Instant Knockout Cut – Is it the Best Fat Burner?

Last Updated on July 11, 2023 by Tina Liu

I don’t know about you, but I take MMA fighters very seriously, so when they recommend a fat burner it gets my undivided attention! Today I’m going to review Instant Knockout Cut: a one-two punch of a fat burner that I think could really help you lose weight when used correctly.

I know that’s a very controversial statement to make about a supplement like this, but I believe that when you’ve finished this review you’re gonna have a much better idea of where I’m coming from.

In this review I’ll be covering information about the brand, the ingredients, and the potential effects you can expect from those ingredients (and why). I’ll also discuss the price, and go over the pros and cons as well, so you can make up your own mind as to whether or not this is the right fat burner for you.

So let’s get into full swing with my Instant Knockout Cut review.

Instant Knockout Overview

This product is loaded with heavy doses of glucomannan, green tea extract, green coffee bean extract, cayenne, and black pepper. But how well does IKO hold up under scrutiny? Let’s find out!

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What is Instant Knockout Cut?

Instant Knockout Cut (InstantKnockout.com) is a product who’s entire brand, including the name (and even the bottle – that’s right, it’s a fist) revolves around combat sports. So for those of you who don’t know, many (if not most) combat sports have very rigidly set weight classes. This is to make sure that a little guy isn’t fighting against a huge guy – which, depending on the discipline, could be considered unfair.

If you follow mixed martial arts at all, then you’re probably already aware that in the week or days leading up to a fight the fighter is required to make a certain weight, and if they don’t, they will not be fighting – which would basically mean that all that training was for nothing. So the training, diet, and weight cut are all very, very important.

Also, another really important thing in strength sports like powerlifting and Olympic weightlifting, if you don’t make weight then you’ll be competing in a different weight class, which to these competitors can be extremely disappointing, to say the least. The main takeaway here is that for some professional athletes, it’s very important to make weight.

There are a number of mixed martial artists who swear by this product, especially John Dodson III and Diego Sanchez, who said it helped him lose 45 pounds in the space of a just few months!

But Instant Knockout Cut also directly targets female consumers with their product, and indeed it does have a lot of similarities with Leanbean, which is an industry-leading female-focused fat burner. A lot of Leanbean’s ingredients are similar to IKO, and in fact Instant Knockout delivers a more effective dosage, in my opinion.

So the good news is that you don’t have to get punched in the face in order to benefit from this product! And there’s a lot of interesting stuff in the formula that can definitely help with your weight loss journey.

How Do Fat Burners Work?

Before I get into all the ingredients, let’s look at the four main ways that fat burners could potentially help you to lose weight.

The term “fat burner” rightfully gets a bad rap from some people in the supplement crowd. The idea that you can just pop a pill and “poof!”, a six-pack just magically appears on your belly is laughable, to say the least. There are definitely some companies out there that have taken that angle with their marketing, really over-exaggerating the potential effects of a fat burner. I get the skepticism.

However, when used intelligently, and with the right type of calorie-controlled plan, theses supplements can really provide some potentially great benefits.

There are four main categories that fat burning supplements fall into:

1. Appetite Suppression

The first and most important category is appetite suppression. There are several well-known substances, such as glucomannan, that can help to decrease the amount of appetite you have. This is really the biggest struggle with most people, because even though eating fewer calories is the simplest way to lose weight (it’s not crazy complicated), it can be extremely difficult for some. Many of us have a habit of eating more, and eating when we don’t need to. Appetite suppressants can really really help with this.

2. Thermogenesis

The second category is increasing thermogenesis. This means that you will burn more calories by increasing the body’s heat output. Cayenne pepper is a really good example of this, but there a lot of others as well. When taking a certain amount of a cayenne pepper or some other thermogenic substances, you’ll burn probably no more than about 50-100 calories extra, but that can definitely add up over time. (1)

3. Fat Oxidation

The third class of fat burners are those that increase fat oxidation, which means burning more fat. The body typically burns carbohydrates or fat for fuel, and substances that increase your fat oxidation can encourage the body to burn more fat for fuel than it would have otherwise.

4. Reducing Calorie Absorption

Finally there’s decreased calorie absorption. Some stuff (like green coffee bean extract) gets a lot of hype for this. The idea is that when you’re consuming more of this particular product, you’re going to absorb fewer calories from your meal. It’s typically not huge amount, but again, there’s small differences that can indeed add up over time. (2)

Ingredients

So which of these effects can you expect from Instant Knockout? Let’s go over the key points that you’ll want to take away from looking at the ingredients list.

Glucomannan

Instant Knockout Cut ingredients and supplement facts label. — Instant Knockout Ingredients

In my opinion, the most important ingredient in Instant Knockout Cut is called glucomannan. It’s a very popular appetite suppressant that comes from

the root of a Japanese Konjac tree, so it’s all-natural and has very few side effects associated with it. Basically, after ingestion it expands in the stomach to form a gel-like substance, creating less space in your stomach and making you feel less hungry.

Some potential side effects are that it may make you more thirsty because it absorbs a bit of water, but otherwise very few side effects are associated with it. Typically you see about one gram in most products, but Instant Knockout Cut actually has almost 2 grams, so if nothing else it’s gonna be a pretty effective appetite suppressant. (3)

Caffeine

Besides glucomannan, they’ve included caffeine to the formula. A lot of people may not know that caffeine has a very strong link with fat oxidation. (4) IKO is gonna give you 300 milligrams over the course of the day. You take one pill four times a day, so this is basically the cumulative amount you’re going to have in your system.

300 milligrams isn’t a huge amount, but it’s about as much as you’ll get in three small cups of coffee. Some people aren’t gonna be crazy about that since not everybody likes caffeine, but if you do, you’ll be happy with this because caffeine does indeed have a link with increased fat oxidation.

Green Tea Extract

Next I want to talk about the green tea extract that’s added, which is a really common ingredient in dietary supplements because it has a very strong link with increased fat oxidation (there’s that term again).

There was a double-blind study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition for instance that showed about a 17% increase in fat oxidation when taking green tea extract. (5) The reason for that is that it contains a very powerful antioxidant called EGCG, which is what the actual beneficial effects are linked to.

As a supplement geek, I was a bit annoyed that the ingredients label doesn’t contain the EGCG content of the green tea extract, which would really give a better picture about how effective a dose you’re getting, so I would have liked a bit more transparency in that regard.

Green Coffee Bean Extract

On a similar note, the green coffee bean extract is very closely linked with a decrease in calorie absorption. That’s due to it’s chlorogenic acid content, which is it’s main component, and there are some studies that have shown a slight decrease in the amount of calories you absorb when taking it. Similar to the EGCG content, the ingredient label doesn’t mention the amount of chlorogenic acid used, and normally you’re looking for something like 300 milligrams.

With IKO there’s just 100 milligrams of total green coffee extract, so it may not meet the threshold of an amount that’s shown to have some effectiveness in a lot of studies. That said, I’m quite certain there’s gonna be some effect – but again, you want something that’s really in line with studies, in my opinion.

Cayenne Pepper Seeds

Loaded with vitamins A, C and B6, this ingredient packs a potent punch, but if you’re concerned that you’ll feel like your stomach got pepper-sprayed, don’t worry. There’s only just enough included to create an impact without you even realizing it was added.

The main fat-burning benefit is from a compound called capsaicin, which is a found in the cayenne pepper. It increases insulin sensitivity which enhances the way your body stores carbs – by as much as 24% according to some research. (6)

Cayenne is also a powerful thermogenic, which as we know leads to more fat burning by boosting the metabolism. On top of that, it also improves energy expenditure and increases fat oxidation too. (7)

There are also some vitamins included, vitamin b6 and vitamin b12. If you check out Instant Knockout’s website, they say the reason they included these is because when you’re low on these vitamins it can result in decreased energy levels, more fatigue, and a slower fat loss rate. While that’s accurate, it’s important to point out that this applies more to individuals already experiencing a deficiency in these vitamins.

GTF chromium is included as well, since this nutrient has been shown to enhance insulin levels, which in turn controls how your body stores carbohydrates. What’s more, it can also boost energy levels, reduce cravings, and increase metabolism.

There’s also some zinc in there as well, and that’s been linked with healthy testosterone levels (8). But again, if you’re deficient it might be an issue, and if not you’re not gonna have super testosterone levels. But hey, I’m always happy to get some extra vitamins and minerals!

Again, some of the dosages might not be a hundred percent perfect, but I’m still very impressed with this ingredient profile.

Is Instant Knockout Expensive?

Okay, so how much does this fat burner cost, and what should you be paying for a fat burner in general? This is actually a very difficult question to answer because the thing with fat burners, unlike a lot of other supplements out there, is that they vary so much in the ingredients that they contain. That kind of makes it really hard to measure them against each other.

For instance, take the most popular fat burners out there. Honestly, most of them have just a bunch of caffeine and cayenne pepper in them and not much else. When you divide it out, most of these typically cost about a dollar per day. Instant Knockout Cut contains a lot more ingredients, but is more expensive in comparison, especially when buying one bottle at a time.

Where you get the most bang for your buck is from buying multiple bottles. For example, if you get three bottles, they’ll throw in a fourth one for free. If you go that route, the price will be much more affordable – somewhere in the neighborhood of between $45-$55 dollars per bottle. That comes out to about a $1.50 per day

If you don’t want to commit that much and you just want to get one bottle, it’s going to average around $2 per day. Yes, the average fat burner is about $1 per day, but the average fat burner does not have this many ingredients and all these many benefits, so honestly I’m not complaining that much about the price.

Where to Buy

Instant Knockout Cut isn’t available for purchase in stores, it’s only available from the official website, but they offer free shipping so you won’t have to fork over any additional fees. There’s also a 90-day money-back guarantee, so if you’re not happy with your results for any reason, you won’t have to worry about wasting your hard-earned money.

You also have the choice to pay by credit or debit card, PayPal, or through your Amazon.com account with Amazon Pay. They will generally ship your purchase out fairly quickly, in discreet packaging, and they’ll email you a tracking number when your order goes out.

Final Verdict

Okay, so should you try Instant Knockout yourself? Is it the reigning champ? Is it a heavy hitter? Let’s take a look at the positives and negatives I found in my review of Instant Knockout Cut.

Pros

So here’s what I really really like about this product.

I really like it as an appetite suppressant. I really need to strongly emphasize that eating less is pretty much the #1 major component of losing weight. Extra fat oxidation is nice, exercise is nice, all these things can help, but the vast majority of weight loss results comes from just eating fewer calories.

Appetite suppression the most important part of a fat burner in my opinion, and this has a really high amount of glucomannan, and I think it’s a pretty effective appetite suppressant. Not everyone can stomach all of these ingredients (which I’ll get into in the next section), but if you don’t have issues there, then I think this is a pretty good bet for appetite suppression.

It’s also got a very wide variety of benefits, so as I mentioned there are basically four different ways that fat burners can be effective. Instant Knockout places a big emphasis on appetite suppression, a big emphasis on fat oxidation, and a bit of an emphasis on decreased calorie absorption. I’m not quite as confident in the calorie absorption, but even so, the ingredients used are all pretty robust and they’ve got a lot of evidence supporting them.

Also, it’s not full of questionable ingredients. Many products will latch on to one ingredient with one scientific study and act like it was the most amazing thing in the world. they’re pretty rigorously supported like these sorts of ingredients which I quite liked

Cons

All right, so here are a few potential cons that you might find with this product.

Number one, IKO is relatively expensive compared to other fat burners. As I mentioned, it just has more quality ingredients so I don’t find that to be a big disappointment. However, there are other fat burners out there that are more popular and cost less money if that’s a big priority for you.

Also, these little red pills do contain artificial coloring, if that’s a big deal for you. They are also encased in gelatin, so it’s not vegetarian which might also be a big deal.

And again, it delivers 300 milligrams of caffeine throughout the day, which is not much for some but for others it might be, especially since you’re supposed to take one pill four times per day. That means you’re gonna be taking a bit of caffeine in the afternoon, maybe even the late afternoon, and that can interfere with some people’s sleep. Basically, it’s all very individual – I personally did have an issue with getting to sleep after having caffeine in the afternoon, but if that’s a concern for you, you might want to think about it.

My main issue with this product (and it’s not the of the world or anything), is that it does not mention the EGCG content of the green tea extract or the chlorogenic acid content of the green coffee extract. These are the ingredients that are the most closely linked to fat oxidation and reduced calorie absorption, and if I had that information I could have done a better job of checking it against the scientific literature to see how effective it’s going to be.

Again, I think this is a pretty effective product and a really good at appetite suppression (which is the most important thing anyway), but I would have liked a little more transparency in the labeling in that regard.

Conclusion

All right, there’s my thoughts on Instant Knockout Cut, the mixed martial artist-friendly, boxer-friendly, athlete-friendly, female-friendly, and pretty much anyone-friendly fat burning supplement Is it a knockout? Is it a home run? Is it a slam dunk?

I think it’s all of those things, honestly, and I can highly recommend it to anyone seeking to lose the unwanted pounds, whether you need to make weight before your next big fight, or (like most of us) you just want to fit into your old clothes again.

If you want to see where this Instant Knockout Cut ranked on our full list of the absolute best fat burners on the market, be sure to check out our lineup of the Top 3 Natural Supplements for Weight Loss that REALLY Work!.

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