How to Recognize and Avoid Diet Scams

When you want to lose weight, it can be easy to be taken in by false claims for miracle drugs and fad diets. Doing so can result in unnecessary expense, frustration, and even lead to serious health problems. It's in your best interest to learn to recognize and avoid diet scams. Don't fall victim to false advertisements promising weight loss claims that are just not realistic.

About Weight Loss Scams

If something seems too good to be true, there's a good chance that it is exactly what it appears. There is no diet product that will cause you to lose weight while you continue to eat as much as you want of any type of food you like. There is also no magic cream you can rub on your tummy to melt off excess weight, nor is a patch or staple in your ear going to get rid of the excess weight you are carrying.

It is a fact that the only way to lose weight is to eat less and exercise more. While there are many diet programs that can help you accomplish your weight loss goals by providing guidance for how to eat and exercise, there is no magic formula that will melt away pounds and inches with no effort on your part.

6 Warning Signs of a Weight Loss Scam

If you're looking at a diet product or program, stop and ask yourself if it seems to be a scam. If it's focused on helping you master healthy eating habits and encourages increased physical activity, it may be legitimate. If it makes the following assertions, however, there's a good chance that you're looking at a weight loss scam.

1. Lose weight without changing your eating habits. It's your eating habits that caused your weight to be what it is now. Unless they change, your weight isn't going to change.

2. No exercise needed when you use this product. There's no way to lose weight without burning off more calories than you consume.

3. You'll never need to diet again. If you go on a crash diet, then revert to your old habits, the weight is just going to come right back.

4. Take this pill (or wear this patch) and your extra weight will simply disappear. Manufacturers have been asserting to have the "Holy Grail" of weight loss for decades. Obesity is more prevalent now than ever before. If there were really a magic pill, don't you think that there would be a lot more skinny people?

5. You'll lose "X" pounds in just a (week, month, etc.). Any diet that promises rapid weight loss is a crash diet program that will do little more than result in water weight loss that won't last.

6. Just eat a (grapefruit, bowl of cabbage soup, cayenne pepper, etc) and the pounds will melt away. There is no magic food that will keep your body from absorbing the calories you eat.