Supplements for Improving Women’s Health: Supplement Questions + Supplement Answers
Josef Brandenburg, best selling author, is the co-owner and a coach at True 180 Personal Training, Charlotte’s most effective personal training studio for women since 2016. With decades of experience and multiple certifications, he shares his research with you below.
These are the answers to our most common questions about supplements for improving women’s health, fitness and body composition. If you have a question that’s not on this list please send it in (because I need a topic for next week!).
1. Fat burning pills don’t exist: fat-burning pills advertise they’re “clinically proven” to help you “lose more fat than dieting alone.” The promises range from double the fat-loss to 10x the fat loss vs diet and exercise alone. (Wouldn’t that be nice?) While it’s true some herbs that can increase your metabolism, the boost is only 5-8% for a few hours… meaning the total “extra burn” is 15-20 calories per day if you take the maximum “safe” dose. This means you might lose a pound in 4 months if everything goes right.
However, the herbs that might help you burn 15-20 extra calories per day, ephedra and yohimbe, are high risk in high doses for your cardiovascular system. Hardly seems worth it.
What do to: you can try carbonated beverages and caffeine to help take the edge off your hunger, and remember common sense – “if it’s too good to be true, then it probably is.”
2. Avoid MLM or network marketing products: Multilevel marketing (MLM) or network marketing are pyramid shaped marketing/distribution plans. They rely on your recruiting 5-10 people to “work” under you, and then getting those 5-10 people to do the same, and so on until you have built a pyramid-shaped “downline.” Money is only made by bring people into your “downline” vs selling the product because you get commissions on the commissions of the lower tier folks who get commissions on commissions on the lower tier folks who get commissions on the lower tier… Let’s put aside the pyramid-shaped business model, and focus on what matters to you – the quality of the products.
MLM organizations have a math problem the delivers both high prices and low quality. Too many commissions have to paid to too many people for there to be enough leftover to get quality raw ingredients for the supplements. The person selling you the product may be completely sincere, but their sincerity doesn’t change the math. MLM’s have 10-15% to spend on raw ingredients, whereas regular companies that wholesale to retailers can spend 40-50%, and direct to consumer companies can spend even more on the raw ingredients.
What to do: Avoid pyramid schemes – 99% of those involved lose money, and if you get too deep in that rabbit hole it can cost your marriage and/or friends. The best value will be found at direct to consumer supplement companies because there are zero middlemen.
3. Check for contamination: You can and should look for products that have been 3rd party certified to contain what they say they contain. You can also quickly take a look at recalls or warning issued by the FDA. Example: the issued a FDA warning for the supplement Supreme Slim 5.7 because it “contains hidden drug ingredients.” These drugs (which are not on the label, nor legal to include in dietary supplement) are:
(a) Sildenafil – better know as Viagra, which can have negative interactions with common heart medications; and
(b) Phenolphthalein –a laxative the FDA banned in the 90’s because of it’s link to cancer. Laxatives cause rapid weight loss.
What to do: check this website before you consider any new supplements.
4. Use a pill organizer: Once a week, put all of your supplements into a pill organizer. For most this simple device is a consistency game changer. When I started using one I was shocked at how often I had been missing my supplements because, in my mind, I was near 100% consistency.
What to do: get a pill organizer.
More questions about supplements: