Usually it’s a personal choice whether or not to strive for health and fitness. One of my biggest pet peeves is when an unhealthy product is able to slip by the average consumer labeled as wholesome or supremely worse become a fad due to clever marketing and a few fancy buzzwords. Hopefully someday the public’s well being will be placed before profits but until then caveat emptor. Here are five snake oils to steer clear of on your next trip down the aisles.

Fiber One Bars – Fiber is great. My friend’s dad’s colon doctor said if everyone took Metamucil daily he’d be out of a job. Getting fiber from a candy bar isn’t the most intelligent trade off. Fiber one bars are packed with high fructose corn syrup and 150 other calories of chocolaty syrupy sweets. A healthy diet should already contain sufficient amounts of fiber. You’re better off sticking with starbursts soaked in Citrucel.


Mmm… Fiber…


Multi Grain Bread = Hodgepodge Bread. You’ll usually see a picture of a farm on the package and the word ‘multi’ sounds like multivitamin which means packed with goodness right? It’s really just a buzzword to make cheap enriched wheat flour look like a health food when a rolled oat is added to the mix. Look for 100% Whole Grain and Excellent Source on the label. Most bread still has several additives so try sticking with quality grains such as brown rice, steel cut oats, quinoa, & kamut.

Michelob Ultra – Beer for runners? What’s next a cigarette for swimmers? Okay so it’s nowhere near as bad as that. Drinking in moderation can be good for your health but it should be avoided for the few hours before and after workout time. I see their advertisements with fit guys in swim trunks enjoying the brew but I doubt you’ll ever see Lance Armstrong throwing back a few cold ones in the final stage of the Tour De France unless they pay him out of his bike shorts. Nutritionally it’s about the same as a Miller light at 96 calories except it has .6 less grams of carbs in it. A Guinness is only 125 calories per 12 oz. and has several more health boosting antioxidants. Enjoy a beer for its taste, not in hopes of a six pack.

AirBourne – An Alka-Seltzer meets a glorified multivitamin. It’s not a bad product it’s just that a multivitamin would be much less expensive and the amounts of added herbs and aminos are paltry at best. As a multivitamin for people who hate swallowing pills or lugging around a liquid formula it would be a good buy. Just don’t expect it to work any miracles during the next fad flu season.

Diet Soda – Carbonated artificial sweeteners. Yum. Stick with drinking water. Intake of diet soda is correlated with higher risk of being obese and not surprisingly greater cravings for the real sugary sweets. It actually reminds me any diet food come to think of it. I’ve see women scarfing down those Skinny Cow ice cream sandwiches like they’re filled with imaginary calories. They may be skinny but the product itself is still categorizing the consumer as a cow. At least you can’t blame them for tricky marketing. If you’re gonna eat crap – eat crap. Just keep it to less than 10% of the time and have a good calorie burn to boot.

Click here for the Five Illusions Of Health That Are Expanding Your Waistline.