Before and After?

I'm posting this link for the first story. We've all seen the "before and after" pics from tons of weight loss and supplement companies. This guy is exposing how the pics are done and it isn't with photoshop. I thought this was pretty amazing.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/trending-now/viral-video-reveals-dramatic-infomercial-diet-tricks-171028860.html

That was actually cool. I'm a pretty skinny guy, weight about 150 max, and I could get that blotted look with the stomach easily on photo if I want, and I'm sure if I wax my hairy chest and get some fake tan and oil all over my whitey self it right after pumping iron, it'll work for me too

What? But it's on T.V.

Not everything is faked, but anything commercialized I can agree is.

The video has been removed. Dang. The Illuminati must have gotten to him.

http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=142115401&page=1

http://keep-tube.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DM957dACQyfU

I used to love these adds, companies still do them? The ones a decade or longer ago were epically funny. Some of my favorites....

Mega Mass 4000 in the early 1990's: These were great. Take an untrained pro bodybuilder in his offseason when he's bloated and covered in a few layers of fat. Now list him as a fat 200lbs. Take a photo of him 3/4 of the way through cutting for a contest where he's lean, tanned, pumped and vascular. List it as 3 months after using Mega Mass 4000(A high calorie weight gainer) where he's a ripped 235lbs now. Yes not only did the super weight gainer pack on 35lbs of drug free muscle in 3 months it also burned bodyfat like a furnace.

Muscletech: More favorites but mostly from the outlandish claims. They were much like the ones in the above video. Some hairy guy all smooth, pale with a bloated out stomach and slouched back(ignore the large vascular forearms and calves) who supposedly doesn't weight train. Que the after photo where again like above the guy is sporting a killer pump, 6 pack abs, a nice tan and some body oil. Supposedly 3 months later. After that awesome Muscletech stack of Hydroxycut, Nitrotech and Celltech burned off 40+ pounds of bodyfat while adding 30lbs of lean muscle at the same time AND 100lbs to the guys bench press.

EAS: My personal favorite ever. See, these ones were "real" or rather as real as you'll get in the industry. Bill Phillips despite being a flaming homosexual who now walks around trying to look like a 50 year old Justin Beiber was a marketing genius. First we have to go back to his supplement tactics. First he created Met-RX and then EAS. Of course he had a secret trick he loved to do with new supplements, the first few batches contained anabolic steroids in trace amounts. Not enough to actually HURT a person but enough that you could feel his supplements working and see rapid results.

It worked great, his products reputations spread like wildfire. From there he created a little contest where normal people could compete for prizes via taking before/after shots and tracking their progress. Enter the "winners."

Like I said they were as real as you can get a before/after shot. They were great. Actual skinny guys 3-6 months later with an added 30+ pounds of muscle, back acne airbrushed out. That's where the laughs came in. Many of his contest "winners" were guys who could pass as male models and who obviously didn't gain that huge amount of muscle without Steroids. Or dropped that amount of weight without Steroids and Amphetamines.

Obviously the marketing worked, people laughed at all the other ads and flocked to buy up his EAS supplements. These were REAL people competing in a (rigged) fitness contest and making these great results. They are doing what is impossible without underground supplementation, all with EAS so I better grab some!

Yeah, those were amusing. Bill Phillips? Well he didn't turn stupid. After creating this whole big to do around his supplement company and media empire he quickly unloaded them to some wealthy suckers for several hundred million dollars. People quickly realized the before/afters and supplements were pretty much BS shortly afterwards and the magazine empire folded as the supplement company quickly faded into near obscurity.

These days Bill Phillips is dressed like an elderly Justin Beiber, hair and all while hawking new age feel goodism as his newest marketing venture.

Crap!
I thought his Muscle Media mag was one of the few honest mags out there 10 years ago.
Tried one of the jugs for powdered drinks, didn't do anything for me I noticed.

Years back I tried a powdered supplement from GNC. Didn't do a thing for me other than make my stomach queasy and strangely made me light-headed. Hard to get a good workout in with those side effects.

Only sure fire thing is hard work, good diet, and lots of discipline. I love the ads for the bowflex machine where for only twenty minutes 3X a week you can look like this shredded dude. And in tiny print "results may vary". One time I bought a stationary bike for at home winter riding, within eight months the thing fell apart. The base of it just split apart. I call the company and they proceeded to tell me that "well it was not designed to be used every day... most people just get one to use once in awhile". So sorry to buy your exercise equipment and then actually use it.

mlotek wrote:

Crap!
I thought his Muscle Media mag was one of the few honest mags out there 10 years ago.
Tried one of the jugs for powdered drinks, didn't do anything for me I noticed.

Well that depends on how one defines honest. 100% honest about everything? No weightlifting magazine is honest like that. Muscle Media was about 90/10. The training advice was solid, the motivational stuff was cool and EAS actually was a pretty good company, albeit overpriced. The Body For Life program is also a good program for novices looking to get into shape. Phillips certainly wasn't all bad and he did more for Bodybuilding and fitness than anyone else not named Joe Weider or Arnold. Some could even argue he did as much as or more than even those guys.

Even still there was some shady stuff. Mainly the before and afters. Unethical but brilliant marketing for his demographic. Phillips goal with Muscle Media was to take bodybuilding outside of it's small subcultural existence and make it mainstream. To do that he needed a way to sell it to average people. Slightly cheated before and afters showing skinny or fat untrained people turned fit, aesthetic looking athletes was genius marketing. It motivated millions of people. *

His biggest lowlight aside from dosing his supplements with steroids to hook bodybuilders on it was the HMB fiasco which if you read negative stuff about the guy it likely goes back to that. HMB is junk, it does nothing yet is cheap to make. Back in the 90's it was a hot new unknown commodity. Phillips had his supplement review and magazine and THE reputation as the most trusted source for supplement reviews. He'd never steered anyone wrong.... Until he manufactured HMB through EAS, promoted the hell out of it by claiming it felt like being on a steroid cycle and cashed in. It was junk that did nothing and alot of people got ripped off. It was right after that he changed from a hardcore bodybuilding magazine with steroid guru's to a self help expert marketing bodybuilding to average Joe's.

*Expounding on the above briefly on his contests. They were real contests, but some in them were obviously juicing. EAS let it slide. Although there was a grey area for awhile regarding that considering you could walk into GNC and buy oral testosterone off the shelf and legally for about 7 years.