Q: I’m gearing up for the New Year, and wondering if fat burning supplements really work?
A: If by “really work” you mean do they live up to claims for “6x the weight loss,” the answer is (sadly) no. The only thing you can consume for rapid weight loss is spoiled food due to the power of diarrhea.
Can you lose weight 6x faster with fat burning supplements?
Arithmetic alone tells you that this claim is BS. If you are being very diligent, as a woman, you can average .5-1lbs of weight loss per week for a while. Keeping this up is hard. Losing 1 pound per week requires a deficit of no less than 500* calories per day.
To lose weight 6 x faster you’d have to take your 500 calorie per day deficit and turn it into 3,000 per day. The average woman’s total daily burn (all calories burned per day for all reasons and functions) is about 2,200 calories**. This means that even on a water fast, you’d still need to burn 800 more calories to get to a 3,000 calorie deficit. 800 calories is a lot of exercise, and it’s a whole lot harder when you haven’t eaten anything in days.
Hopefully it’s obvious that I’m using the water fast as an example of why the fat burner claims are preposterous, and that I’m not encouraging 30 water fasts + hours of daily exercise.
*I say no less than 500 per day because weight loss is nearly always less than predicted by the 3,500 calories = 1 pound guideline. Here’s an in-depth on why. Additionally, even if 3,500 calories predicts 1 pound of weight loss for you this means being perfect 7 days per week. Eating out on a Saturday means canceling out 2-3 days of a deficit, and also mean that Saturday is a wash. In this scenario of eating out once your weekly deficit gets cut in half, and the 1 pound you were going for becomes half. The last sentence is to help you see why losing .5 pounds per week as a real accomplishment regardless of what someone says on social media.
**The paper where this 2,200 number comes from also found that men and women under reported how much food they ate by 400 calories, and over reported how much physical activity they got by 400 calories. Combine these 400’s and, on average, our perception of calories in and out are off by over 1/3rd. This has a lot to do with why everyone (myself included) is usually disappointed with their weight loss relative to their perceptions.
Do fat burner’s do anything?
A thermogenic supplement (aka fat burner) will boost your metabolism about 8%, but only for 3 hours, or about 15 extra calories. If you take 2 doses per day*** you might burn an extra 30 calories per day. At this rate it takes 117 days (4 months) to lose one extra pound if everything goes right.
***2 doses per day because there are limits to how much you can or should take. One issue is that you can’t take them around the clock and sleep (or sleep well). Sleep is very important for weight loss/maintenance, sanity, immune function, etc. The longer you are awake the more opportunities you have to eat. The less you sleep the less willpower you have to resist temptation.
With that said, caffeine is a modest appetite suppressant, so, perhaps, it can take the edge off of your hunger when you are losing weight. Fat burning supplements are also zero calorie, so getting your caffeine from a pill instead of a milkshake-like-coffee-beverage (Frappuccino’s, mocha lattes, etc.) would save you hundreds of calories per day. However, black coffee or tea would work the same.
Bottom Line on Fat Burning Supplements
Sadly, nothing is going to boost your weight loss by 6x, or even double it. If you take 2 doses per day you might burn an extra 30 calories per day. If you’ll get any weight loss benefit from a fat burner it will be because you switch to a calorie-free source of caffeine.
All that being said, we suggest sticking with a healthy diet, and strength training 2-3 x week + get in your NEAT!