Fat Loss Supplement Guide

    Medical disclaimer

    This guide is a general-health document for adults 18 or over. Its aim is strictly educational. It does not constitute medical advice. Please consult a medical or health professional before you begin any exercise-, nutrition-, or supplementation-related program, or if you have questions about your health.

    This guide is based on scientific studies, but individual results do vary. If you engage in any activity or take any product mentioned herein, you do so of your own free will, and you knowingly and voluntarily accept the risks. While we mention major known interactions, it is possible for any supplement to interact with other supplements, with foods and pharmaceuticals, and with particular health conditions.

    Examine.com does not assume liability for any actions undertaken after visiting these pages, and does not assume liability if one misuses supplements. Examine.com and its Editors do not ensure that unforeseen side effects will not occur even at the proper dosages, and thereby does not assume liability for any side effects from supplements or practices hosted under the domain of Examine.com.

    Examine.com does not make any representations, recommend or endorse any specific tests, products, procedures, opinions, or other information that may be mentioned on the website. Reliance on any information provided by Examine.com, Examine.com employees, guest writers, editors, and invitees of Examine.com, or other visitors to Examine.com is solely at your own risk.

    How to use

    The Examine team has been publishing research on nutrition and supplementation since March 2011. Drawing from all we’ve learned, we’ve designed this Supplement Guide with two aims in mind: helping you decide which supplements are right for you, based on the scientific evidence, and helping you integrate these supplements into synergistic combos.

    Primary supplements have the best safety-efficacy profile. When used responsibly, they are the supplements most likely to help and not cause side effects.

    Secondary supplements may provide substantial benefits, but only in the right context. A secondary option is not for everyone and not a first pick, but if you read the entry and find that you meet the criteria, consider adding the supplement to your combo.

    Promising supplements have less evidence for their effects. They could work or be a waste of money. Keep them in mind, but think twice before adding them to your combo.

    Unproven supplements are backed by tradition or by mechanistic, animal, epidemiological, or anecdotal evidence, but not yet by convincing human trials. At this point, they are not good candidates for your combo.

    Inadvisable supplements are either potentially dangerous or simply ineffective, marketing claims notwithstanding. Do not add them to your combo. At best, they’ll be a waste of money; at worst, they can cause you harm.

    Now that you’ve learned of various supplements worthy of your consideration, you’ll learn to integrate them into synergistic combos. You’ll discover a core combo (composed of the most important and least controversial supplements) and several specialized combos. Each specialized combo is optimized for a specific population. The simplest way to formulate your own combo is to combine the core combo with the specialized combo that best fits your situation, needs, and primary health goal.

    Then comes the FAQ, in which we cover common questions that may arise when selecting and combining supplements. With all this, you should be able to identify and assemble the supplement combo best suited to your objective.

    Introduction

    As a graduate student, I pooh-poohed the posers who flaunted “sub-10% body fat” unconfirmed by DXA or at least hydrostatic weighing. How ignorant they were, whereas I — being quantified and verified — was so much better than them. (No matter how balanced I seemed on the outside, inwardly I was a bit of a jerk.)

    As part of my quest for the lowest BF%, I took all the fat loss supplements — nearly literally all of them. Having read a few studies selected by the supplements’ manufacturers, I believed myself to be the repository of fat-loss secrets unknown to the crowd.

    Then I took years of biostatistics and epidemiology, and I realized that most of the studies I’d trusted were of extremely poor quality. Years later, when I first worked with patients in an obesity clinic, I started to record on their intake forms the very same supplements I’d been taking. It makes sense…who wouldn’t want a quick fix if at all possible?

    Everyone wants quick fixes, whether it’s a client at an obesity clinic who is trying to shed a hundred pounds or a gym rat trying to hit a BF% goal. Some gym rats who don’t carry too much fat are easily convinced that they do and thus suffer from poor body image and tarnished self-esteem. But they’ll never admit it, even if they’re secretly jealous of their friend’s intricate arm veins.

    These same insecurities plague those of us who don’t aim for a freaky-low BF% but just want to be “toned”. When we see bodybuilders or even health models on the covers of magazines, we can’t help imagining them looking shredded year round, even when we know they can’t be. And by the way, my fellow humans, even if you do manage to bring your BF% down to the same level as a bodybuilder’s on contest day, you still won’t look as cut unless you dehydrate yourself until your skin is paper-thin (which, need I mention it, isn’t healthy).

    So what does it all mean? Well, it means that you need to ask yourself the right questions, to begin with. In this case, the first question isn’t “How do I lose fat?” — that isn’t even the second question. The first question is “How much fat do I carry?”, the second is “What’s my fat goal?”, and finally, the third is “How do I get there?” (which usually translates to “How do I lose fat?”).

    Combos

    There are 4 entries here. Please login or become an Examine+ member to see them.

    Primary Supplements

    There is 1 entry here. Please login or become an Examine+ member to see them.

    Secondary Supplements

    There are 2 entries here. Please login or become an Examine+ member to see them.

    Promising Supplements

    There are 9 entries here. Please login or become an Examine+ member to see them.

    Unproven Supplements

    Inadvisable Supplements

    There are 3 entries here. Please login or become an Examine+ member to see them.

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