Blogs are wonderful things. Not only do they indulge the various authors’ needs to comment, rant & rave, or merely speculate on some topic or another (see more about the authors) they foster a sense of community and encourage you to share your views and opinions, and so forth.

We’re hoping that you’ll make visiting UltimateFatBurner.com’s blog a part of your daily routine, and that you’ll share with us your comments and questions about any of the topics raised here. We’d love to see you become active and involved. It’s the ultimate win-win… for you, and for us.

This blog will be dedicated to topics that fall within the general theme of UltimateFatBurner.com (i.e, exercise, body building, supplements,weight loss, diet, etc), but outside the realm of mere product reviews. If it’s product reviews you’re looking for, you’ve come to the wrong place. Navigate over to UltimateFatBurner.com, and perform a search for the product you are looking for. If you can’t find it, feel free to contact us and request a review. 

If you’re looking to post comments on a product you have tried, or you wish to read comments on certain products, visit our sister site, Real-Customer-Comments.com and search for the product
there.

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Paul sent me this article about a week or so ago…which was sent to him by a friend.  Since I have a Master’s degree in Food Science, he figured I’d have an opinion…and he wuz right (as usual).  I pretty much rolled my eyes when I read it - it was the usual tripe about how the big, bad food additives are gonna getcha if ya don’t watch out.  The author of the piece managed to cram a toxicological House of Horrors into a single table - no study, no matter how shoddily done or discredited, was passed up, if the conclusions could be used to paint a negative picture.  Unfortunately, this toxicology stuff just isn’t that simple. 

To take an example, one of the effects the author attributes to BHT (butylated hydroxytoluene) is cancer; yet if you search through the literature, you come up with studies that firmly establish this compound has anti-cancer activity.  In this study on photocarcinogenesis, BHT is contrasted to beta-carotene, a “natural” antioxidant consumed in yellow/orange veggies like carrots.  Guess what?  Beta-carotene promotes UV carcinogenesis, whereas BHT inhibits it.

Who knew? Continue Reading »

Jumping rope is a great cardiovascular exercise, for sure.  But if you can’t do it, then the folks selling “JumpSnap” have the perfect solution for you.

Or maybe not: it sure looks catchy, and the video is awesome.  But forget the background music and choreography for a moment and look a little closer at what everyone is doing…

That’s right.  They’re simply jumping up and down while waving a pair of talking handles around.  Can you get a good workout by jumping up and down?  Absolutely…but do you really need to fork out $59.95 for the privilege?  Even though I have two left feet, I’m quite certain I could manage to jump around without the handles and set of instructional DVDs, thank you very much.

Forget the gimmicks.  If you can’t jump rope, faking it with a pair of expensive (and useless) handles isn’t the solution.  The solution is to practice.  It won’t be long before you can keep going long enough to get in a solid cardio workout.

I’m often struck by the difference between reports on health/fitness research that appear in the popular media, and the actual published research.  Oh, the popular reports are accurate enough in what they say…but what they don’t say can be important too.  When a scientific study catches media attention, reporters frequently act as stenographers and cheerleaders, and don’t give the details the analysis they deserve.  Even top researchers can have personal biases that influence the conclusions they draw, and people can be misled if they don’t get the whole story.

Take, for example, this MSNBC report, which describes a 2007 study that refutes conventional wisdom about diet and exercise.  The basic conclusion was - when it comes to weight loss - it’s all about the calories.  You can do equally well by eating less OR exercising more - but exercise offers no metabolic advantage. 

How did they arrive at this conclusion?  The researchers took overweight subjects and divided them into two groups: the first group’s calories were reduced by 25%, while the second group used a combination of diet (12.5% reduction in calories) + exercise (which burned another 12.5%) to create the same 25% deficit.  Both groups lost the same amount of weight, so voila! You really don’t have to exercise to lose weight.  Continue Reading »

It’s not just about having surplus fat - it’s where you carry it that’s important.

I’m sure you’ve seen this one before, or some variation on the theme, such as “According to a recent clinical study…” Unfortunately, a study is no guarantee that the product or ingredient described in the ad will work as claimed.  Why?

First of all, the study may be “in-vitro.” Some people call these “test tube” studies (although I hate that term).  In-vitro studies use cultured cells from a commercial source such as American Type Culture Collection (ATCC), or tissue samples taken from an animal.  In an in-vitro study, the compound in question is added to the cells or tissue, to see what it does.

So what’s the problem? An in-vitro study can only tell you what happens when the compound is in direct contact with the cells.  It can’t tell you what happens when it’s swallowed by a person.  When you swallow a compound, it has to pass through your GI tract first. This means it may never be absorbed at all, or it may be metabolized and broken down long before it ever gets to the target tissues (like fat cells!).

Or, the study may have been done in mice, rats or rabbits (people are expensive!). These are better for assessing the effects of a compound in a living body, but still have some drawbacks.  Continue Reading »