How To Evaluate Fat Burner Supplements Before You Buy

If you’re considering buying a fat burner, here’s how to evaluate whether it’s even worth your money.

Supplement ads will try to convince you that once you hit a plateau, pills, teas, coffees, smoothies, or cleanses are the missing piece. That it takes “more than training and nutrition” to get ripped or reveal your six-pack.

Before you pull out your credit card, let’s step back and look at this rationally.

Because you don’t need hype. You need perspective.

And if this topic feels personal, you’re not alone. I’ve been asked some version of the same question for years. Here’s one example:

QUESTION: Tom. I am currently not using any fat burners.However, in many magazines where I see advertisements for fat burners, they always have a model with a six-pack and the headline is something like, “It takes more than training and nutrition to get a six-pack.” Once a person hits a plateau, do we really need fat burners to achieve that “ripped” or “six-pack” look? I am having a really hard time getting my stomach to look the way I want it, and I really respect your opinion, so I appreciate your thoughts on this. Thanks Tom!

Do You Really Need Fat Burners?

The short and sweet answer is NO, you do not ever “need” fat burners, and NO it does NOT take “more than training and nutrition” to reach your fat loss goals.

While I won’t dismiss the fact that there are some ingredients in some “fat burner” products that might help a little bit, research has found that any benefit is so small it’s statistically insignificant. And what’s more, they don’t help long term – your body adapts.

Also, I take great displeasure in seeing those kinds of misleading headlines as well as the misleading use of models who are often paid to endorse the product even though they may never have even used it (they’re just models!)

Many “fat burner” companies have been sued by the Federal Trade Commission for false advertising, false claims and falsifying before and after photos.

The best you can expect is a slight thermogenic effect and maybe some slight appetite suppression. A few products might work through other mechanisms like improving hormone function (insulin, thyroid, etc), but if you forgive me the generalization, I consider the effects of all these “fat burner” products to be minutia.

In a previous newsletter, I wrote that in my opinion, 97% of your results come from nutrition and training and maybe you get an extra 3% advantage from supplements.

How Small The “Fat Burner” Effect Really Is

Just so you know those numbers aren’t something I just pulled out of thin air, lets take an example:

I have reviewed scientific data that EGCG, the active ingredient in green tea extract, if consumed in enough quantity, could increase thermogenesis / metabolic rate by an average of about75 calories in 24 hours.

Since ephedrine was taken off the market, green tea extract appears in many ephedra-free formulas these days.

What is a typical calorie expenditure for an active male in24 hours? lets say 2700 calories per day. 75/2700 = 2.7%.

That slight little extra doesn’t hurt, especially when its delivered in a healthful package such as green tea, rather than central nervous system stimulants, but it’s minutia in the bigger picture.

Why Moving Your Body Beats Taking A Pill

Another way to put this into perspective is to make a list of what other things would burn 75 calories (for 150 lb person:)

• walk your dog for 15 minutes
• three times a day, walk for 5 minutes at normal casual pace
• 30 minutes of ironing
• bagging leaves and grass clippings for 14 minutes
• re arrange your furniture for 10 minutes
• wash your car, 15 minutes
• vacuuming for 15 minutes
• 7.2 minutes of walking up stairs (could be spread throughout the day)

Ah yes, but why move your body when you can take the pill and metabolism increases while you sit and watch TV? How about for your health?

A body that is not moved, rots away. Unlike a car which only has so many miles on it and wears out from over-use,people are the only “machines” on earth that fall apart from under-use.

Here’s what any good fitness coach or trainer will always tell you:

• No amount of pill-popping will ever give you FITNESS.
• It will never give you STRENGTH.
• It will never get you MUSCULARITY.
• It will never give you FUNCTIONALITY.
• It will never transform your BODY SHAPE
• At best it will help you reduce body mass a little bit.

On one hand, I’m tempted to say that everything counts and that yes, 75 calories here, and 75 calories there, it ALL adds up,because it does. After you’re exercising regularly and all your fundamentals are in place, details and little things do matter.

I’m simply asking you to put the benefits of any fat burners in proper perspective and realize that (1) there is no “need” for taking them and (2) the claims made in the ads are often erroneous or exaggerated.

7 Rules For Evaluating Fat Burners

1. NEVER buy a fat burner unless you get independent verification of the claims made for the product.

How do you know they really work? Are you going to take the advertisers word for it? Are you going to take someone else’s testimonial as fact?

There’s a better way:

Get verification for yourself by

A. Going to the pubmed data base and looking for research or

B. Become a member at our inner circle, go to the supplement forum and look for the product in question. if it’s not there, start a new thread and ask if there is research supporting the product. We will do the research and independent verification for you in a neutral and unbiased fashion (because we are not affiliated with any supplement companies).

2. Put it in perspective

With those products that work, such as those providing a small thermogenic effect, put that in perspective as compared to how easily you could burn that many calories with even light exercise like walking or housework. Keep in mind the additional fitness and strength benefitsyou will obtain from exercise as opposed to doing nothing and popping a pill.

3. See if there are any side effects or health warnings.
With all supplements and especially with prohormones or stronger thermogenics like the ephedrine (if you still have access), understand the risk to benefit ratio, and be certain you know the dangers and contraindications.

4. Read the label and see if the product contains enough active ingredient to even work (“fairy dusting” scam).

A classic scam is when a “fat burner”product quotes research that a certain ingredient boosts metabolism, which might be true. What they may not tell you is that all the research with positive results used a large dosage of the ingredient, which might not be cheap.

So the supplement company includes a “pinch” or “light dusting”of that ingredient just so they can say it’s in the bottle, even though its nothing more than “label decoration.” Then they have the audacity to invoke the research studies in their advertisements when the amount of the ingredient in their product is no where near what was used in the research!

5. Proprietary blend scam.

Some companies don’t let you see how much ingredient is in the product formula, because it contains multiple ingredients and they say their formula is a “trade secret” aka “proprietary”, so they list what is in the product but not how much.

If you don’t know how much is in there then how are we (the consumers) supposed to get independent confirmation of the facts and analyze whether this product is any good?

6. Make sure there is human research, not just rodent research.

In many cases, advertisements cite studies on rats and mice as “proof” under the assumption that the product will produce the same results in humans.

Animal research is an important part of the scientific method, as it is often used to help find areas of research where human study should be pursued, or in the other direction, to trace back the mechanism that makes something work.

However, for weight loss research in particular, a positive finding in rats does not mean the same thing will happen in humans.

7. Look for more than one human study.

Consider trying a supplement after it has human research that has been replicated by different research groups which are not industry-sponsored. My policy is that I will usually only give a “buy” rating to a supplement when a product has an initial well-designed human controlled trial published and then similar research has been replicated by another research group that is not supplement-industry funded.

Actually, I think it’s a good thing that nutrition and supplement companies fund and sponsor some of the research. They should. They should not only backup their claims with published clinical trials, they should share some of the cost of this expensive research.

However, a basic principle of the scientific method is replication. Other researchers should be able to duplicate the findings.

Therefore, while funding source does not necessarily prove bias, if there is only one study available on a supplement and it is company or industry sponsored, I usually take it with a grain of salt and put an asterisk next to it while I wait for confirmation from another study.

Do You REALLY Need “More Than Nutrition And Exercise?

Now, when you weigh the fact that even the products with research backing them only help a little, with the fact that many of the ads lie to you about research, exaggerate claims and hide vital information about ingredients…

AND with the fact that you can do a few more minutes of exercise per day and get the same results for free, how enthusiastic are you about fat burners?

Yep, that’s why I’m not real excited about them either.

Not to mention I had a very successful career as a drug-free bodybuilder using zero supplements.

You can literally get all the way to six pack abs without anything other than the right training program and the right diet plan, combined with hard work and persistence.

Final word: The claim by the supplement industry that “It takes more than nutrition and exercise” is a lie.

Train hard and expect success,

Tom Venuto

Author of Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle (The “Bible of Fat loss”)
Founder of Burn The Fat Inner Circle: All-Natural Body Transformation

More Info About Fat Burners

Do Fat Burners Really Work? What The Biggest New Study Says

A Scientific Look At Individual “Fat Burner” Ingredients

Why Fat Burners Have No Place On The Fat Loss Diet Pyramid

Biggest Scam Ever? Man Boob Burners

About Tom Venuto
Tom Venuto is a natural bodybuilding and fat loss coach with 35 years of experience. He holds a degree in exercise science and has trained hundreds of clients in person. He is also a recipe creator specializing in fat-burning, muscle-building cooking.

A former competitive bodybuilder, Tom is now a full-time evidence-based fitness writer, blogger, and author. His classic book Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle is an international bestseller, first as an ebook and later as a hardcover and audiobook. His newest book. Extreme Fat Loss, which analyzes controversial diet and training programs, became an instant bestseller in 2025.

Tom’s work has been featured in Men’s Fitness, Oprah Magazine and dozens of other major publications. He is best known for his no-BS, evidence based approach to natural fat loss and muscle-building.

Tom is also the founder of Burn the Fat Inner Circle, a fitness support community with more than 53,000 members worldwide since 2006.