A friend of mine this morning mentioned a magazine ad she saw promoting a new “breakthrough” weight loss product that used “metabolic conditioning”. It was supposedly so scientifically advanced that if you used it and didn’t lose at least 5kg (11lb) in the first week without any strenuous exercise, you get your money back.
I immediately knew the person behind it, he was running TV ads recently claiming that on average users of his program lost 6kg (13.2lb) in the first week. This is clearly absurd. And I’m ashamed to say that he is a quite highly-regarded trainer in Australia.
The fact it’s BS is actually a good thing, because if it were true, the majority of the weight loss would have been from muscle and water, and the users would most likely plateau within weeks.
The lesson here is that you really can’t trust anyone, regardless of their qualifications. Perhaps even more disturbingly, the above mentioned trainer was actually at one stage promoting his program on TV in partnership with a qualified doctor. The doctor no longer appears to be associated with the product however, for what reason, I can only guess.
How effective this weight loss program actually is in reality I have no idea, but given the fact that the promoter needs to resort to such blatantly false advertising can only raise alarm bells. My philosophy has always been that if you hear claims that sound too good to be true, run the other way. If these people were telling the truth with their claims, weight loss would have been revolutionized at least once a week for the past 20 years. And yet, obesity is increasing.
Unfortunately, tricksters know that regardless of what they sell, statistically only 5-15% of buyers will ultimately ask for a refund. So they can sell total rubbish, if they market it well they’ll still make a killing, no problem.
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