Twenty-one trials longer than eight weeks, screened from 23,441 records: a trend toward benefit, and a confidence interval that includes zero. Then the FTC found the marquee study's subjects had been told to diet and exercise — while the press release said they hadn't.
6,421 people across 29 countries, measured by doubly labelled water: energy expenditure is flat from 20 to 60, even during pregnancy. It falls about 0.7% a year after that. The decline is real — it just starts four decades later than everyone thinks.
Fifteen women, a ventilated hood, and 100 g of celery: digesting it cost 13.76 of the 16 calories it delivered. That is 86% — far closer to free than we first said. It is still not negative, and the researchers said so themselves.
Measured against no gum, chewing raises energy expenditure by about 0.06 kcal a minute — roughly a third of an almond per hour. A 201-person trial with 95% adherence chewed 90 minutes a day for eight weeks and lost nothing.
Oxidise 10 kg of fat and 8.4 kg of it is exhaled as carbon dioxide. Eccrine sweat is water, sodium and chloride — lipid is not a meaningful constituent. You cannot sweat out something that is not in the sweat.
The famous 30% metabolism boost works out to about 24 calories, and two later labs could not reproduce it at all. What two randomised trials do support is duller and more useful: a glass before meals, for a couple of pounds over twelve weeks.
By volume, yes — that is chemistry. But in a 12-week trial people gained about 2.6 lb of lean mass while losing up to 7 lb of fat, so their weight went down, not flat. And the density constant everyone quotes was measured in rabbits and dogs.
The only randomised trial of a corset for weight control watched compliance fall from 100% to 10% in nine months — the authors said it 'could therefore not be evaluated.' There is no mechanism, and the one measured effect of abdominal compression is worse reflux.
Cold exposure does raise the calories you burn, and over weeks of daily cold air one study trimmed fat mass slightly. But the research used hours of cool air, not a three-minute plunge — and no study shows a cold plunge takes fat off.
If you’ve been training hard, eating well, and still watching belly fat…