The Billion Dollar Scam

An Inner Circle member who I chat with quite often asked me the other day: “Tom, how come you always seem so critical of supplements in general? I would think, since you’ve always been a natural bodybuilder, that if it was possible a natural supplement could increase performance or muscle gains, and be an alternative to steroids or P.E.D.s, you’d be all for it.” I thought that was a fair question. This was my reply…

I’ve been around the sport and in the industry across four decades now. In that time, I’ve had the chance to see dozens of supplements promoted as miraculous muscle builders or fat burners. I’ve seen the purveyors of these products make millions, tens of millions, hundreds of millions, even a billion dollars. (Another supplement company was just sold this year for one billion)…

Then, I’ve watched them drop off the map after they were proven ineffective by research, or consumers figured it out themselves (that they didn’t work) and stopped buying. The supplement “graveyard” is massive.

Then I’ve seen the cycle happen all over again with the next big thing, because there’s new young people constantly entering the marketplace, and there’s so much money to be made in selling people a magic pill. We’re not talking about a little money, we’re talking about fortunes being made off of these people trying to scam you.

A magic pill, unfortunately, is what most people want to buy. This is why almost every “influencer” in the health and fitness space starts a supplement company sooner or later, and sadly, that even includes people who started out as good evidence-based educators. People I thought, at first, were good people. But the temptation of big money was simply too alluring to resist.

With only rare exceptions, selling books isn’t that great of a business really, because people don’t buy the same book over and over again. (Maybe they buy the audiobook, so there’s two sales). But people keep buying the same supplements over and over, for months, and years. They need their refills.

Of course, there are supplements that are helpful for health and for maintaining nutrient sufficiency for people in certain circumstances.

But when you look at the history of supplements specifically in the muscle-building and fat-burning categories over decades, you see that almost every product ever promoted turned out to be bogus or at least over-hyped.

The entire category of “fat burners” is a giant scam. Don’t take my word for it, look up the research for yourself:

Clark J, et al, Comparing effectiveness of fat burners and thermogenic supplements to diet and exercise for weight loss and cardiometabolic health; systematic review and meta-analysis, Nutr Health, 27:4, 445-459, 2021.

You’ve heard of “red flags” before? That doesn’t just apply to dating. My red flag in the fitness world is that ANYONE, no matter how legit the rest of their work appears, no matter how high their book is on the charts, no matter how many followers, even no matter if I used to be a fan, if they start selling a “fat burner pill,” they are instantly blacklisted and I won’t recommend them or associate with them. Such people have no integrity or character. All they want to do is suck the money right out of your wallet.

In the muscle building category of supplements, only in extremely rare cases, like creatine, does a product stand the test of time after it’s scrutinized by scientists and tested in the real world.

But even creatine only helps a little – it’s overrated. Don’t take my word for it, look up the latest research:

The Effects of Creatine Supplementation Combined with Resistance Training on Regional Measures of Muscle Hypertrophy: A Systematic Review with Meta-Analysis, Burke et al, Nutrients, 15: 2116, 2023.

Also, even with proven products like creatine, they are nothing like steroids, not even close. “Steroid replacement” is one of the biggest lies. The best you get is a very small boost in muscle, strength or performance. Supplements are never a game changer, more like a tiny extra edge in results.

Instead of being open minded about every new supplement, I start from the premise that it doesn’t work, and then the burden of proof is on the shoulders of the people or company making the claim. And I will NEVER be an early adopter, if for no other reason than I don’t know about long-term safety.

To convince me to take a supplement myself or to recommend one to others, I would have to see incontrovertible proof of effectiveness from well-controlled, well-designed, unbiased scientific studies, combined with overwhelming real world user support for the product as well. It’s a tiny list of products that meets that criteria.

I’m pretty sure you could count on one hand the number of supplements that have any benefit for improving muscle, strength or performance, and the majority of those give only a very small benefit.

If someone is a competitive athlete or a serious physique or strength enthusiast, maybe they would be justified in being an early adopter / experimenter, especially if money is not an issue. In that demographic, getting a tiny little extra edge can be meaningful.

And as long as a supplement is safe, the worst that happens is some money is flushed down the toilet. But, as a personal choice, even though I was a competitive bodybuilder, I decided to stay a supplement skeptic, and I have remained so to this day.

I published my first website in 1999. The tag line was “The honest fitness site.” I pledged those 25 years ago that I would never sell supplements. Since then, almost everyone else sold out. I’ve been true to my original promise.

Today, the tag line of our Burn the Fat Inner Circle website is, “All-natural, no-BS body transformation.” That means no drugs, no supplements, no nonsense.

If you feel the same way I do, then Burn the Fat Inner Circle is the right place for you, it will be your home and safe place online amidst the muck and mire of today’s fitness media, and I will be thrilled to have you join us and I will be happy to serve you…

And on this 25th anniversary of me starting online, I pledge once again, for the next quarter of a century, and beyond, that I’ll remain the guy who doesn’t sell out.

Hope you join us. There is no other place like this:

==> www.BurnTheFatInnerCircle.com

Train hard and expect success!

Tom Venuto
Founder of Burn the Fat Inner Circle: No-BS Body Transformation
Author of Burn the Fat Guide To Flexible Meal Planning
Creator of TNB Turbo: Time Efficient SuperSet Training

PS. What do you think? Post in the comments below, or post in our Facebook group here

About Tom Venuto
Tom Venuto is a natural bodybuilding and fat loss expert. He is also a recipe creator specializing in fat-burning, muscle-building cooking. Tom is a former competitive bodybuilder and today works as a full-time fitness coach, writer, blogger, and author. In his spare time, he is an avid outdoor enthusiast and backpacker. His book, Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle is an international bestseller, first as an ebook and now as a hardcover and audiobook. The Body Fat Solution, Tom’s book about emotional eating and long-term weight maintenance, was an Oprah Magazine and Men’s Fitness Magazine pick. Tom is also the founder of Burn The Fat Inner Circle – a fitness support community with over 52,000 members worldwide since 2006. Click here for membership details