Fat Blockers
The products:Pills intended to prevent your body from absorbing the fat
you eat. Chitosan — a substance that forms the hard shells of shellfish and
insects — is a popular ingredient. Another is pyruvate, a substance that
occurs naturally in the body and is involved in energy production.The reality:Sure, it would be nice if you could enjoy fried chicken, mounds of
mashed potatoes and gravy, butter, rolls, ice cream, and cake — all without
gaining weight. But guess what? You can’t! We don’t know whether pyruvate
and chitosan are beneficial for weight loss. We do know that both Fat Trapper
and Exercise in a Bottle can run you as much as $300 a month — a whopping
$3,600 a year. That’s ten times the cost of many gym memberships. If you’re
serious about dropping body fat, stay away from high-fat foods and get plenty
of the type of exercise that doesn’t come in a bottle.Effortless Exercisers
The products: These contraptions are the player pianos of exercise machines.
They move whether you’re holding on or not. Consider the Stretch-A-Cizer,
essentially a chair with a handlebar mounted above the seat back. “All you do
is sit on the seat and hold onto the exercise bar while it goes through the
motions,” explains an Internet ad for this $1,200 electric contraption (freight
prepaid!). Also in this category: the Chi Machine Aerobic Exerciser. You lie on
your back on the floor, place your ankles on the machine’s contoured
footrest, flip a switch, and let this $460 gizmo toss you around like a fish out
of water. “This is not a 10-kilometer run kind of workout, where one gets all
sweaty and exhausted,” the Chi Machine Web site reports. “Instead you lie
down, relax, [and] have a ‘workout.’”The reality: This is all a bunch of baloney. We don’t think we have to tell you
why you won’t get thin by lying on the floor and having electrical impulses
shoot up your spine so you flop around like a fish — even if you do this five
times a day for 15 minutes, as the Chi Machine literature recommends.Electronic Muscle Stimulation Machines
The products: Metal boxes that deliver a low-impulse jolt of electricity to
muscles that are covered by electrodes. This jolt is supposed to tone and
tighten muscles.Chapter 26: Ten Fitness Rip-Offs 375