Thu, Feb 8, 3:10:00 PM MST
Paul Delia
Founder and President,
AST Sports Science
Looking through the latest magazines at some of the ridiculous ads and I just had to make a comment about the before and after trend that litters just about every ad.
I can sum it up with two words – Total Bullshit!
Now let me break it down for you using a few calculations and a little common sense. In one ad, and there are many more just as bad, there is a before and after photo. Under the after photo the model is quoted as saying, "Methyl RIPPED was awesome. After just 8 weeks, I dropped 43 pounds and I doubt any of that was muscle." So this douche bag is saying he lost 43 pounds of fat in 8 weeks.
Another ad for the same product with before and after photos has a guy claiming he lost 52 pounds of fat in 8 weeks. The ad says, "I felt Methyl RIPPED working after my first dose. In 8 weeks I dropped 52 pounds of fat and won the whole show!"
Now let’s do the math and I’ll show just how absurd this is. One pound of fat (454 grams) contains approximately 4000 calories (454 grams x 9 calories per gram = 4,086 calories). To lose 52 pounds of fat you would have to burn 212,472 calories (4086 x 52 = 212,472).
There is a little more math involved here but stick with me. I will show you how full of shit this company is. 212,472 calories burned over an 8 week period would mean you would have to burn 26,559 calories each week – above and beyond what you eat. That equals 3794 calories each day.
Each day you would have to be in a caloric deficient of 3,794 calories. What this means is that you would have to physically burn 3,794 more calories each day than you consumed.
How difficult is this? It’s completely impossible. It’s absolutely insulting to even suggest something like this. If you only ate enough calories to support you daily metabolic functions and you ran a full marathon each and every day and twice on Sundays you still would not burn enough calories to lose 52 pounds of fat in the 8 weeks they are claiming and you most likely wouldn't be alive either.
Let me say that again. You would have to run a full marathon, 27 miles, every single day for 8 weeks and you would still have another 27,672 calories left to burn - if you were still alive.
To say these ads are full of shit is being polite. I guess they figure they have a fail safe. If you get a magnifying glass out you can read the very fine print at the bottom of the ads that says, "Results are not typical and depend on your diet and exercise program. Individual shown has been remunerated. (That means they paid the poor saps to be the faces on the lies.) Carefully read the entire label before use. Regular exercise and proper nutrition are essential for achieving your bodybuilding goals."
Regular exercise? Proper nutrition? Are you kidding me? With 212,472 calories to burn in 8 weeks a cemetery plot might be your primary concern.
I guess they think this "disclaimer" allows them to make any claim they want with complete immunity. If they get called to task they think they can say, "We never said the Methyl Ripped does this. We say you have to eat right and exercise." Yeah right, but you forgot to mention to run a marathon everyday in this fine print. The FTC calls this false advertising. It's fraud. It's lying about the effects of their product so they can dupe you into buying it. That's all it boils down to.
Now I’m going to tell you something here that the dirt bags selling you this load of crap will never tell you. Even the strongest thermogenic concoction known or, as in most cases, even theorized by man is not going to cause your body to burn more than 150 to 200 calories more each day than you would burn without it. And there is no definitive science that shows there are thermogenic ingredients or combination of ingredients that will even boost your metabolism that much. I’m being very generous here. And there is certainly no science on this product. None. If they had a sliver of science they wouldn't have to resort to such scams to sell it.
So under the very best circumstances and taking this fat burner you would still have to run more than a full marathon each day to achieve the absurd claims this and many other ads are making. Does anyone else find anything wrong with this or is it just me?
Now I’m not even going to go into how your lean muscle would just melt away under such extreme circumstances even though the ads claim you’ll lose no muscle – more bullshit. I’m just crunching some simple numbers to show you how foolish these ads are and how stupid they assume you are. And I'll tell you what, anytime you see a before and after picture in an ad, I don’t care what company it is, they are full of shit. That statement certainly won’t make me the most popular kid on the block especially with other companies (like I care), but if you take just one thing from article (aside from this moronic company's scam)it is this; if you see an ad using before and after photos the underlying product is more than likely a complete waste of money. A scam. A way to suck the money out of your wallet.
When you see companies making claims like these it should be crystal clear that you are being lied to. And if a company has to lie to sell their products you have to ask your self why you would spend a single dime on their garbage.
