My BPI Sports CLA + Carnitine Fat Burner Review

First Look

CLA and Carnitine together with vitamin D3, it is just one supplement, ad it supposedly helps manage weight. So what’s the outcome?

I guess that is why you are here. We are all looking for the most powerful and effective fat burner. It is summer and we want to be beach body ready.

The problem is there are so many products on the shelves and you need to know what is the best without wasting lots of money on trial and error.

With just three ingredients being included, this may look like it will not do anything or offer any benefit.

However, these three ingredients are surrounded by a lot of discussions, most of which are positive.

CLA is being touted as a bit of a wonder ingredient recently, and some studies do suggest it can offer some great fat shedding abilities, in fact, if some studies are to believed I cannot understand why were are not all supplementing CLA.

Likewise, Carnitine is also marketed as a fat loss supplement, particularly on its own as a singular supplement.

However, Carnitine seems to have more to do with energy production than fat loss itself.

Let us not forget vitamin D3 which has been in the spotlight. Even governments are advising that we supplement D3 because we are not getting enough of this sunshine vitamins and it has some great health benefits.

So there’s plenty of hype regarding these three ingredients, enough to get the guys in the office to discuss it at long length.

Instead of joining in the debate, I wanted to see for myself if this is a fat cutting supplement worth adding to my daily regime.

TL:DR – Video Review

About BPI

Who are BPI Sports?

BPI say the company was created because we all wish to be better versions of ourselves.

That sounds familiar.

If it is not trying to educate ourselves along the way or swap that burger and fries for a healthier option, we are all, in some way trying to improve ourselves.

This then, encourages BPI to create better products to helps us in our own personal mission.

‘…BPI can help you reach your goals – whatever they may be…’

BPI also have a Cutler Nutrition arm. So they are in business with one of the biggest names in bodybuilding.

That has to give customers a bit of confidence.

Ingredients: The Science

This is a popular supplement for fat loss so I am keen to see what the science says about the included ingredients and how they may benefit us.

Especially as I’ve been quite interested in fat burning products containing CLA because initial research looked promising…

– Conjugated Linolenic Acid (CLA)

CLA has been heralded as a wonder drug.

This CLA uses healthy oils and fats from a range of natural sources. However, we don’t know how much of each is included in the ‘CLA MATRIX’ which is a bit off putting.

What we do know is that CLA gained its popularity for a study that was published exclaiming the weight loss benefits CLA could provide.

This initial study involved a number of female participants and without changing their lifestyle or diets they lost on average 9% of body fat.

A truly extraordinary figure!

That of course made everyone want to get on the CLA train.

Unfortunately, further studies have failed to match those former results.

This could be due to different study conditions, people reacting differently and whether the study was actually accurate.

But one this to note is that the best results occur when the composition of CLA is at least 80%.

But we have no idea of the composition.

On a more positive note, there seems to be some good effects for fat loss with post menopausal women. [1] [2] [3]

 – Carnitine

Carnitine has long been advertised as a fat loss nutrient. However, the proof that this is the case is lacking unless you are in your senior years.

Carnitine seems to offer more benefits as a energy producer, this of course can then translate to more exercise and therefore more calories burnt. So in effect, its role correlates to calorie burn. [4] [5]

– Vitamin D

Vitamin D is more associated with hormone production, in particular, testosterone production.

In a way, this can correlate to fat burn, as more testosterone promotes fat loss and lean muscle gains.

But there’s more to D3 that building muscle, although that is very useful.

D3 can help prevent osteoporosis, it can also increase mood. Studies have found that it can help keep your heart healthy and encourage repair after heart failure.

D3 has also been proven to help accelerate bone fracture repair too.

So what’s role of vitamin D3 and fat loss?

This is a little murky.

Essentially the studies demonstrate that if you are overweight, you have low amounts of D3 in your body. When weight is lost, the circulating D3 is higher.

This is a very tenuous link between D3 supplementation and it contribution to fat loss,

However, a trial whereby D3 was combined with Calcium saw much better results. [6] [7] [8] [9] [10]

How to take BPI Sports CLA + Carnitine

The advice is to take up to 1 scoop twice daily.

This provides a maximum of 4500.24mg per day which lends itself well compared to a lot of fat burner products.

A scoop of powder can be messy and not quite as convenient as pills though.

Plus, the nutrients hit the bloodstream quicker and can be passed as waste more easily than the slower digestive process involving pills.

Water soluble supplements suit pre workouts better because you get the hit from the ingredients quickly.

Pros

The main issues here is that the proof from CLA is very mixed, it isn’t a consistent ingredient like green tea, caffeine or capsaicin which is good for helping fat burn.

So it isn’t the most reliable or conclusive ingredient to have…

At least it is free from stimulants for those who are not comfortable with them and of course, a proprietary blend.

So always avoid anything that contains a proprietary blend.

So will it work..?

Well, again it will probably depend on person to person which doesn’t sound too promising.

However, it does have a large daily dose yet we don’t know if it contains the required 80% composition.

The let’s look at the other ingredients…

Carnitine helps you body produce energy, therefore you should be able to hit the gym or have a jog.

In turn will burn more calories and help you either maintain a healthy weight or create a calorie deficit whereby you are using more calories than made available from your diet.

D3 is great for increasing testosterone. More testosterone can help increase muscle mass and reduce fat.

Studies also show that people who are obese are lacking in D3.

There’s also plenty other benefits from D3 as well such as improved mood and bone density.

Cons

The real lack of evidence to substantiate the claims of CLA is pretty high up on the list of negatives for this product.

Another big issue regarding this product is that it does not behold any real fat burning thermogenic ingredients.

What it includes are two ingredients, one that may work to reduce fat and another which provides the energy required to perform exercise which in turn can create a calorie deficit to lose weight.

Finally, there’s also Vitamin D3 which isn’t often primarily associated with fat loss.

And, what studies I can find it seems fat loss with vitamin D3 is only very apparent when D3 is combined with calcium.

This does ot include calcium so the benefits will be minimal.

Even the marketing blurb is non-committal regarding the effects.

BPI Sports CLA + Carnitine Review Conclusion

To conclude then, we have 3 ingredients. This is around 6 fewer than found in the best fat burner supplements.

1 of which does provide benefits in terms of cognitive health, help to increase testosterone production and improve mood.

Yet this doesn’t really help towards reducing the size of fat cells or shedding fat unless combined with calcium…which is missing from this supplement.

CLA, while lauded as a fat burner really lacks the consistent research results to nail down just how effective it is reducing fat.

The same is for Carnitine as well.

It can help provide more energy, which is great and it can contribute to fat loss if you exercise more, but it isn’t Green Tea or Caffeine for example which are just a couple of the best proven fat burning ingredients.

Final Thoughts?

With such a low number of proven and beneficial ingredients known to fight the flab you are best taking a look at our best rated fat burners.

References

[1] http://www.webmd.com/vitamins-and-supplements/conjugated-linoleic-acid-cla

[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4429457/

[3] Conjugated linoleic acids reduce body fat in healthy postmenopausal women. Raff M, Tholstrup T, Toubro S, Bruun JM, Lund P, Straarup EM, Christensen R, Sandberg MB, Mandrup S.J Nutr. 2009 Jul;139(7):1347-52. doi: 10.3945/jn.109.104471. Epub 2009 Jun 3.

[4] https://examine.com/supplements/l-carnitine/

[5] http://umm.edu/health/medical/altmed/supplement/carnitine-lcarnitine

[6] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3712348/

[7] http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/84/4/694.full

[8] https://www.leeds.ac.uk/news/article/3851/new_study_finds_vitamin_d3_improves_heart_function

[9] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27604772

[10] https://nutritionj.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1475-2891-12-8

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