I mean, it’s been everywhere (even Oprah), and apparently still is. I personally thought this was a dead topic by now, but judging from the emails I continue to get, I appear to be wrong. So, this is me beating this topic to death and hopefully limiting the number of emails I get about it in the future.

See, whenever some kind of product comes along that has health and/or weight loss related claims attached to it, there is always a lot of confusion. It turns out that the acai berry is no different. So, let’s clear it all up by taking a look at exactly what it is, and exactly what it isn’t.

A healthy food just like… oh, I don’t know… any other f’ing berry!

Seriously.

It contains a bunch of healthy stuff. What kind of healthy stuff? The very same healthy stuff that is in 80 million other healthy foods.

Anything else at all.

It doesn’t cause weight loss. It doesn’t help weight loss. It doesn’t do anything special in any way, shape or form that has anything to do in any way with weight loss.

Was that clear enough? No?

The acai berry won’t help you lose weight faster, or easier, or better. It contains no weight loss magic, voodoo or super powers of any kind.

Better now? Good.

Dude, because making money is awesome!

For those out of the loop, every single time you see someone mention the acai berry online along with the suggestion that it will in some way help with weight loss, the person doing the suggesting is always getting a percentage of the sale. So, if they tell you the acai berry is a weight loss miracle food, and then you click the conveniently located link to buy it, a percentage of your money will go to the dumbass who just convinced you that the acai berry will help you lose weight (it won’t).

And, for the record, I refer to this person as a “dumbass” because that is honestly what they are. They don’t know anything about weight loss. They don’t even know anything about the acai berry. These are affiliate marketers. They make money by getting people to buy products from companies that are willing to pay them a percentage of every sale that they send. When they see a good product with a high payout, they go for it. The acai berry just so happened to be a great product with a very high payout.

It’s an affiliate marketers dream, really. The percentage they’d get per sale was fantastic, and the fact that they could market it as this magical weight loss food all but guaranteed that the sales would come flying in at an extremely high rate. You know, because you can sell a fat person anything if you told them it would help them lose weight without actually having to do any work. That’s sad, and a little mean (nothing personal, just making a point), but it’s 100% true. Weight loss is a billion dollar industry built around this fact.

So, when you combine an awesome payout with the likelihood of an almost infinite number of possible sales, it makes sense that the acai berry quickly became the go-to product of affiliate marketers everywhere who’d be perfectly willing to lie their asses off to get people to buy it.

And when I say “lie,” I really mean lie. I’m talking completely made up people sharing completely made up personal stories about completely made up weight struggles. And let’s not forget the fake before and after pictures. Those are key. The best part is that if you look around long enough, you’ll notice that the same few fake pictures were used over and over on countless fake sites created by countless different liars.

And that right there is the #1 reason people think the acai berry will cause, help, or improve weight loss… because affiliate marketers like making money, they are really good at what they do, and there just happens to be millions of fat people out there that are gullible enough (or possibly just dumb enough) to buy into this nonsense. Which now brings me to…

For the love of God, create a moderate caloric deficit. That’s it. That’s weight loss. Everything else is always bullshit 100% of the time, acai berry included. Confused? Read The Ultimate Weight Loss Guide. It explains everything.

(*Special note to the various affiliate networks and acai berry companies that still contact me in an attempt to get me to sell this crap: Go away. Or, at least double my payouts. )

It’s apparently fitness week or fitness month or something like that over there. I know this because they seem to be having some sort of staff fitness challenge going on where something like a dozen Live With Regis Lee And Kelly Lee Ripa staff members are taking part in a bunch of different types of exercise in an attempt to lose the most weight by a certain point (I think that point is 6 days away).

Today, and I assume every day throughout this weight loss challenge thing, they set aside a certain amount of time during the show to share with us, the viewers, some of these wonderful exercise methods and other super fantastic diet and fitness tips.

On today’s show, all of the these staff members were lined up in 2 rows with Kelly Ripa in the front row leading them through a variety of exercises. She would basically demonstrate each exercise, and then explain what that exercise “does.”

I honestly wasn’t paying much attention until they reached one specific exercise. In fact, it was right before that point, actually. Kelly Ripa, in all of her fitness instructor glory, says something along the lines of…

“This next one is great for trimming your love handles.”

As she says that, a little caption appears on the screen confirming that the following exercises are indeed for “trimming your love handles.”

Did you hear that, viewers? Kelly Ripa is apparently about to prove that spot reduction, which is nothing more than a silly fitness myth (or in some cases a lie told to help sell useless products), is in fact possible.

Holy crap, let me set my DVR!

I mean, if she is really going to show us an exercise that will “trim our love handles,” it can only mean that spot reduction, the idea that you can target specific areas of fat on your body, is actually possible. This would be a major scientific breakthrough, and amazingly, it’s not happening in some lab or even some fitness facility. No, it’s all happening live right here on the Regis Lee and Kelly Lee Ripa show. Boy am I lucky I tuned in today!

What she proceeded to do was some kind of leg lift/ab/oblique exercise, which may very well work the abdominal muscles hidden under your love handles, but won’t do a thing about your love handles themselves. See, exercises work muscles. That’s it. Exercises will make muscles stronger/bigger. Specific muscles can be targeted just fine. Fat is another story… a completely opposite story. Specific areas of fat (such as your love handles) can not be targeted by certain exercises. Exercises for a specific body part will do absolutely nothing to the fat that is on that body part.

So then, how do you “trim your love handles?” By losing fat, period. I already explain how to do that in The Ultimate Weight Loss Guide. As your body gradually loses fat, it will eventually start to come from the area you want it to the most, such as your love handles. At this point, you will officially be “trimming your love handles” the only way it is actually possible to do so.

Spot reduction, no matter what Kelly Ripa tells you, is still not possible and it never will be. Unfortunately though, everyone watching this nonsense now thinks it is.

Which means that instead of creating a caloric deficit (as outlined in The Ultimate Weight Loss Guide), these people think all they really need to do to “trim their love handles” are some ab exercises. After all, that’s what Kelly Ripa told them, and Kelly Ripa is on TV, and you’d think it would be impossible for horrible information to make it onto TV, right?

Which brings me to my 2 conclusions:

1. The Live With Kathy Lee And Kelly Lee And Regis Lee Show should be added to your increasingly long list of places to NOT get your diet and fitness information from. I’m sure it’s a fine place to get your celebrity interviews, though. Diet and fitness info… not so much.
2. Kelly Ripa… you’re an idiot.