The truth about the fitness industry is that they are like any other industry concerned only about money. That may seem harsh, but the truth is that every gym, supplement manufacturer, vitamin shop, and TV exercise equipment peddler is concerned about making a profit. The fitness industry is a multi-billion dollar industry (that’s right billion with “B”) and companies are trying to capitalize on the fad obsessed, superficial, materialistic culture in the developed world. These companies range from your local gym, supplement manufacturers, and television advertisers, and all they want is access to your wallet (or credit card, that’d be fine too).

The truth about your local gym/fitness club is that they want you to fail. They know that people will make a New Years resolution to get in shape, apply for a membership in January (the busiest time in the gym and worst time to join) and know that 20% to 30% will drop off within the next 90 days. This is actual information gleaned from working at a large national fitness club chain. And do you know what’s even more nefarious? They don’t care if you stop coming at all. As long as your monthly dues make it into their bank account, they don’t care if you attend their gym or not. In fact they’d prefer if you don’t, it eliminates wear and tear on the machine and facilities. And if you’re ever in a situation where you feel pressured by a sales person, walk away.

The hidden truth about supplement manufacturers, vitamin shops and the supplement industry is that they know you’ll pay exorbitant amounts of money for something with only a smidgen of scientific evidence to back it up. Creatine helped to build muscle mass in a study of 12 Danish bobsledders? Terrific, lets spin that into a marketable sound bite and run it. The fact is a majority of vitamins and supplements either have unproven effects, or can’t be absorbed entirely by the body and are eliminated through waste. Or as a European doctor friend once put it “Americans have the most expensive pee in the world”.

And the simple truth about those television sales people who are selling the newest ab-lounge, ab-blaster, or home treadmill is that they know that enough people are going to buy their product to make it worth their advertising dollars. They know their product doesn’t work, but they also know there’s enough gullible people out there who’ll buy an expensive clothes hanger, because that’s what that product will likely turn into. Remember that you can never, ever spot reduce. Any machine that specifically targets your abs, thighs, whatever, is lying to you. You can have the tightest, most well defined abs in the world, but if there is a layer of fat over them because you don’t do cardiovascular exercise, you’ll never see them.

So despite all this negative talk is their an answer to the fitness industry? Yes. You need to realize that they’re an industry, focused on making money. If you accept that, realize their motivations and intent, you can make better decisions. And realize that fitness isn’t going to come overnight, but is a lifestyle change involving a healthy diet, regular exercise, proper amounts of sleep, and exercise your most powerful muscle common sense. With a well balanced diet full of fresh fruit and vegetables, whole grains, and little processed food, you don’t need to take vitamins. And with a comprehensive exercise program, you may not need to go to a gym. Make the decisions on your own without salespeople influencing you – and don’t forget to flex that common sense muscle.

Let’s start with a simple truth that helps feed the big, fat health and fitness lie. That truth is that the average person would much prefer to go on a diet or take a pill rather than exercise. This is why the fitness industry, at $17.6 billion in annual revenue, pales in comparison with the diet and weight loss industry, which exceeds $40 billion. Even the supplement industry, with more than $20 billion in annual revenue, outperforms the fitness industry. Yet with a success rate of sustained weight loss as low as 5 percent, more than 50 million Americans line up each year to go on a diet. Why? The answer is simple. When people think about exercise, they relate it to work. Even the phrase we use to describe exercise is to “workout.” The truth is that the average American spends the majority of waking life working. Who wants more work? We want to play. We want to relax. We want to escape from the reality of work, Exercise is the last thing we want to do. Instead, we want a shortcut, and the desire for a quick fix is an open invitation for health and fitness parasites.

But this is just the tip of the iceberg. The smoking gun that reveals the real truth about the state of health in the U.S. is the stratospheric revenue within the pharmaceutical industry. Between 1995 and 2005, prescription drug sales increased by 249 percent to a staggering $251 billion on more than 3.6 billion prescriptions written annually. This doesn’t include the $17 billion we spent on more than 100,000 over-the-counter drugs that contained in excess of 1,000 chemical compounds. As you peel back the layers of the lie, you quickly realize that these record-breaking numbers were made possible by drugs that treat conditions and diseases, which are largely self-inflicted or forced upon us by accomplices that stand to profit from our ill health.