Make Your Own Fat Burner

Here is recipe for a pre-workout fat burner, to be taken on an empty stomach (for a 200 lbs individual, if you are smaller, you must adjust the dosage):

    300-400 mg caffeine
    0.2 mg per kg body weight mg of yohimbine
    600 mg green tea (standardized for 50% EGCG)
    3 grams of l-tyrosine

All washed down with grapefruit juice. Buying all these ingredients separately will save you a lot of money and keep you in control as to what you are taking.

Not to sound like a broken record but it is much important to determine your caloric needs precisely, create a deficit, and follow a reasonable exercise program then to over think your fat loss product.

Try to avoid going too deeply into a calorie deficit because your body is more likely to use muscle for fuel when faced with an extreme situation. A reasonable goal is to lose one to two pounds per week; anything more and you are most likely sacrificing muscle mass. Larger athletes (over 200 lbs) can lose more than that; but you’ve got to keep an eye on your performance in the weight room. If your performance is dropping by ten to fifteen percent, you need to increase your calories by ten percent.

I find it critical to have a log, maybe two: one for your meals and the other for your workouts. Write down how you felt during your workout and mark down your energy levels. Be very precise in terms of your goals.

A good way to approach a cutting phase is to start changing your food intake and then, after three to four weeks, add in some low-intensity cardio.

Once your diet progress slows, it can be helpful to incorporate a fat burner to make further inroads and mobilize those last stubborn fat cells. If you start cardio and fat burners too early, there is a chance you will over-train and end up sacrificing muscle.

As much as our society craves the fix it-all pill, it is necessary to keep in mind that while a fat burner can provide an extra 5-7%, it is crucial to get the other 95% right first. Fat burners are helpful but don’t depend solely on them for your success.

A note of caution: If you are considering using DNP, which is an illegal medication, I urge you not to. While DNP can be very effective, it has caused several fatalities from stroke and basically being cooked from the inside. Do not use this product!

On another note, do not start taking a fat burner in the beginning of your diet. You will incur adrenal fatigue before you know it. Start buy cleaning up your food, get sufficient sleep, maybe add some cardio. If you start stalling after week 8, then you can incorporate a quality product.

Fat Burners And Diet Pills. The Ingredients.

Fat burners do raise your metabolic burn rate, but it is only by four to five percent. For a person who needs 2,000 calories a day, this would result in an extra 80 to 100 calories burned.

So, if your diet is off by 500 or more calories, it won’t make a difference.  In comparison, a glass of wine is about 120 calories and a muffin can set you back up to 500.

The main benefit of any fat loss product resides not so much in its actual fat burning ability, but in the hunger suppression and the added energy they provide. That extra edge (mainly coming from the stimulatory effects of caffeine) helps the calorie-deprived athlete to push through his workouts, even when hungry and fatigued. Trust me, if you are really dieting, a serving of caffeine can be a godsend for your mood and energy levels.

Let’s talk a look at the ingredients in your typical fat burner and rate them in order to give you an idea what you should be looking for.
Rating Fat Burner Ingredients

For the most part fat burners start of by saying “proprietary formula”. What does this mean?

Bad news for you, I am afraid. The manufacturer is simply lumping together all the ingredients without telling you how much of each is in the product. That usually means that they have something to hide. DO not buy!

Another warning sign is the term “breakthrough technology.” I am not quite sure what the potential breakthrough could be, but if there was one you would need a prescription for the product.

Most diet pills contain caffeine and or green tea, B-vitamins and yohimbine or taurine. While these substances all have some merit, they are not miracle drugs.

Caffeine. Caffeine does help to burn off more free fatty acids in your blood stream while you’re exercising. It is also present in almost all fat burners since it is cheap and makes people “feel something” or “gives energy."

Ephedra. Ehepdra: a beta-2 mimetica, extremely effective at stimulating the metabolism and the oxidation of brown fat. It is currently banned, yet there are rumors that the FDA is considering reversing its stance.

Yohimbine. Yohimbine can be helpful (up to a point) in up-regulating norephedrine, which causes greater thermogenesis (heat production) and lypolysis (break down of fatty tissue). Some people might experience nausea from taking yohimbine; for those, a topical application seems more promising.

If go back to chapter one of my book, you’ll see the part where I talk about alpha and beta receptors. Just to reiterate, alpha receptors block fat loss out of the cell.

Yohimbine works as an alpha receptor antagonist, so it blocks the fat loss blocker (we all remember sixth grade math, a double negative equals a positive), thereby making it an interesting tool especially for women. Keep in mind that any amount of insulin negates the effects of yohimbine, so try to consume few to no carbohydrates when taking it.
The main problem is that most fat burners do not contain enough yohimbine. You’ll need 5-10 mgs.

Fat Burners

Green Tea. Green tea: basically another form of caffeine with some antioxidants, useful but often underdosed, so buy your own. The active ingredient is EGCG, which is responsible for appetite suppression and decreased absorption of fatty acids.

Tyrosine. L-tyrosine: An amino acid, can be a great help to focus before a workout, again mostly under dosed, you’ll need 3 grams.

Vencopetine. Vencopetine: improves blood flow, but the main positive is that it helps with concentration and overall mood.

Tuarine. L-taurine: also an amino acid, it has some mild pain killing abilities, again needs to be taken in larger doses and on an empty stomach to have any effect.

Nargenin. Nargenin: is a substance found in grapefruit. Not a fat burner per se but it slows down the breakdown of caffeine, hence making a fat burner more effective. I prefer grapefruit juice to wash down a fat burner.

Cayenne Pepper. Cayenne pepper: has been used in traditional medicine for increased blood flow, which helps with the transportation of fatty acids.

Synephrine. Synephrine: this has been used ever since ephedra was banned, but it has never lived up to the hype.

B Vitamins. B-vitamins: sure why not, they are good for the nerves and cheap. Usefulness for fat loss? Not so much.

Vitamin C. Vitamin C: great for colds, but in diet pills?
Sport And Bodybuilding

MODERN ANABOLIC ANDROGENIC STEROIDS CYCLING

A comprehensive look at modern Anabolic Androgenic Steroid cycling.

If you are planning a 10 week cycle, the goal is to be at highest blood concentrations for as many of the 10 weeks as possible.

If you use a long ester such as deca at xmg/week, it will take you 4-5 weeks to build up to max blood concentrations possible for xmg/week. So half of your cycle is not wasted, but you are not maximizing efficiency.

When coming off a cycle, the waiting period before clomid therapy begins will vary depending on the type and dose of the AAS. If you ran 400mg/week of deca for 10 weeks, a month after your last shot, will will still have around 150mg of esterified deca in your system. This is more than enough to prevent recovery. This is the reason why recovery is more difficult with a deca (or another long acting ester).

Most guys go with "time on=time off." This will not work with long esters as I have demonstrated above. For at least a month after your last shot you are in what I call a "time in-effiency" period where you are no longer reaping the benefits of you AAS but you are not recovering either. The goal of the modern cycle is to minimize this wasted time.

The key components are:

1) Front end loading this cuts down on wasted time in the beginning of your cycle waiting for the doses to reach full theraputic levels. This concept has been used before but (as far as I know) I was the first one to quantify it mathmatically. Zyg has taken the math one step further with a graph showing, visually, the importance.
The use of orals in the beginning of a cycle is a popular component of a cycle. While I don't feel it is a nessecity, it too is a (different) type of front end load.
For the advnaced BBer, dbol should be taken in the beginning of a cycle as well as loading the injectables since the anabolic response from dbol is alleged to be by a different mechanism than most injectables. If one had to chose between a dbol load and and injectable load, in most cases, the injectable load should be prefered over the dbol load.

2) Injection frequency This is crucial to obtaining even blood concentrations of androgens. Ideally, the more often injected, the better. An acceptable rule of thumb is "inject at half of the half life." For instance, if the half life of a steroid is 7 days, this should be injected at least twice weekly. For cycles that involve multiple injectables, the injections should be fractioned out and divided up based on the injectable with the shortest half life. For instance, if you were doing a test propionate and deca cycle, the old school way to do it would be to inject the prop EOD and the deca once a week. Both compounds should not be viewed as separate, but together with total androgen concentration taken into consideration. If you injected the deca only once a week, probably along with one of the propionate injections, that day will have a much larger spike on total blood androgen concentrations. Instead, the deca should be split up and taken with the propionate injections, EOD. This way there is no one day of the week that has a "spike" and even blood concentrations are maintained throughout the week.

3) Ending the cycle Switching to shorter esters toward the end of a cycle makes perfect sence however not too many guys incorporate this practice perhaps because of the lack of variety of drugs. The modern cycle should include replacing long ester injectables with shorter ones so that recovery time is made more efficient. The necesity of switching to shorter esters toward the end of a cycle depends on the type of drugs used. Longer esters such as deca and eq should be replaced with shorter acting versions of these compounds no later than four weeks before the end of a cycle. Medium length esters such as t-enanthate and cypionate should be replaced no later than three weeks before the end of a cycle. A couple examples of appropriate replacements are: trenbolone acetate and testosterone propionate. There is no need to "load" these compounds in the middle of a cycle since
1) they are already "fast acting" and
2) blood androgenconcentrations are already high.

4) Recovery With the replacement of the faster acting injectables toward the end of a cycle, the "wasted" time between the end of a cycle and beginning of clomid therapy is reduced. For instance, if 100mg TA is used ED, clomid therapy may begin in as little as 5 days after the last shot. This tremendously impoves time efficiency. Clomid therapy usually last for four weeks. An excellent thread posted by The Iron Game describes this in further detail Clomid FAQ's .
When the above recomendations are made, your cycle itself is made much more efficient and if recovery time is made more efficient as well, time "off" AAS may very well be reduced so that the overall efficiency of AAS use over time is tremendously improved.

Shock Techniques

Here are some tips on getting over plateaus:

Almost everyone will reach a point in their training program where it seems they are working their butt off but getting nowhere. This is described as a “plateau”. When you plateau, something needs to change. First, you should evaluate your program. Ask yourself: How long have I been consistent? How often do I change up my workout routine? What is my diet like? And HOW MUCH SLEEP AM I GETTING?

Chances are you have been doing the same routine for over 3 months consistently and/or your body is not getting enough of the proper nutrition it needs to grow. If nutrition is the case, that can be easily resolved with supplementation. If you have been doing the same routine for 3+ months then you may need to “shock” your muscles to get them to grow! Its always a good idea to change your routine every 3-4 weeks or so to keep them growing. That technique is known to bodybuilders as muscle confusion. Here is a list of different ways that you can confuse your muscles and get ‘em to grow past a plateau. It is not possible to use all of these techniques at once. Vary your workouts by incorporating a few of these deviations and you will see greater results from every work-out. Just remember that using some of these variations may cause over training if used on consecutive workouts.

Focus on the muscle. This in itself may be the single most important strategy used by bodybuilders to encourage muscle tissue break down. This is strictly a mental exercise. It will benefit you by allowing concentration on the particular muscle group that you are trying to stimulate. Here is an example for bench-press, but it can and must, for optimum gains, be applied to all lifts: Start by lying under the bar and completing a rep mentally. Think about what muscle you want to do the work. Then lift off the bar and focus on contracting your chest muscles to press the bar up. You may even do a rep or two with just the bar to prep your senses into what will be taking place after you add the weight. After you add the weight, don’t focus on pressing the weight up, but focus on flexing the muscles and on their contraction. The bar’s movement is simply a side effect of that contraction. An example of this technique on lat pulls: When pulling down, imagine your hands as merely hooks. Don’t focus on pulling down the bar, but imagine that you are just pulling down your elbows towards the floor.
The bar is coming down too, but only because your wrists are attached to it. Pull down your elbows but place your concentration and total focus on your lats and totally isolate them to do the pulling. Always think about the muscle that will be contracting and try to exaggerate the contraction on every movement.
Always, as with dumbbell rows, imagine your arms as only hooks that are connecting you to the weight and pull up by contracting the muscle; don’t just think of the lift as moving the bar. The bar’s movement is simply a side effect!

Varying intensity. You can sometimes challenge yourself by putting more exercises into your routine without using more time. Or you can try to get the same routine done in less time. This means less time between sets and it requires a fast recovery rate.

Heavy and light days. The best way to shock the muscle and keep it growing is to use heavy and light training days. Here is an example: On heavy days, use as much weight as you can for 3-4 reps and on light days, put on as much weight as you can for 12-15 reps.

Rest between sets can also be varied to give you some change. Try adding more rest for large muscle groups and less rest for small ones.

Forced reps are pretty popular. A forced rep is considered as trying to lift more weight than you can lift by yourself and needing your partner to help you finish the set. This is good on heavy days when you are at your failure point and you just need a little help to get that last rep. Another form of forced reps is to have your spotter force down the bar to your chest (on benchpress) on the eccentric (downward) phase of the lift by applying his bodyweight to the bar. You may need the spotter to help you get the bar back to the top of the movement.

Partial reps are a great way to get your muscles to burn. When doing partial bench press reps, you should only lift the weight about 4 inches off of your chest. This works great when used as a compound set w/ dumbbell bench or incline flys. This goes for any other exercise as well. Only do the first half of the rep. But don’t do these for squats; it’s a waste of time.

21’s are another form of partial reps. Instead of doing the full motion of the rep, do only the first half of one full motion for 7 reps. Then, do the second half of one full motion for 7 reps. Then, finish off the set with 7 reps of full motion for a total of 21 reps.

100’s are a killer exercise. This is particularly effective with bench. You simply use a weight that you think that you can lift for one hundred continuous reps.
Like burn outs, this should be done at the end of a session due to the inevitable exhaustion of glycogen stores and build up of lactic acid. It is not known how this causes any muscle growth. It defies most principles of muscle growth in that it doesn’t use enough weight to cause a tear down of tissue. Bodybuilders have realized its effectiveness. It may be that the vast amount of blood that accumalates in the muscle actually tears down the muscle fiber due to pressure.

Isolate your muscles to get the most out of a particular workout. Doing leg extensions are a great isolation workout for your thighs. For biceps I recommend doing dumbbell preacher curls. Isolation works only one specific muscle instead of a compound movement (ex. Bench= compound due to chest, triceps, and front delt involvement).