You may have heard of Purefit Keto after it was peddled to huge success on the TV series Shark Tank. It’s a weight loss supplement based on the idea of ketosis, which is a metabolic state that shifts from where in our bodies we get energy.
Ketogenic diets have been growing in popularity, but are notorious for how difficult they are to sustain. The Purefit Keto supplement is supposedly meant to help you enter ketosis quickly and lose weight in the process.
But does it live up to the hype? Is Purefit Keto a scam? Read on for a comprehensive review of the Purefit Keto fat burner supplement.
Table of Contents
What is a ketogenic diet?
It may help to have a little background information on the diet before we dive in. In the simplest terms, this diet is an ultra-low-carb diet that focuses on getting the body to transition from burning carbs and sugar for fuel to burning the body’s fat storages instead. This is done primarily through changes in the food one consumes – drastically cutting back on carbohydrates and upping protein and fat intake. For some, making these changes are easy. For others, it can be difficult and unsustainable without proper discipline.
Initially, ketogenic diets were created to help epilepsy patients manage seizures, but many have found them to be a useful way to lose weight and improve conditions like insulin resistance and high cholesterol. The process of entering a state of ketosis, where your body uses ketone bodies from fat to fuel itself, is an arduous one, so many supplements have arisen that promise to instantly transition you with or without an accompanying diet.
Purefit Keto is one such supplement, promising to help you lose weight and improve your overall health, but we’ll investigate these by examining the ingredients and claims Purefit Keto puts forth.
What are the ingredients?
To fully understand Purefit Keto, we first have to take a look at what’s inside the capsules themselves. So – let’s pull apart the ingredient list, or at least what we know of it. It should be noted, though, that the exact ingredient list has not been published in its entirety, which makes a full assessment difficult.
- A proprietary blend of beta-hydroxybutyrate
- Magnesium stearate; rice flour (fillers)
- Silicon dioxide (an anti-caking agent)
- Gelatin (the pill capsule coating itself)
It’s a pretty simple list. The fillers, coating, and anti-caking agent are pretty run-of-the-mill capsule materials and have no impact on you or the effectiveness of the BHB blend. The star of the show is the beta-hydroxybutyrate, or BHB, which is a molecule that the body naturally produces at the start of ketosis. You may know it better as one of the three ketone bodies, which the liver synthesizes under the stress of a low carbohydrate diet.
There are two other ketone bodies that our livers produce in addition to BHB. When we first get used to a low carb diet, the first ketone synthesized is acetoacetate, followed by beta-hydroxybutyrate, and then the product of their breakdown, acetone. BHB is commonly taken by low-carb dieters, but not specifically because it leads to weight loss. We’ll explore this more in just a bit.
The presence of BHB is listed as being part of a “proprietary blend.”
The Food & Drug Administration requires all ingestible products to have a full listing of their ingredients, except when lumped together under the term “proprietary blend.” While having a proprietary blend of ingredients in a product isn’t necessarily a bad thing (sometimes companies do it to prevent copycats), it means we can’t quite know what types of BHB and in what quantities are in Purefit Keto.
Who is Purefit Keto for?
Simply, adult men and women who are trying to lose weight through ketosis. The product is recommended for those who are willing to use the supplement alongside a consistent low-carb diet and exercise plan. Supposedly, it’s not a supplement for people looking for a magic weight loss pill that doesn’t require them to change other parts of their lifestyles, even though Purefit Keto seems to suggest otherwise from its claims.
Furthermore, this product should not be taken by individuals under the age of 18 or people who are lactating or pregnant. It’s not recommended for those who have serious medical conditions, like chronic kidney disease or thyroid issues, and take medications that may lead to cross-reactions. If you’re unsure if it’s safe for you to take a supplement because of your medical history, please consult with your doctor.
What are the benefits?
Purefit Keto has a laundry list of benefits that are supposed to arise from taking the pill. It’s meant to help you:
- Lose weight
- Quickly enter ketosis
- Gain energy
- Maintain muscle
- Burn fat from problem areas
- Increase mental clarity
The science around this is sketchy at best – there’s really no evidence that having extra BHB will somehow cause weight loss. The ketogenic diet was developed as a treatment for epilepsy, so there are studies that suggest supplemental exogenous ketones can help those with seizures, as demonstrated in this 2016 study on rats, but the rats didn’t lose any weight at all.
But this all isn’t to say in taking some extra BHB is useless. Taking exogenous ketones – like BHB supplements – has some purposes, namely helping your transition into ketosis by managing the “keto flu,” which are some flu-like symptoms that people experience when their bodies move from burning carbs for fuel to fat burning.
Keto enthusiasts and paleo dieters everywhere have been taking BHB for years. But BHB won’t make you lose weight, which is what the product implies. It’s not a scam per say; it’s just misleading and misses the point of intaking exogenous ketones.
What are the side effects?
Because we don’t know the specific ingredients and their precise dosages in Purefit Keto, it’s impossible to know exactly what side effects can arise. The issues that some reviews talk about the most are pretty mild. They include:
- Flatulence
- Constipation
- Halitosis (bad breath)
- Upset stomach/nausea
Those eating a very low-carb diet without supplements may also experience these side effects as a result of changes in diet composition, so these aren’t out of the norm.
While Purefit Keto hasn’t undergone any clinical trials to observe secondary effects, anecdotal evidence doesn’t suggest there are any hidden problems to look out for – but you should always visit your doctor if you notice something amiss after taking supplements.
What are the results?
There are no medical studies that have tested the efficacy of Purefit Keto, and it’s difficult to rely solely on word-of-mouth. So Purefit Keto’s supplements could have an effect, or they couldn’t – it’s hard to say for sure. Thinking back to the 2016 rat study we mentioned earlier, we know that extra BHB won’t cause spontaneous fat burning, so we can’t speak to the veracity of Purefit Keto’s claims that you’ll lose weight.
Quite frankly, diet is the single most important factor of anyone’s weight. The number of calories eaten versus the number of calories burned determines if we gain, lose, or maintain weight – no matter what we eat. The purpose of a ketogenic diet for weight loss is to promote a form of healthy eating and put the body in a state of ketosis that encourages our bodies to burn fat. Supplements are most useful in keto diets when they’re providing you with the nutrients you need – but aren’t getting – when you cut out carbs. They also can be used to manage the flu symptoms, which is what most people use BHB for.
It’s also difficult to measure claims like “increased mental clarity,” which can’t be reasonably quantified. It’s possible that those who take Purefit Keto and feel their minds are clearer from it are experiencing a placebo effect because there’s also no evidence that BHB will clear your mind in any sense of the phrase.
So, if you’re looking for weight loss results or a clearer mind from taking this supplement, available from Amazon, you’re probably not going to find it – it’s just science. And when used in conjunction with a real ketogenic meal plan and exercise routine, you’ll probably see results that come about with or without Purefit Keto.
The Takeaway
As parents everywhere always say, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. There’s no evidence that these supplements will help you lose weight because there’s no evidence that an increase in beta-hydroxybutyrate causes you to burn fat. If you are looking for a supplement that does what a weight loss supplement is meant to do, you might want to check out Perfect Keto instead.
Perfect Keto is a series of doctor-developed supplements meant to augment your diet plan by giving you the nutrients you need and to help make the transition into ketosis easier to manage.
Electrolytes, omega-3 fatty acids, vitamins, and minerals – these are all things found in the line of Perfect Keto products that are proven to help you get healthy and help you in your weight loss journey. Plus, Perfect Keto has real exogenous ketone supplements, created with clinical knowledge of what BHB does and how it actually works.
There’s no magic pill to make you lose weight – no matter what they say on Shark Tank – which is why smart dieters understand that supplements are meant to do just that – supplement your preexisting diet. Exogenous beta-hydroxybutyrate isn’t an alternative to a healthy lifestyle, but it can help when taken for the right reasons, which is something that Perfect Keto understands above all else.