If history has taught us anything, it is that when an industry exhibits the potential for growth, people and companies exploit the opportunity. The fitness industry has transformed into a multi-billion dollar juggernaut with highly trained sales and marketing snipers who have their cross hairs on your cash.

Although the expansions of this industry and advances in modern technology have helped usher in a new era of quality health and fitness products, they have also opened the door for liars and con artists who could care less about your health. The trick is to understand how to maneuver through the marketing madness to find the truth.

Sadly, the number of people who fall victim to unrealistic quick-fix solutions is in the tens of millions. All the while, companies that sell ineffective products that will never help you acheive your goals, get rich at your expense. Beyond the scams and rip-offs designed to separate you from your hard-earned cash, there are people, companies, industries and even government agencies with hidden agendas designed to sabotage your attempts to improve your health. It's not a conspiracy theory; it is simply the undeniable truth that you will see once the facts are known.

There is no shortage of people who stand to profit from those who do not know the truth, and they will do everything possible to refute the facts. Just remember that when it comes to big business and their profits, the fix is in: billions are spent to keep consumers in the dark. You will need to rely on the one thing that marketing cannot spin  your common sense.

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 $19 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 was simple. When people think about exercise, they relate it to work. Even the phrase we use to describe exercise is to "work out." 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 work and physical activity in the form of exercise is the last thing we want to do. Instead, we want a quick fix solution, and the desire for fast results 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 sky rocketing 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 that are written annually. This doesn't include the $17 billion we spent on over 100,000 over-the-counter drugs that have in excess of 1,000 synthetic 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.

Read more in Part Two.