Try Ab Circle Pro
by William R. Sukala
(San Diego)
The Ab Circle Pro is a home exercise machine promoted by Jennifer Nicole Lee mainly via infomercials, the internet, and television shopping channels. According to advertisers, it combines cardiovascular and abdominal exercise to target the abdominal, oblique, hip, and thigh muscles. The two main exercises shown in promotional materials include a side to side swinging pendulum motion for the mid-section and a forward and backwards movement purportedly for the hips and thighs. Ab Circle Pro promoters claim the product delivers “faster results than anything else around.” Emotional anecdotal testimonials are interspersed throughout the pitch to further underscore and personify key marketing messages. While this makes for effective sales copy, an independent critical analysis of Ab Circle Pro marketing claims is warranted. Therefore, the purpose of this review is to:
•Categorically evaluate each Ab Circle Pro claim from a science-based perspective
•Discuss consumer complaint records
•Provide and overall summary of findings and make recommendations
Accuracy of Review
To ensure accuracy of marketing claims in this review, I have transcribed a 10 minute Ab Circle Pro infomercial which was posted to YouTube. All of the following product claims are taken verbatim from the Ab Circle Pro infomercial.
Claim 1: “The most innovative piece of exercise equipment ever”
It is merely the opinion of the Ab Circle Pro company that this is the most innovative piece of exercise equipment ever. No objective scale exists for quantifying the “innovativeness” of a product.
Claim 2: “With the Ab Circle Pro System, we guarantee you’ll lose 10 pounds (4.5 kg) in just 2 weeks”
First off, the company was very meticulous with the wording of this claim. If you look carefully, they explicitly state “with the Ab Circle Pro SYSTEM you will lose 10 pounds in two weeks. According to the website, “the complete Ab Circle Pro SYSTEM includes the Ab Circle Pro machine, a reduced calorie diet, and express workout DVD.” However, the infomercial disproportionately promotes the Ab Circle Pro machine by mentioning the product by name 28 times (once every 21 seconds), compared to only six times for the ‘System” (once every 1 minute 40 seconds). If you’re not paying close attention to the phrasing, you might be led to believe the Ab Circle Pro machine ALONE will result in 10 pounds of weight loss.
Ab Circle Pro Fat Marketing Claims Thin on Truth: A Comprehensive Review by William R. Sukala,MScPromoters claim you can lose 10 pounds in two weeks? This begs the question: “10 pounds of WHAT?” Notice the units of measure are conspicuously absent. From a legal standpoint, it would be an unrealistic and misleading statement to say you could lose 10 pounds of STORED BODY FAT in two weeks. Losing “weight” on the scale is ambiguous and gives no indication of the actual composition of lost weight (i.e., how much water, muscle glycogen stored carbohydrate, muscle, and fat).
Losing 10 pounds of stored body fat, on the other hand, is an entirely different ball of butter. As an exercise physiologist, I like to use numbers to illustrate the difficulty of FAT loss.
• One pound (~ ½ kg) of stored body fat = 3500 calories (14,700 kJ) worth of stored energy
• 3,500 calories x 10 lb of fat = 35,000 calories (147,000 kJ) in 10 pounds (4.5 kg) of fat
• 35,000 calories ÷ 14 days (2 weeks) = 2,500 calorie (10,500 kJ) deficit required per day
* Metric conversion: 1 calorie = 4.2 kilojoules
Based on this calculation, you must expend (via physical activity) an additional 2500 calories (or eat 2500 less) over and above the amount of calories you need to maintain your current fat stores EACH day for 14 days in order to lose 10 pounds of stored body fat. Alternatively, you could eat 2,500 calories per day less than your daily energy requirements—or a combination of moving more and eating less. According to Dr. Amanda Sainsbury-Salis, a Neuroscientist researching hunger signalling and weight control at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research in Sydney, Australia, “the average 140-pound (64 kg) woman needs around 2500 calories per day or less to meet her energy requirements (and therefore maintain her weight), so this doesn’t leave much lettuce to enjoy every day.”
Safe and healthy fat loss should be around 1 to 2 pounds (about ½ to 1 kg) per week accomplished by decreasing daily food intake by about 250 calories and increasing energy expenditure by 250 calories per day. As a general rule of thumb, many health practitioners discourage rapid weight loss and generally recommend dieters not reduce calories to less than 1,200 calories per day 1 without supervision by a qualified physician or registered dietitian.
Calorie counting aside, even small dietary changes can have a lasting effect on weight loss. "If you cut out foods or caloric beverages you consume when you're not physically hungry, and if your diet is reasonably healthy (i.e., it includes adequate fruits and vegetables every day), then you will automatically start losing excess weight at a safe and healthy rate. It's vital not to eat too little, otherwise you'll activate your body's famine reaction which will slow your metabolic rate and contribute to rebound weight regain,” Dr. Sainsbury-Salis adds.
Now let’s look at the actual contribution of exercise to the fat loss equation. The Compendium of Physical Activity Codes and MET Intensities from Ainsworth et al. 2, 3 is a widely respected resource which provides an estimate of caloric expenditure for common exercises. The authors indicate one MET (metabolic equivalent) is equivalent to approximately one calorie per kilogram of body weight per hour 2. So as an example, a 154 pound (70 kg) person doing a 4 MET activity would expend about 280 calories per hour.
Looking at the following MET levels of common activities most people could reasonably be expected to do, you can see it requires some serious time investment and elbow grease to burn the equivalent energy of 2500 calories worth of stored fat by exercise alone. Based on this, it is obvious that to lose 10 pounds of stored body fat in two weeks, you would have to help it along with a reduced calorie diet.
| METS | Activity | Cal/hour | Hours to burn 2500 calories |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3.3 | Walking (3mph, moderate pace) | 231 | 10.82 |
| 6.0 | Jazzercise | 420 | 5.95 |
| 7.0 | Rowing at 100 watts | 490 | 5.10 |
| 8.0 | Bicycling 12-13.9 mph | 560 | 4.46 |
| 3.3 | Step Aerobics (10-12 inch step) | 700 | 3.57 |
**metric conversion: 1 calorie = 4.2 kilojoules
Bottom line: I believe it is highly unlikely you will lose 10 pounds of STORED BODY FAT in two weeks. Losing 10 pounds of absolute scale weight (irrespective of composition) is comparably easier than losing 10 pounds of stored fat. Remember, it took you a lifetime to put it all on and it certainly isn’t going to melt away over night. Again, any radical reduction in energy intake may activate the famine response and force your body into fat conservation mode. Safe and healthy fat loss is a slow process and should be accomplished with comprehensive long-term lifestyle modification....
For William Sukuala's full review visit his website
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