I’m sure you’ve seen tons of advertising on the internet for products that are supposed to get you into shape quickly and pretty much without effort. I’m talking about things like “waist trainers”, skinny teas, weight loss pills and so on.

Getting the body of your dreams without having to work for it sounds tempting, right? It seems almost too good to be true. Well, that’s because it is! While the promises of those products might seem very enticing and while they’re often advertised by people that are in great shape, those quick fixes won’t get you real or sustainable results. If they give you any results at all, the results will last only as long as you’re taking the pills, drinking the tea or wearing the “waist trainer”. As soon as you stop using these products, whatever they gave you will disappear, and some of them might even cause you harm. Quick fixes won’t help you build longterm healthy habits, and healthy habits are exactly what you need to be able to achieve real lasting results when it comes to fitness and weight management.

In the fitness industry, when things sound too good to be true, they usually are. Whenever you come across some kind of “miracle product” that promises instant results out of nowhere, do your research before going for it; it could do you more harm than good. To show you what I mean, we’ll look at waist trainers and skinny teas here.

• Wearing a “waist trainer” once for an evening because you want a nice silhouette for a tight dress is absolutely fine, but wearing them daily for a permanently smaller waist won’t help (shortly after you take it off, your waist will go back to normal) and can even be dangerous. Wearing a “waist trainer” can make it hard to breathe, restrict blood flow to vital organs and cause the core muscles to become inactive and atrophy over time.
• Most skinny teas act as diuretics and laxatives, meaning that the weight you lose will be water weight, and you might feel skinnier because, well, anything that might have been in your digestive system will come out. Keeping that up for a long period of time can have a whole bunch of negative side effects, including your digestion not being able to function normally without the stimulants found in the teas.

The truth is that if you want to get in shape and feel good about it, nothing beats living a healthy lifestyle and exercising regularly. Choose a form of exercise that you can enjoy and stick with it, and eat food that’s healthy, nourishing and tasty. Through knowing that you put in the work, you’ll grow your confidence and sense of self in the process, and you’ll learn valuable lessons about exercise and nutrition along the way. What could be better than that?