Dietary Supplements

A forum for anything related to nutritional supplementation including advice and reviews.

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motivated89
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Dietary Supplements

Post by motivated89 »

I'm trying to look for a good dietary supplement to help burn fat but i want a healthy supplement without all the added ingredients that aren't good for our bodies. When you are looking for a dietary supplement, what is the best thing to look for as far as ingredients or names?
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Boss Man
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Re: Dietary Supplements

Post by Boss Man »

Hi Motivated89, good to talk to you.

There's no specific ingredients or companies you should look out for but definitely avoid products with "proprietary blends" in them.

The reason being is that is a legal get out that permits companies to group certain ingredients together and avoid having to disclose the exact amounts of those ingredients in the "blend", meaning you don't know if the product is good value for money or not or whether some of the supposedly beneficial ingredients in that blend are even in adequate amounts so as to have any real beneficial effects.

I'd also avoid all those useless fat burner and thermogenic serum products as well, as they don't work in opinion. nobody who uses them can ever prove what they do anyway, as the vast majority of people don't use them in isolation, they combine them with other methods of weight loss like jogging, or cutting your calories down as examples, meaning it's impossible for the individual to prove the effects of these things, when they are not using them in isolation and many like that XLS Medical product, have ridiculous test procedures that make a mockery of the product.

Avoid all the faddy things that keep getting pumped out by "product distributor" type people like Raspberry Ketones, Vemma, etc, things that have specific codes or website URLs containing somebodies distributor moniker or their initials or part of their real name, or that link to a website with the persons name on it and some of those can actually be promoted with sly marketing tricks, misdirection and over hyped benefits or undisclosed downsides.

If you really wanted to use something that might work, then a product like CLA, Conjugated Linoleic Acid, has had reasonable reviews by people over the years, but don't expect too much.

One thing that can also be useful for weight loss is cayenne pepper, in terms of creating a greater thermogenic environment in your body, where more fat burning potential might be instigated.

If you find something you think might work, then make sure you use independent websites with unbiased reviews of the ingredients if you're not sure what certain ingredients do, that will tell you about them, may potentially explain the beneficial amounts and won't link to sites that sell the product or try to lure you in with discounts and promotional offer codes, because sites telling you about the product and then using bits of sales patter and offer codes for example, might have something to hide and could be biased.

Hopefully that all makes sense :).
motivated89
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Re: Dietary Supplements

Post by motivated89 »

Thank you so much for your helpful advice. I agree there are a lot of dietary supplements out there that just want your money and do whatever they can to lure you in and buy their products. This is exactly why i've been researching to find a good one that doesn't have all those bad ingredients and is actually created by a smart, reliable person. It's such a huge industry so they can't all be bad, some of them have to actually work to lose weight and build muscle. The hard part is finding the right one that isn't a waste of money.
oatsandsquats
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Re: Dietary Supplements

Post by oatsandsquats »

I agree with what BossMan said.

For the CLA, I am currently using it. I got this one from GNC: http://www.gnc.com/GNC-Total-Lean-CLA/p ... ID=4421874 Additionally, the people from GNC suggested that I take their burn 60 product (http://www.gnc.com/GNC-Total-Lean-Burn- ... Id=2667934) along with CLA to maximize the results. The burn 60 caps are thermogenics, and promise to boost your energy during your workouts.

Okay, so let me share with experience after I tried out both:

first day of taking the burn 60 was alright. I took it an hour before workout, and I felt really energized. I was able to double workouts and I did sweat like crazy. I was pleased, and thought I found a product that actually helped. 12 hours after I took them, I started itching really bad. That very same day I had chicken, and sometimes I get allergies from chicken (depending on how they were cooked) so I ignored the idea that the allergies could have been from the burn 60. The next day, I took them again. Same things happened. 12 hours later, I have the hives again. I thought that maybe it was just body's way of adjusting to the pills, so I took it again the following day to hopefully make body get used to it - but no dice. I was still having really bad allergic reactions to it so I've decided to ditch them. Also, I read through the internet and that product had a lot of bad reviews, so that pushed me further to take it back to GNC and get a refund.

For the CLA, I'm a couple of weeks into taking them and I can't say if it's working for me or not. I've lost 3lbs since, but then I am also working out really hard, so it could possibly be a result of both but not much from the CLA. No allergic reactions with that one, though, so I guess it's okay if you give it a try.

only advice for you is to try to stay away from thermogenics. From experience, other than having hives as a side effect of taking them, thermogenics do help you sweat, but I don't think that what you burn during your workouts is body fat. It could help get rid of water retention, and that's about it. I realized that the energy it gave me, I can get from drinking a cup of black coffee before workout. Lol, so basically, I think preworkouts like this is a waste of money.

Just two cents, though. I'm not an expert! :)
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Boss Man
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Re: Dietary Supplements

Post by Boss Man »

Thermogenics, and fat burners are absolute garbage. They are a con based on the user never taking them in isolation and living the same lifestyle as was, as then the other things like exercise, dietary changes and supplements get you results, whilst the user of the crappy thermo or FB, thinks their product is working, because they are losing weight and because they don't want to admit to themselves they may have been mugged off by the manufacturer, who boosts their profits under the banner of gullibility.

The fact something is clinically proven means nothing, it could be clinically proven to do anything, because they are not saying that Burn 60 product is clinically proven to actually help anyone lose weight. I mean a lettuce leaf has one calorie, so lettuce leaves could come with the words clinically proven, but whilst they technically count as a source of energy and water, without tangible levels of b vitamins and essential fatty acids and proteins, nobody could survive on lettuce leaves alone, but in terms of weight loss; if someone stopped eating a 1,000 calorie pizza for dinner every night and just had a lettuce leaf, then lettuce leaves could help reduce weight, bu unless they were labelled as a clinically proven form of weight loss and energy, then the words "clinically proven" would not elude to any specific outcomes regarding lettuce consumption and the same goes for your burn 60 product.

The words "clinically proven" should come with quantifiable specifics, so people actually know what has been "clinically proven" about the product, otherwise the words are empty and meaningless.

Unfortunately you got had, so whoever manufactures that product I'd recommend never using any of their products again, because they let you fall into a money draining trap, when you purchased their product, but you don't have to be one of their victims again in the future.

As the old saying goes, fool me once shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.
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