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Please Explain The World Of Supplements To Me
Edith_Bagot-Dix
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I figure I'll start with the relevant details and just see what people have to say. I'm a 32 year old guy, 6'3" and about 230 lbs. I'm one of those people who have always struggled with my weight. When I was in my early 20s, I was over 300 lbs and decided that I needed to make some serious changes in my life. Since that point, almost ten years ago now, I've been more physically active and had a better diet. By the time I was 25, I was down to 185 lbs and working out every day. A couple of years after that, I got into the video game industry. The combination of stress and long hours led to me gaining about 60 lbs. I got myself out of that industry and got my ass back to gym. For the past two years, I've been in the gym, working out an hour a day, five days a week (at least 80% of the time). I've dropped about 15 pounds, I have much better muscle tone, better energy levels, better mood, etc.
So why ask for advice? Well, I'm still overweight and still have a lot of fat around my midsection. I've been working with a trainer for the past couple of months, but I'm still not really seeing any results - my weight has been pretty constant for the past year or so. So I'm wondering what else I can do. Since I'm in the gym pretty regularly, I have some exposure to the guys who are more serious fitness addicts than I am, and they are all about supplements. I'm on the fence about these, as there's a lot of information out there, and there seem to be a lot of scams out there as well. So I'm looking for advice on supplements (specifically) and any idea on losing that last bit of weight (more generally).
So why ask for advice? Well, I'm still overweight and still have a lot of fat around my midsection. I've been working with a trainer for the past couple of months, but I'm still not really seeing any results - my weight has been pretty constant for the past year or so. So I'm wondering what else I can do. Since I'm in the gym pretty regularly, I have some exposure to the guys who are more serious fitness addicts than I am, and they are all about supplements. I'm on the fence about these, as there's a lot of information out there, and there seem to be a lot of scams out there as well. So I'm looking for advice on supplements (specifically) and any idea on losing that last bit of weight (more generally).
Also on Steam and PSN: twobadcats
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I know a couple of guys who swear by them, but after watching Bigger Stronger Faster* it's hard to believe that they are anything other than a large-scale scam industry.
[strike]Are you trying to build muscle, or add strength, or lose fat, or something else entirely?[/strike]
There's a lot of bullshit out there, but there are also proven effective supplements for various purposes.
Healthy eating and exercise will.
Have you changed your routine at all in the last while? Like a complete restructuring of what you are doing?
What is your weightlifting like?
Have you been increasing your difficulty in the workouts or maintaining throughout the year?
Are you sure you're actually eating a really well-balanced diet right now or just "healthier".
Well then.
First off, cycling. As you've said there's a lot of contradictory information out there.
Should you cycle? Yes.
Why? Because!
Because, all things being equal, if you're a gym newbie (I'm assuming you're a weightlifting newbie?) you're going to get the best results from doing an intense cycle of creatine and weightlifting. Creatine, by itself, won't give you any appreciable gains. Particularly if you're doing everything else wrong. You need to be lifting hard and eating heavy to see the benefits.
What you should do is plan things out better. Figure out how (or just motivate yourself) to a) start a regimented, proven gym routine b) eat enough to make gains on that routine and c) do a creatine cycle. Think of creatine as a supplement (which it is!) to your strength routine, not as a means to gaining strength by itself.
As far as the actual cycle, this is where things are muddy! I go by the 4 months on, 2 months off variation. Not for any scientific reason, but because I can't keep up sustained heavy weightlifting and eating for more than about 4 months due to scheduling, work, school, and how taxing it is on the body. Currently I'm going for about 2.5 months, then going off creatine for 2 months and cutting weight. I'll be picking back up in February and going for another 3 months.
As far as actually taking creatine, it's suggested you take it with simple carbs to help absorption. I have a small glass of orange juice every morning, mixing it in and drinking it. I don't know the effects of missing a dose, but it's definitely better to get yourself into a routine where you're sure you're taking it every day. Before / after workout is much less important than regularly. 5g a day should be all you need.
I very strongly recommend that if you are looking for chemical ways to alter your body that you speak to a doctor. I'm not saying you need a prescription product, but your doctor will know more about what your good options are or chemicals you absolutely must avoid.
3clipse: The key to any successful marriage is a good mid-game transition.
When I first started back to the gym, I just did an hour of cardio (20 minutes of elliptical, 20 minutes stationary bike, 20 minutes treadmill). The aim would be to have one of these at a sustained heart rate of of between 140 - 150 and the other two at a sustained heart rate of 120-130. I was doing this for around a year before deciding to get into weights instead. When I switched two weights, I'd do 15 minutes of cardio warm up, stretch (5 minutes or so), and then do either a leg day, chest and back day (one of each once a week), or biceps, triceps and shoulders day. Regardless of what day it was I'd also begin and end with abdominal exercises. Each day would be four to six exercises targeting the muscles I was working on that day, with each exercise consisting of three sets of 12 reps. On top of these would be the ab exercises, which I kept building up (started at 12 but it got to the point where 12 sit ups weren't really challenging so I upped it to 15 and then 20, same with the leg raises I would do at the other end of the work out).
So a typical chest and back day would be something like: bench press, pull ups on the gravitron, dumbbell chest press and lat pull downs. Maybe throw in push ups or a row if I was changing things up or had longer in the gym. Legs would be an inclined leg press, leg extensions, seated leg curls, calf press, that kind of stuff. Arms and shoulders would be barbell bicep curls, rope pulldowns for the tricep, dumbbell shoulde press, preacher curls, perhaps throw in one of the machines targetting those muscle groups if I had more time. On the off days I'd do the same hour or cardio as before. I did this for about nine months.
Now I had some results from all of these things, but I wouldn't say I was really pushing myself out of my comfort zone too much as, aside from sit ups, I never really increased the weight I was using beyond five or ten pounds here or there. I'd lost some weight when I started regularly exercising again, but after twenty months of working out and tracking my weight, it hadn't really budged from those initial fifteen pounds or so that I'd lost in the first few months. So I decided to bite the bullet and get a trainer. Now, since then, I have had a LOT of changes in my workout routine. I spent the first couple of months with the trainer working on building muscle, and I had a lot of substantial gains in the amount I was lifting, number of reps, that kind of thing. I cut the assisted weight on the gravitron in half, doubled my shoulder press weight, added about forty pounds to my bench press and lat pulldown, etc. I also started adding in exercises I hadn't been doing before - dips and other body weight exercises mostly. This was all focused on building up more muscle.
A couple of weeks ago I ended that phase of the program and started to focus on weight loss. This entailed pretty much completely changing what I was doing, switching to a lot more body weight exercises, more reps, high intensity interval training. There's been a lot of variety these past couple of weeks, but as an example, here's what I did today: warm-up of 20 minutes on the elliptical, followed by 50 pushups, 50 pull-ups (on the graviton at 70% of the assisted weight I used to use), 50 situps, 50 box jumps, 50 lunges (target was to do all these in 30 minutes but I wound up a little closer to 40) and then finished it off with 3 sets of eight bench presses at the maximum weight I've ever benched (I had to have some help from the trainer and basically just did negatives for the last two). I'll do something like that Monday, Wednesday and Friday (well not this Monday as it's Canadian Thanksgiving) and then the usual hour of cardio, though I recently switched out the stationary bike for 20 minutes on the rowing machine. These have definitely been increased difficulty workouts - usually I'm totally fatigued and sore at the end, and then have a surge of endorphins about half an hour later.
My diet is pretty well balanced most of the time, though watching the portions at dinner is kind off the problem. Here's a pretty average example:
Breakfast: 2 cups of coffee with milk and sugar (which I probably shouldn't have but I'm addicted), one and half cups of whole grain cereal with half a cup of milk
Post work out snack: a piece of fruit (usually a banana or apple), protein shake
Lunch/early afternoon: organic granola bar, protein shake
Dinner: whatever my girlfriend feels like making, but regular things we have: chicken and chick pea curry with steamed rice and naan, beef stew, baked chicken wings with carrot and celery sticks, whole grain pasta (usually with sausage though, probably not the best choice), baked chicken breasts with either steamed rice or mashed potatoes and vegetables (or a garden salad with balsamic vinegar dressing).
Sometimes I will have some sort of after dinner snack with my girlfriend, usually along the lines of splitting a bag of microwave popcorn, having a hot chocolate, or maybe something like a bowl of ice cream (if we have it in the house, I try to keep it out). That's not an every day kind of thing - averaging it out, maybe once a week.
Other than the coffee I don't drink anything other than water all day. Once every couple of weeks I might have two or three beers on a Friday night.
The problem area, for me, is usually on the weekends. I play tabletop RPGs, pretty much every Saturday night, and the guys I play with eat pretty much what the stereotype suggests - pizza, chips, candy, soda - crap basically. I usually figure that Saturday will be my cheat day, and I don't gorge myself or anything, but it's obviously not helping. The problem is that this has a way of snowballing, as my friends like to do dim sum (Chinese brunch) as well, though I've avoided it for a few months now. Sometimes, if we're really swamped, my girlfriend and I get take out on Friday night, so it can snowball into this trifecta of take-out Friday, pizza and crap on Saturday and then dim sum on Sunday. Haven't had that happen in quite awhile (like four months or more) though.
Anyway, on to the specific supplement thing:
Creatine - some one brought it up already. A guy at the gym suggested this because it will (supposedly) let me do more exercise in less time. My understanding, though, is that it's more for trying to put on muscle mass than to lose weight.
ECA - this one was mentioned several times at the gym. I looked it up and found out it stands for Ephedra-Caffeine-Aspirin, which you take in combination. I found this kind of sketchy as apparently it's banned by the FDA in the U.S. (but I'm in Canada and you can buy it here) and it's banned from competitive sports (don't play any though). I wouldn't even bring it up save that all the guys I talked to at the gym suggested it, and a couple of the regulars are firefighters. They mentioned they had to get their BMI down for some evaluation and they used this.
Thermogenix (sp?) - a couple of guys mentioned this, supposedly it increases your metabolism. That's about all I know.
Also on Steam and PSN: twobadcats
Neither are particularly great, especially for long term use.
Agreed-ish, though I'd still say it's too carb-heavy.
Re-tooling the diet at a minimum can't hurt. But that's a whole WoT up there and there's a lot of factors interacting with each other.
Were these two comments meant for me or y2jake215?
Also on Steam and PSN: twobadcats
For you.
sometimes if your results taper off, your system could use a shock. have a cheat day (don't go too crazy) where you eat whatever you want. sometimes that can kick your metabolism in the ass.
I've had limited success with fat burners, i used to be on the Ephedrine one (i forget what it's called)before it got banned, but they are hard to stay on for long, your body gets used to it. It did really reduce my appetite though, i tend to eat when i'm bored, and being an accountant i tended to snack a lot at work. You have to be careful with those though, as they can be dangerous. especially if you drink caffeine anyways.
Sounds like you could benefit from a more intense workout as well. I've lifted on and off for ten years and my results were far from spectacular, aestetically speaking (i got stronger). i got on p90x for a month, and noticed results very quickly. the high intensity workout is brutal, but i couldn't argue with the results.
Supplements really won't help much with losing weight if you don't modify your diet. I'd suggest looking into maybe a more serious carb-cycling diet, where you avoid carbohydrates except right before and after your workouts. Keep eating clean, no processed foods or junk food or fast food. Just reduce the carb intake throughout the day. And don't do a cheat day. Do at most a cheat MEAL. Once you get up from the table, you're done. If you do a cheat day, you can easily take in 7000 - 10000 calories if you're going all out and gorging.
Figure out how many calories you're consuming. Knock 250 - 500 off of that. Bingo, you'll start losing 1-2 pounds a week.
I'd recommend the creatine. It's kinda the biochemical equivalent of topping off the gas tank in your muscles. If you have creatine phosphate available, that can be converted into ATP. It only helps with short-duration, max-effort style work, so it usually helps you put up one or two more reps at the end.
ECA: Ephedra, and anything that sounds like "ephedrine" "drine" "dran" "eph-" or the like are all trade names for amphetamines. You really don't want these unless a doctor specifically says you need one.
Thermogenix: A bunch of root crap in a bottle. This is absolutely the canonical rip-off supplement that has one or two active ingredients and a bunch of snake oil (that may be harmful) that makes it sound like it's attacking the problem from every possible angle. You'd be better off taking caffeine pills than this.
I know it can be disappointing, but there isn't really something available that's just going to be the perfect utility pill for your needs. Again, go see a doctor if you have a specific need that you'd like to find some assistance with, whether it's weight loss or bulking up.
And it's not that I'm against supplements. I take fish oil for high cholesterol and glucosamine for bad knees. The pills I take have one ingredient each, and I was recommended them by my doctor.
3clipse: The key to any successful marriage is a good mid-game transition.
This isn't true. While there is some similarity between the structure and stimulating effects, ephedra and similar compounds are not amphetamines and it would be more accurate to say they are trade names for epinephrine and related compounds.
Edit: To clarify, Dropping Loads isn't really wrong, but I am fairly sure that when we're dealing with supplements, most of the compounds similar to what he listed aren't going to be amphetamines. In any case I am not sure if you can even get any of these substances without a prescription anymore.
You are correct. The common category of those two compounds is phenethylamines, not amphetamines. I certainly appreciate the scientific accuracy
For subby, the point is still valid that it is risky to self-dose ephedra.
3clipse: The key to any successful marriage is a good mid-game transition.