt with very shrewd marketing campaigns. Testimonials, endorsements, scientific studies and before/after photos are incredibly persuasive because they appeal to your emotions. “Take this pill… go to bed…wake up skinny – it’s magic!”

Even the names of the products were carefully chosen: Do you think it’s a coincidence that the #1 selling herbal weight loss supplement Xenadrine sounds a lot like the prescription drug Xenical? Not a week goes by that someone doesn’t ask me about the ”drug” Xenadrine (Xenadrine is a brand name for an over-the-counter, ephedra product; Xenical is a prescription drug).

If you want to lose body fat, get your diet and training program in order FIRST. Once you’re eating nutritiously, moderately restricting your calories, doing cardio and working out with weights, then and only then – and only if you have a clean bill of health – should you even consider a thermogenic herbal product if you need an “extra boost.”

For the past ten years because “thermogenic” fat burning pills made with the herbal stimulant ephedra have become the hottest weight loss craze in the history of the industry.

Hundreds of millions of dollars are spent on these products every year and there’s no end in sight to this fat burning pill feeding-frenzy. Even if Ephedra is banned for over the counter sale because of FDA pressure, it’s likely that ephedra-free stimulant products will take their place in short order, even if they’re weaker versions of the original products. The strength of the brand names seems to be carrying them forward.
But are these thermogenic products all they’re made out to be? Let me set the record straight once and for all.

Open up any bodybuilding or fitness magazine these days and you’ll see multi-page advertisements boasting of “amazing”, “clinically proven,” “university-tested” results, with dramatic photos of physiques allegedly transformed overnight by using these products.

One headline says “Proven to increase fat loss 1700%.” Another says “Burn up to 613% more fat!” Still another says, “34 times more fat lost than control group.”

Where did these numbers come from?

1700% or 613% or 34 times greater THAN WHAT? Obviously, some “apples” are being compared to “oranges.”
It’s easy for supplement companies to cleverly take statistics out of context – just one of many sneaky tricks they have up their advertising sleeves. (Did you know there’s an infamous book called “How to Lie With Statistics,” written on this very topic? If you don’t believe me, go to Amazon.com and see for yourself.)
If any supplement really did burn 1700% more body fat, there wouldn’t be any overweight people left! But there are: There are more overweight people today than ever before in history!

Don’t believe the hype! It’s not that these products don’t work at all – the problem is more in the deceptive marketing and advertising than the products themselves. The claims are simply outrageous.

Thermogenic fat burners do work, but they don’t work miracles and they’re not a substitute for proper nutrition and training. Because the primary ingredients ephedrine and caffeine are strong central nervous system stimulants, they also have many potential side effects and contraindications.

Supplement companies would like you to believe that meal replacement products (MRP’s), powdered mixes and shakes have some sort of “magical” fat-reducing or muscle-building properties. The truth is that they’re nothing more than “powdered food” (or “liquid food”).

The primary benefit of these products is convenience.

It’s a challenge to eat frequently and to get enough high quality protein from whole foods, so quality MRP’s are great when you’re in a hurry and you don’t have time to eat food, but they’re not better than food, no matter what any supplement “guru” says.

Owners of supplement companies will say that MRP’s are the greatest thing since electricity. That shouldn’t come as any surprise; sales of these products run in the tens of millions of dollars each year.

With the one possible exception of post-workout nutrition during mass-building programs, eating real food is better than drinking shakes. The human gastrointestinal system has evolved to efficiently digest whole food, not powders or pills. The process of digesting solid food every three hours actually increases your metabolic rate. This is known as the “thermic effect of food.” Powders fail to take advantage of this metabolic boost.

Even if a magazine doesn’t have a vested interest in a supplement line, you still can’t count on them to reveal the whole truth to you because they don’t want to offend the deep-pocketed companies that are spending big money to advertise.

A full-page ad in a high circulation national magazine can cost tens of thousands of dollars. With this kind of money at stake, do you think any magazine will print an article saying “supplements don’t work” and on the next page, run an ad for the same supplements they are criticizing? Not likely is it?

It’s in the magazine’s best interest to promote supplements like crazy, regardless of whether they work or not, because the more supplements that are sold, the more the supplement companies will advertise. The more they advertise, the more supplements they sell, and on and on the cycle goes.

This is the same reason you often get better investing advice from the smaller, lesser-known financial newsletters than you do from the major financial magazines and newspapers; because the major publishers don’t want to write editorials that will upset the advertisers.

Don’t believe everything you read. Question everything. Use your head. Use common sense and your own good judgment. Beware of hidden motives. Just because it’s right there in black and white doesn’t mean it’s the truth. If it sounds too good to be true…it probably is.

Most magazine publishers own supplement companies and use their magazines as the primary means for promoting their products. Certain well-known magazines have been doing this for decades. One day, it dawned on the rest of them that more money could be made selling supplements than selling advertising or subscriptions. Before long, every publisher jumped on the bandwagon and started supplement companies.

You see, magazines have mega-credibility. After all, they can’t print a lie right there on paper, can they? If its in print, it must be true, right? They’d get in some kind of trouble with an “alphabet agency” otherwise, wouldn’t they? Maybe. Maybe not.

Editorials are more believable than advertising (that’s why they try to make ads look so much like articles these days). Most people will believe almost anything if it’s printed in a “reputable” medium such as a nationally circulated magazine. That’s why magazines are the perfect vehicles for promoting supplements.

Did you ever notice how many magazine articles are about the latest, greatest “breakthroughs” in supplements? These “articles” aren’t really articles at all; they’re nothing more than advertisements in disguise! (with an 800 number for easy ordering at the end… how convenient!)