When it comes to fat loss, muscle gain and any potential change to body composition really, there are a ton of supplements on the market. The supplements sold on the premise that they’ll help you to your goal faster than going without.
A quick google search showed up 789,000,000 results in under a second.
Complementary Medicines Australia recently released a report (Industry Audit & Trends 2020: Healthy Growth) and stated that complementary medicines in Australia (health supplements and vitamins) was a $5.2 billion industry!
With all that said, “ARE THERE ANY SUPPLEMENTS I CAN TAKE TO ASSIST WITH FAT LOSS?”
It’s a great question!
Fat loss supplements are everywhere in the market, and in many cases they are marketed extremely well! 💲💲
Unfortunately for us, a lot of them don’t quite live up to the claims or have a lot of research-proven benefits backing up these claims.
Let’s take the highly promoted fat loss supplement L-Carnitine as an example (don’t play dumb, you know you’ve tried it! 😉 I know I have). The people who sell this will claim that L-carnitine will assist in reducing your body fat mass and increase your metabolic rate. They do this because carnitine, when circulating in our bodies, is a natural substance (found commonly in meat) that the body uses to transport, process fatty acids and produce energy.
Now on paper, this all sounds like it would line up, but unfortunately for many supplements companies out there, scientists stepped in and screwed with their product. Studies have shown, that even we people were taking up to 6 grams of carnitine per day (that’s a decent amount), this failed to raise the subjects carnitine levels in their blood. Basically, your muscles seem to have plenty of carnitine within them naturally (particularly for meat eaters), so topping up stores through a supplement does jack shit.
The fact is science has proven L-Carnitine seems to do very little (likely closer to nothing) to promote fat loss. BUT PEOPLE STILL BUY IT!
We’d also have to consider what we mean by ‘assist’ or ‘work’ for fat loss. There are some supplements, for example, Green Tea Extract and Caffeine, that have been shown to potentially enhance fat loss results. The issue I have with this is that the impact they do have is so small. Even if you were doing EVERYTHING perfectly already, taking a supp is likely to have such a small impact you’d only see it lighten your wallet and not your waistline.
The best analogy I’ve heard on the topic of supplements, in general, is that they should be viewed as SPRINKLES on the ICING on the CAKE. Sprinkles make up such a small part of the equation and have very little impact on the ‘flavour’ of our cake.
So after all that, do I think you should go out there and purchase supplements to assist in your fat loss goals.
We’ll I’m not your Dad and I’m sure you’re a big boy/girl so you can make up your own mind. But me personally? I wouldn’t be wasting my cash anytime soon.
Hitting your sessions with intensity, staying consistent with your nutrition and training is going to be way more impactful then any supplement.
It’s just a matter of patience, consistency and time.
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