Pills, diets, hypnosis, and… smoothies. These are just some of the millions of cures posted online and through digital media to appeal to customers with weight problems. Unfortunately, many of them don’t work, and even the testimonials used to support them are not typical results or are just fake.

Last night I was listening to the radio and heard a commercial for Right-Size Smoothies. Part of the commercial said “I just got off the phone with a woman who ordered Right-Size Smoothies…she’s already lost twelve pounds in seven days”. Yeah right!

Another claim the advertisement made was that it knocks out your appetite and helps you burn more calories than you take in. Sure, not eating much should lead to weight loss, in concept, but this can cause malnutrition and other health problems. And you’re only burning more calories than you take in because you’re barely taking in any calories.

The most shady part of the advertisement: “We’ve developed a cutting-edge appetite manager called apamin. It’s in the smoothie, you drink it, it knocks out your appetite…that leads to weight loss”. Apamin. What a fancy word. Unfortunately, apamin is the toxin that’s found in bees’ and hornets’ stings and it’s a nerve sodium-channel blocker. You don’t want the feeling of a bee sting after you drink anything, do you?

So the first advice to weight loss- pay no attention to the phony weight loss scams out there.

Published by Geoffrey Liu

A software engineer by trade and a classical musician at heart. Currently a software engineer at Groupon getting into iOS mobile development. Recently graduated from the University of Washington, with a degree in Computer Science and a minor in Music. Web development has been my passion for many years. I am also greatly interested in UI/UX design, teaching, cooking, biking, and collecting posters.

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