Leptitrex Fat Burner Reviewed: Lose 7 Pounds In 7 Days?
Leptitrex, according to the advertising material I just reviewed, is a pretty amazing product. Not only can you lose “7 pounds every 7 days” (interestingly, a claim identical to the Orovo Detox fat burner I recently reviewed), Leptitrex offers a series of additional benefits. Yep, not only will you melt off unsightly fat, you’ll detox your body, eliminate acne, suppress your appetite, build muscle, and feel an euphoric high…
… all at the same time. Wow! Pretty impressive, huh? Well, it would be, if any of it were an accurate representation of this product’s abilities. Let’s address the claims…
1. Lose 7 Pounds In 7 days: While it’s entirely possible to lose 7 pounds of weight in a week, it is impossible (short of acquiring some dehabilitating sickness or having liposuction) to lose 7 pounds of fat in such a short period. Any dramatic weight loss that occurs in such a short period is merely water weight.
Consider this; a pound of fat is the equivalent of approximately 3,500 calories of stored energy (that’s all a calorie is; a measurement of energy). The averaged size person will burn approximately 600 calories in an hour of moderately intense activity on a treadmill. One pound of fat stores the equivalent of nearly 6 hours of such activity, 7 pounds, nearly 42 hours.
Once you recognize the simple logistics of weight loss, you can discount any and all “miraculous” claims. There are no “natural supplements” (not even prescription weight loss drugs) that work anywhere near this well. Most people do well if they’re losing weight at a slow sustained rate — 1 to 2 pounds per week is a good place to be.
Leptitrex’s “Fat Burning matrix” — a 15 ingredient, 715 mg-strong blend contains relatively few ingredients that have shown any positive effects on weight loss at all (caffeine, and to a much lesser extent, synephrine). Additionally, with so many ingredients in such a small formula, you can be sure the majority of the ingredients present are not included in doses large enough to elicit any response.
2. Detox your body: “Detox” is a pretty popular “buzzword” in the supplement industry these days. Unfortunately — as you’ll see in this blog post where I discuss “detoxing” in detail — it means nothing. As of this writing, there is no evidence that supplementing with a blend of herbs of indiscriminate strength and potency will do anything to make you more healthy, or improve the efficiency of your liver and kidneys.
3. Feel a euphoric high: Leptitrex contains several “chocolate-derived” ingredients — chocamine and phenylethylamine (PEA). Phenylethylamine is the “ampthetamine-related” chemical present in chocolate which produces that famous “chocolate high.”
Retailers of fat burners tout PEA’s mood-elevating qualities (the “euphoria of consuming 1,000 chocolate bars” yeah, right!) claiming it burns fat and elevates mood. Unfortunately, simple supplementation with phenylethylamine won’t do much to improve your mood. That’s because the majority of it gets metabolized by an enzyme known as “monamine oxidase” (MAO).
That’s why the best phenylethylamine-based fat burners also contain natural MAOI’s (monamine oxidase inhibitors). Gaspari’s Cytolean (reviewed here) is one such product.
So much for “euphoria.”
And it’s incredible fat burning potential?
There is no conclusive clinical evidence validating either PEA’s or chocamine’s effect on weight loss.
4. Eliminate Acne: Leptitrex contains the ten “SuperFoods” introduced to Oprah Winfrey by Dr. Perricone. As I said in my review of Orovo (a product based on these ten ingredients), there’s no doubt that these 10 SuperFoods offer benefits, although none of the claims made by either Orovo or this product’s retailers reflect the reality of those benefits. In this formula too, there’s only 400 mg of all 10 ingredients — meaning these ingredients are certainly not present in high enough doses to generate much of an effect.
5. Build muscle: Leptitrex’s Lean Muscle Matrix helps you build lean muscle which “sends your metabolic rate through the roof which is the key to staying permanently thin.”
Alright. Hold on a minute there, this is getting really silly. First of all…
The only thing that builds lean muscle mass is weight / resistance training. Yes, the only thing.
Second, losing weight and muscle building are two completely contrary pursuits. In order to build muscle, you need to eat more. A LOT more. In order to lose weight, you need to eat less. Expecting your body to build muscle in the face of caloric restriction is sort of like handing a carpenter two two-by-fours and asking him to build a garage. Simply put, the raw material is not available. And yes, that’s the reality everyone faces — even professional bodybuilders taking vast amounts of illegal anabolic steroids.
But, but, but… what about the “Lean Muscle Matrix?” Well, in multi-gram doses (many, many times what’s included in this 8 ingredient, 480 mg matrix) glutamine is a fantastic recovery supplement (a full review of glutamine is available here).
However, research shows glutamine has no positive effect on muscular performance whatsoever even at the appropriate high dosage (See J Strength Cond Res. 2002 Feb;16(1):157-60, Sports Med. 2003;33(5):323-45).
Creatine monohydrate, also included in this matrix — has been well studied, and it’s effects on muscular performance is well documented (see J Am Diet Assoc. 1997 Jul;97(7):765-70, Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2002 Feb;34(2):332-43, Med SCI Sports Exerc. 1998 Jan;30(1):73-82 , J Strength Cond Res. 2003 Aug;17(3):425-38).
However, the dosages shown to be effective as indicated in the studies are in the 20-25 gram per day range. That’s 40-50 times more creatine than is in the entire “Lean Muscle Matrix”.
Ditto for L-arginine, also included in this formula.
In other words, ALL of the ingredients in this matrix do nothing more than look good on the label. There is nothing here that will help you build lean muscle and elevate your metabolism.
6. Anti-aging: Leptitrex contains a minuscule amount of green tea, alpha lipoic acid, DMAE and acetyl-l-carnitine. (This “anti-aging” element of the formula only contains a mere 150 mg of ingredients. To give you an example of how little this is, DMAE is recommended in doses of between 50-600mg for effectiveness).
Bottom line?
I counted 48 ingredients in the Leptitrex formula — a single serving of which offers up slightly over 2100 mg of active ingredients. What does that mean? Well, the logistics pretty much tell the story of Leptitrex…
The vast majority of ingredients will be present in only the tiniest amounts — not nearly enough to have any benefit at all (I’m sure there’s plenty of caffeine though — and maybe some chocamine — just so you can “feel the product working”).
Alas though, not a single one of this product’s claims is borne out by any scientific, clinical evidence.
All I can say is…
Ooops.
