Welcome all to the first edition of "The Overwhelming World of Fitness Simplified." Hopefully I can help out as many people as possible with these articles coming in the future, especially because New Years is right around the corner and many people are trying to jump back into the world of health and fitness.

Without further ado, this week's topic is Instagram Bullshit.

Yeah, you heard me.

Instagram bullshit is everywhere, from Instagram models (both men and women) to "fitstagram" accounts to pure spam accounts and everything in between. Honest to God truth, I've been in the fitness world for about 4 years now, and 90% of the Instagram "fit" models try to reach their followers by pushing a product. Now, there's nothing wrong with being sponsored by a legitimate company, like @1upnutrition, @bodybuilding.com or @Cellucor. But, there's a dark part of the Instagram marketing world that is a complete scam.

Maybe you already knew what was coming: fit teas, skinny teas, and body wraps.

It's all bullshit.

Yes, hot tea (and coffee) has a thermogenic effect because of the caffeine content, which increases your metabolic rate, aka how many calories you burn. Yes, it may suppress your appetite temporarily causing you to eat less. But that's it.

There's not some magical tea out there that's going to make you "shred the pounds and burn fat off of your tummy in 2 weeks!" I don't care how much they advertise these "life-changing" teas, it's all a scam to get you to spend money on a next-to-useless product.

Oh, yeah, and the dumb "It Works!" body wraps. They compress to a body part and pressure the water weight out of the area. Yeah, it works, for a few hours. You might lose a little bit of weight, all of it in water weight. You gain those little inch marks back once you eat or drink water again. It's all a marketing ploy to get you to waste your money. Side note: your weight fluctuating a few pounds up or down is almost always consistent with water intake, and not fat gain/loss.

The truth of the matter is, all of these detox and fit tea companies find healthy and fit Instagrammers who are looking to make money. These people compromise their integrity because they think their audience is ignorant, and 95% of the time, they are. These people have a following that clings to their every word and wants to look just like them, which is tragic in and of itself. What's worse is it costs good-willed people thousands of dollars every day.

These Instagram models don't look the way they do because of a detox tea or a body wrap. They achieve a great body through consistent dieting, exercise, and sometimes good genetics: that's it. There is no shortcut to feeling and looking fit. From personal experience, I've never done a detox tea or wrapped my body in anything except the church of iron.

Don't buy into the Instagram bullshit. Do your own research. Put in the work. Only cheat on your diet when you know it's worth it. You'll see results faster than drinking any of these "fit teas."