Metabolic Renewal is a popular weight loss program marketed to women. The company claims to help users "Find Your Hormone Type," and achieve "Weight Loss Personalized To Your Hormones."
But do women really require different weight loss strategies than men? Does hormone-based weight loss make sense? Are there clinical studies showing that Metabolic Renewal works? And is Metabolic Renewal better or worse than popular women's weight loss brands like Leanbean?
In this article we'll answer all of these questions and more, as we analyze the clinical studies on Metabolic Renewal, to give our take on whether or not the program is likely to be effective for weight loss.
We'll also highlight some questionable health claims on the brand's website, share our our concerns about sex-based weight loss strategies, and compare Metabolic Renewal to other popular women's weight loss programs to pick our winners (and losers).
Key takeaways:
- Questionable and unproven health claims on brand's website
- We consider sex-based weight loss approaches to be unscientific
- We do not currently recommend Metabolic Renewal
Highly Questionable Fat Loss Claims
Metabolic Renewal makes various health claims on a page of their website titled "The Science," including the one shown below:
image source: https://www.metabolic.com/
The details state that a 2002 study in The American Journal of Physiology, Endocrinology and Metabolism proves this, however we searched every article published that year and cannot find any study proving this.
Use this link if you’d like to search the journal’s database for that year yourself.
We have never come across any clinical evidence that women burn significantly more fat than men at rest, nor would that make logical sense, given that obesity rates in developed countries are relatively similar between the sexes.
Metabolic Renewal’s “Finding #3,” shown below, claims that the program burns 10x more fat while providing zero medical citations or proof.
image source: https://www.metabolic.com/
Any exercise program can help individuals lose weight, but we do not believe that Metabolic Renewal is likely to be more effective than any other exercise program, given the apparent lack of research backing for the brand's claims.
Is Sex-Based Weight Loss Unscientific?
As we discussed in our Reverse Health review article on another weight loss program marketed to women, we haven't come across any clinical evidence that sex-based weight loss strategies are better than traditional weight loss approaches.
While men and women have biological differences, weight loss is a simple thermodynamic process: calories in versus calories out.
Regardless of sex, an individual burning more calories than they consume will lose weight (outside of exceedingly rare medical conditions).
An individual consuming more calories than they expend will gain weight.
Sex-differentiated weight loss programs are a great marketing strategy, because they appear to be more targeted and relevant than broader strategies like eating healthier and exercising, but we consider it to be a red flag when brands make this type of weight loss claim.
We recommend that consumers avoid products and services making sex-differentiated weight loss claims without citing, and linking to, clinical studies supporting these claims.
Metabolic Renewal vs. Women's Weight Loss Brands
Here's how Metabolic Renewal compares to other popular women's weight loss programs in terms of potential efficacy and safety, in our opinion:
Leanbean
This women's weight loss supplement contained no active ingredients we considered effectively dosed for weight loss upon our most recent analysis.
The brand makes similarly unscientific sex-based weight loss claims to Metabolic Renewal.
Metabolic Renewal is the winner from a potential efficacy perspective.
Winner: Metabolic Renewal
Provitalize
This dietary supplement contains research-backed active ingredients to support weight loss, as we documented in our Provitalize review article.
However, this product is a proprietary formulation that doesn't appear to have been clinically tested, while Metabolic Renewal is primarily an exercise and recipe program.
We consider Metabolic Renewal to be the safer choice.
Winner: Metabolic Renewal
Trimtone
This supplement contains green coffee extract, which is clinically shown to support weight loss.
Like with Provitalize, this is a proprietary formulation that doesn't appear to have been clinically tested.
We consider an exercise program to be more likely to support weight loss than a dietary supplement if we're forced to pick between the two.
Winner: Metabolic Renewal
Questionable Health Claims
Metabolic Renewal’s site makes many questionable and uncited health claims:
image source: https://www.metabolic.com/
As shown above, Metabolic Renewal’s site still claims that “most women fall into one of 7 core Hormone Types” without any clinical citation. We consider this statement unscientific.
We have not come across any medical evidence that women can be categorized into "hormone types."
Modern medicine has a good understanding of hormones and this is a marketing term the company is using to position an email solution to their customers. We find this to be a highly questionable business practice.
At the time of initially writing this article, the brand's homepage claimed that “exercising like a man can suppress a woman’s thyroid.”
This claim had a citation number, but no matching citation anywhere on the page, likely because this claim is both illogical and unscientific.
There are no medically-defined sex requirements for exercise. Both men and women benefit from all forms of exercise, from anaerobic to aerobic to low-intensity exercise like walking.
Their homepage also claimed that “for the past 100 years, nearly all of the exercise and nutrition research has been done on men.” This was blatantly false.
A cursory search of PubMed, the leading free medical database of research studies, provides 625,995 results for the search term “men,” and 1,707,576 for the search term “women” at the time of updating this article.
A search for “women + exercise” (which searches the database for published medical papers containing both terms) provides 65,289 results.
Both of the above statements have since been removed from the brand's website, since our article called them out as unscientific.
Our Healthy Body Weight Picks
Ceylon cinnamon was shown to support healthy body weight in a 2022 meta-analysis. The study authors concluded that effects were greater at doses at or over 3 grams daily.
Illuminate Labs Ceylon Cinnamon Extract is our standardized Ceylon cinnamon supplement which is third-party tested to ensure purity and potency.
Dietary fiber was shown in a medical review published in The Journal of Nutrition to help reduce body weight when combined with moderate caloric restriction (750 calories per day below baseline).
MBG Organic Fiber Potency+ is our top fiber pick because it's certified organic, provides 7 g of fiber per serving and costs under $1.85 per serving at the time of updating this article.
Both of the products mentioned in this section are free of ingredients that we consider to be unhealthy.
These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.
Metabolic Renewal Pros and Cons
Pros:
- May support weight loss
- Unlikely to cause side effects or health risks
- Drug-free approach
- Increasing exercise may have secondary health benefits beyond weight loss
- Healthier than competitors
Cons:
- Questionable health claims on brand's website
- We can't find evidence that sex-based weight loss approaches add value
- "Hormone Type" marketing is unscientific
