Bye Bye Belly Juice is a weight loss product sold on Etsy and a few online retailers. The Etsy shop selling this product is called “KWUSpa” and they describe their product as possessing the ability to “flatten your belly, get rid of toxins, speed up metabolism…without strict dieting.”
But can juice mixes really cause weight loss? What’s actually in these products? And are they safe?
In this article we’ll answer these questions and more as we review the ingredients in Bye Bye Belly Juice and give our take on whether the product is likely to be effective. We’ll highlight some consumer safety issues we have with this product, and share a popular animated video on misconceptions about juice cleanses.
Ingredient Safety Issues
The Bye Bye Belly Juice Etsy page states that the ingredients are composed of a mix of Slimmer Max Formula and a “special sauce.”
We have no information about the ingredients used in that “special sauce” and this product appears to violate both Etsy and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) guidelines, which explicitly state that dietary supplements are required to publish the full ingredient list.
Bye Bye Belly Juice would be categorized as a dietary supplement, even though it’s a juice, because it contains functional herbs like ashwagandha extract.
We strongly recommend that consumers avoid wellness products that fail to include a full ingredient list, as this is a consumer safety issue. Without the full list of ingredients, it’s impossible to make an informed purchase decision and ensure that the product is safe. We consider it to be unacceptable and an ethical violation for a brand to sell a product with ingredients in a “special sauce” that’s unlisted, and we would recommend avoiding this product for this reason alone.
We don’t understand why anyone would purchase this product given that it’s just composed of an already-existing product called “Slimmer Max Formula” which is sold by a brand called Heart & Body Naturals. Since that is the product that contains the weight loss ingredients, we don’t understand why any consumers would purchase Bye Bye Belly Juice which is just Slimmer Max and unlisted flavoring ingredients.
Ingredient Review
As stated in the previous section, all of the active ingredients in Bye Bye Belly Juice appear to come from a supplement called Slimmer Max, and the ingredients of that supplement are shown above.
Slimmer Max does contain some effective weight loss ingredients.
Green coffee bean extract can induce weight loss. A medical review published in the Gastroenterology Research and Practice journal analyzed data from three clinical trials on green coffee bean extract and weight loss.
The study authors found that in all trials reviewed, green coffee bean extract caused weight loss, and the average weight loss was 5.45 pounds. The trials lasted an average of nine weeks.
Garcinia cambogia extract is another effective ingredient. As we documented in our Leanbean review article, medical studies show that this ingredient causes short-term weight loss when appropriately dosed.
While Bye Bye Belly Juice may be effective for weight loss due to its inclusion of several weight loss ingredients, we cannot recommend the product overall because the doses of those ingredients are not published (either on Bye Bye Belly Juice’s Etsy listing or on the Slimmer Max website).
Again, we consider this to be a serious consumer safety issue and a violation of FDA guidelines. Supplement companies are required to publish dosing information because this is the only way consumers can determine the safety of a supplement.
Almost any ingredient has a safe dosing range, and a dose that may be unsafe. Consider caffeine. This ingredient is well-studied and safe at a dose of 100 milligrams (mg), for example, but could be deadly at a dose over 2,000 mg. Without the dosing information, consumers have no way to know if a supplement is safe or harmful.
This is the first weight loss supplement that we’ve reviewed on Illuminate Health that failed to publish a Supplement Facts label including dosage information of the active ingredients, and we urge the FDA to investigate both Bye Bye Belly Juice and Slimmer Max for potential safety violations.
Are Juice Cleanses Effective?
One of the most popular YouTube videos on juice cleanses is an animated video that’s achieved over 600,000 views, and which highlights some of the issues with juice cleanses.
While any diet can cause short-term weight loss if it provides less calories than an individual burns daily, we consider all health claims regarding “detoxification” made by juice cleanse brands like Bye Bye Belly Juice to be unscientific:
Bye Bye Belly Juice Side Effects
Consumers are often curious about whether juice cleanses are likely to cause side effects given that they typically are a drastic change from a user’s regular diet.
While we don’t consider any of the active ingredients in Slimmer Max to be harmful or likely to cause side effects, we can’t say definitely that this product will be side-effect-free because the doses aren’t published.
As stated earlier in the article, we consider the side effect risk of this product to be higher than a product with doses published, because many active ingredients (even safe ones) may cause side effects when used at a high enough dose. Further, there’s the “secret sauce” without published ingredients, so any of the ingredients in that may cause side effects.
Basically, it’s impossible to conclusively determine whether or not Bye Bye Belly Juice is likely to cause side effects because of the lack of the full set of ingredients and the lack of published ingredient doses.
Our Weight Loss Supplement Recommendations
There exist several weight loss supplements with significant clinical backing in terms of both efficacy and safety.
We recommend dietary fiber as a safe and effective weight loss supplement, especially when combined with caloric restriction.
A landmark medical study found that moderate caloric restriction (750 calories per day below baseline) combined with dietary fiber intake (a minimum of 20 grams per day) caused an average weight loss of 16.03 pounds over 6 months. That’s a potential pace of 32 pounds per year of weight loss in overweight individuals simply by adding fiber to a moderately-restricted-calorie diet.
The fiber supplement we recommend is SuperGut Fiber Mix. It contains a clean and effective formulation: a blend of three different types of unflavored dietary fiber and zero additive ingredients. It can be mixed into liquids or foods. Interested consumers can buy SuperGut fiber at this link.
We recommend using two fiber mixes per day, which provides 16 grams (g) of total fiber. Diet should provide the remaining fiber necessary to meet the 20 g minimum threshold.
Medium-chain triglyceride (MCT) oil is another dietary supplement which has been shown in clinical trials to cause weight loss.
MCT oil is quickly absorbed by the body and increases metabolic rate, which causes fat loss. A meta-study on MCT oil documented weight loss of 1.12 pounds over 10 weeks. This equates to a potential annualized weight loss of 5.84 pounds with MCT oil supplementation.
We recommend Bulletproof MCT Oil as our top MCT oil product, because it has a clean and effective formulation. The only ingredient is MCT oil derived from coconuts, and the product has no questionable additives. Interested consumers can buy Bulletproof MCT Oil at this link.
The effective dose range of MCT oil for weight loss (based on the medical review) is 1.7 g to 10 g per day. Bulletproof's MCT oil provides 14 g in one tablespoon, so around two-thirds of one tablespoon should be a maximally-effective dosage.
