It has happened again. A while back I reported about the total myth HCG diet, and pointed out the many flaws in the hype. The ‘diet’ came and went fast for the exact reasons I stated – no substance and a net gain in fat and loss in muscle.

Well folks the next big hype sensation is here, and it too is equally bunk.

“But Dr. XX says it’s wonderful!” Yes, it is wonderful if you are selling it to millions of people who blindly buy what you say to buy without looking further.

This newest craze — Green Coffee Bean Extract does not ‘melt pounds of fat away without diet or exercise’ at all. The ‘study’ was done by a group of people in India. The study used an odd, unconventional, non-scientific methodology, was done on very few people and in fact showed that both the people on the green coffee bean extract and the group during the placebo sugar pill phase also lost weight.

Further, this ‘study’ was then written into a scientific paper by a doctor who never did the study, was not involved in the study, never had anything to do with the

study. This doctor was hired by a company that sells green coffee bean extract among other products, and was paid to write a nice clean scientific report.

“Usually when studies break the physical laws of the universe, there’s something wrong with the study itself,” said Dr. Yoni Freedhoff, medical director of Ottawa’s Bariatric Medical Institute.

The author of the report claims no conflict of interest by being hired by the supplement company because he didn’t do the research, he just wrote the paper. I’m going to call that a ‘super suspicious loophole’. He further claims that he ‘doesn’t benefit financially if the company sells a lot of product as a result of the research’.

Sounds vague to me.

The problem once again that I have with this stuff is that people flock to it, spending millions of dollars without stopping to really look at the details. They do so without asking an expert first or even doing a little research on their own. Why? Because a Hollywood doctor on television said so.

Listen folks, I have said it before, I will say it again and again – the human body is designed for exercise and eating well. There are no short cuts to hard work, eating well and resting. None.

If something sounds way too good to be true like “Eat this pill, look like a magazine model”, then you really need to think twice. (Don’t even get me started on models, crash dieting, Photoshop and makeup).

And here’s the big thing — who says exercise is anything other than fun?

Sure, it requires effort and maybe sometimes you don’t feel like it, but come on.

What about meeting up with friends and really enjoying some movement?

This past Saturday we had our Spartan one-hour boot camp workout again. Trust me, this is a hard, full sweat, everything you’ve got workout and the comments we got back in person and on facebook were not “This is too hard, I wish there was a pill I could take.” We got things like, “I love Saturdays!” “That was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, boy do I feel great!”

One lady this past week did 75 push ups, feels great, has a totally different look on life and the ability to enjoy moving around in her body and said, “You know, a few months ago all I could do was five push ups.”

You cannot get that in a pill, from the salesman/doctor on TV. Let’s keep it real.

Scott McDermott is a personal trainer and owner of Best Body Fitness in Sylvan Lake.