Introduction
There are many useless products, rubbish advice and expensive fitness scams within the wonderful world of fitness. We are fed up of companies ripping people off for useless products and their fitness scams, so we thought we would run through a couple and explain why you shouldn’t waste your money on them.
If you spend just 1 hour in front the telly you will see a boatload of diet supplements, tablets and various other things advertised. All claiming to work miracles and be able to shift those stubborn pounds quickly. 90% of them are aimed around getting 6 pack. Nothing about strength, build size. No, we hate to ruin them all for you but, they don’t work, not one of them. So let’s dig in and get in the first of many fitness scams.
Weight Loss Shakes
Let us gets started with the first of many fitness scams, These are everywhere, online, TV, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. You will find that most of your friends will sell them through their Facebook and claim it to be a business, this is a scam in itself, if you want more information google “Pyramid Scheme”. These shakes are meant to be full of goodness (which is also false, but we will get on to that later) and used as a meal replacement to help you lose weight.
Now, remember, weight loss occurs when you are in a calorie deficit, all these shakes do is make you eat less, they make you skip a meal. Nothing in these shakes will help you lose weight, it’s just a smoothie with a lot of sugar. We have had a look at various of these companies and their websites to find their ingredients and the nutritional values, and what they contain to make you lose weight, but guess what, we couldn’t find them! There has been no evidence to prove that these shakes actually help you lose weight, and that’s because they don’t, they make you eat less, in an unhealthy way, therefore making you lose weight.
So will you lose weight using them? Yes! Is it healthy and sustainable? No! Is it a complete scam and waste of money? 100%. These companies also sell various other products which are just a useless as the shakes! So any product which says “if you drink these you will lose weight” or “these shakes will shed the pounds” we would recommend you stay well away!
Celebrity Diets & Plans
In the world, there are many people, and some of these people are celebrities, and a handful of these celebrities think they can release workout DVDs and Workout diet plans. Now before we get one to this, there are some people out there that know what they are doing, therefore these people have amazing and constant results from their clients. These people are good people! Most of these celebrities tend to be Instagram or Twitter-based and they post a few photos of there bodies, High quality, studio and sometimes photoshopped images and these Instagram Fitness Celebrities are either getting advice and diets from elsewhere, Photoshopping images, have such an intense workout schedule or are on steroids.
The two main ones are the intense workout schedule/Full times and steroid. Steroids are a massive part of the fitness industry and as you spend more time in the gym, or online you will stubble across steroids loads, the worst part about steroids is how dishonest people get when they take them, claiming to be natural and drug free, when they’re not.
The second part is intense workouts. Most of these celebrities have personal trainers and very intense workouts and schedules. This means that they get into amazing shape and then claim you can do the same just by buying their DVD, then their books, then another DVD, you can see where this goes. Don’t believe it. Will their workouts help? Of course, it will increase your activity and burn calories. Will it make you look like them? Absolutely not.
Instagram Trainers
Some trainers are scamming people full time, so they have the entire day to eat and train. What they are telling people is most of the time correct, and good advice but they have all day to weigh, cook and eat fresh food. The average human doesn’t get that privilege. So they sell you all these diets of special foods and what to cook and when to eat it, but they forget that people work, seep and also have a life.
These people are easy to spot, as they are always posting on social media about their gym routines or what they are eating, and never seem to be doing anything. They always act busy, but never actually get anything done. As a rule of thumb, any diet where they give you times and certain foods to eat, like stay well away from, if someone is telling you what to eat every hour of everyday, don’t buy it. However, remember a good personal trainer will advise you one times to eat (High Carbs pre workout etc), but they won’t give you a set time sheet and set meals.
The other trainers tend to advertise their amazing workout plans and diets, they use terms like quick results and get shredded or let’s learn together next to photos of them posing with incredible physics. When in reality they are just selling the same cookie cutter, mass produced plan that the next online fitness influencer is selling. If you want to know more about Cookie Cutter plans, We have a whole blog about them you can read here.
Photoshop
We will also touch on photoshop briefly as well as it is so easy to use and create images. We see loads of people on Instagram increasing there bum, biceps or even photoshopping more plates on their bench!! It’s crazy what people will go to to get more sales. Kim Kardashian is even guilty of this, Photoshopping her body and looks then selling makeup that she doesn’t use herself to her “fans”. Kim Kardashian is using her popularity to sell mediocre products for a high price to her fans, so if you see anything advertised by Kim Kardashian or her family, we would advise you to do some research about the product before hand! Be careful about who you look at online and if they are 100% real and genuine.
Pills & Tablets
You will see that in the wonderful world of fitness there are many supplements to take, Some that work, and some that don’t. Protein, Creatine for example work, whereas Testosterone booster and Carb blockers don’t! These are the biggest fitness scams going, I see these advertised everywhere, normally advertised like “Take these tablets to block carbs, and block calories” or “These tablets will increase your testosterone by 300%”, if you see or hear these kinds of adverts, just ignore them, don’t buy into it! Again Kim Kardashian and her whole family are guilty of this! The only way you will ever increase your testosterone, in the way they are talking about, is with Steroids. There are ways to increase testosterone, Eating healthy fats, Less Stress and more Vitamin D, but they won’t increase it as much as these companies say their tablets will, that’s just not naturally possible.
Carb Blockers
As for Carb blockers or Calorie Blockers, these are just rubbish, there are no such things. Most of these tablets contain fruit extracts and Chromium Picolinate, which is a supplement for maintaining glucose levels in the blood, although there hasn’t been any evidence that it works or does anything at all. As we have explained many times before, the only way to truly lose weight is to be in a calorie deficit, carb blocker or Calorie blocker don’t work so, in turn, they won’t leave you in a calorie deficit.
Fat Burner
I am going to leave fat burners for another blog post. These are complicated and very confusing, so we will be writing another blog post about these to explain them in full detail.
Machines and Tools
There are loads, and I mean loads of machines that apparently help you lose weight. Varying from Pull up bars for your living room, to cheap and easy upright bikes for home use, and these are all useful, bikes will help you get fit, as will rowers, and a pull up bar, if used correctly will help you build your app body strength, but then they can get crazy.
I have seen an Ab device that is like a belt but vibrates. I’m not going to say the name of it because it is worth it, but a famous footballer called Cristiano Ronaldo has put his face to it, Crisiano Ronaldo is involved with fitness scams, God knows how much money they must have paid him to do that, as the product is complete trash. What this product claim is that wearing this product for just 20 minutes a day will leave you will washboard abs and a solid core.
They mention nothing about being in a calorie deficit to lean up and reveal them abs, Remember everyone has abs, everyone has a six pack, but you need a low body fat to see it (Also working and strengthening your abs will help them be more defined). This company also has another product that goes on your biceps, and you can also get them for your legs. To help build muscle in your biceps, I mean, a vibrating pad, that builds muscle in your biceps?
If it was that easy everyone would be walking round with a beach ready body, all year with no concern about diets.
Other Machines
As mentioned, there are many Ab machines out there that are claiming to give you that Six pack, toned and strong core. Yet again these companies fail to mention anything about diets and being in a calorie deficit. Some of these machines like ab rockers, ab wheels and ab exerciser will increase your core strength, but unless you have a low body fat, your abs won’t show.
Conclusion
As you can see, there are plenty of fitness scams and rip off out there. There are loads more than we have written about here, we can’t cover them all, but if you see something you are unsure about or just want more answers about it, feel free to contact us on our advice page. Also, make sure you look into any product you are looking at buying. As the age old phrase goes, If It sounds too good to be true, it most likely is!
What fitness scam do you hate the most? Which ones do you find the most ridiculous? Let us know over on Instagram.
Written by Kieran Blacker
Kieran is the CEO and Founder of Sets & Reps. He decided to make an application that helped people get a gym workout when not at the gym. He designed, Coded and built the application himself.