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Yesterday we were contacted by a health professional about our feelings about recommending supplement use and using the term “Negative Calorie Foods”. The author, who is a respected fitness professional, is debating with the publisher over including both of these options as easy ways to lose weight. The author is vehemently against recommending these methods, but the publishing company seems to think that both of these terms are important when writing a diet book.

Below are just a few of the thoughts we shared regarding supplement use:
We are in agreement in NOT recommending any supplements to help an individual lose weight. The minute you mention that taking a pill could help people lose weight; many people immediately head to their local supplement store to buy more unnecessary products. This, in turn, will leave them frustrated and thinking that the rest of your information is just another gimmick to sell your product. Real (degreed and experienced) health and fitness professionals have been fighting the diet pill and supplement companies for years over tricks like this. There are many supplements companies that show ‘research’ (purposely mislabeled, misappropriated and misused information) right up until the day that they have to pull the products off of the market. Hydroxycut, Metabolite, Xenadrine are just a few that come to mind.

Why do people have to DIE, waste hundreds of dollars, get liver and kidney damage and a number of health related sicknesses, before we stop supporting supplement use as a quick and easy way to lose weight?  There are numerous medical reasons to use supplements; however, none of these reasons should be in a health book that deals with weight loss. I am a bit surprised that a company that has published numerous books in the health and fitness category would want to include such over-hyped information.

As for the Negative Calorie Foods.
I am assuming you are not talking about water. Yes, it does take energy to digest foods, but connecting that fact to a weight loss program is one of the latest marketing tricks of diet and supplement companies.

Using the term “Fat Burning” or “Negative Calorie Food” is just another attempt to confuse the public into thinking that there is an easier way to lose weight than eating healthfully, watching your nutrition and exercising. As you know, there are thousands of research studies and plenty of other factually-based information sources available that explain how to lose weight safely and effectively. None of these supports eating ‘apples all day so that you lose weight safely and permanently’ (with apples, of course, being a food that is touted as having negative calories – which they do not).

There are also hundreds of articles in JAMA, MSSE (Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise), and many other researched and evidenced based-journals that can supply you with evidence concerning supplement use.

Tags: Diet and Supplements, Fat Buring Foods, Negitive Calorie Food for Weight Loss, SHE, Stop Taking supplements to Lose Weight, Supplements for Losing weight