8. Should I take ephedrine and clenbuterol while on this diet?
Not unless you want a stroke. Ephedrine is a weaker cousin of
clenbuterol although both work through similar actions. Taking
both is not only unnecessary but probably dangerous.
One interesting question I got was the possibility of alternating clen
and ephedrine intake (say 2 days clen, 2 days eph) to avoid the receptor
downgrade seen with clen. Not knowing enough about the compound,
I can't say for sure if this would work. Seeing as both ultimately
lead to receptor downgrade (as well as inhibition of T4 to T3 conversion),
while this might slow down the effects, only complete discontinuation
of the stack will allow for upregulation.
9. Are there any other substances to help hasten fat loss along with the
ECA stack?
I tried several different compounds but was not methodical enough to
know what did what. Some things worth trying are:
L-tyrosine: In rats at least, tyrosine has been shown to further
potentiate the effects of the ECA stack. According to Larry Hobbs
("The New Diet Pills" Pragmatic Press, 1996), there is reason to
belive (although he never gives those reasons) that it will do the
same in humans. Kind of like when you hear a sentece start with
"Well, they say..." They who? I want to start a company called
They,Inc. to put out all these pithy little saying like "Well, they
say that a colorful sunset means this." "And they say that caffeine
raises insulin." And charge royalties to people every time they use
"They say..." in a sentence.
Dose: 500 mg - 1 gram with each dose of ECA.
L-carnitine: This is a substance involved in transporting free fatty
acids into the mitochondria to be burned. Thing is, you need a lot of
it, on the order of 2+ grams per day to have any effect. And, typical
costs are $1/gram. Also, most of the research I've seen does not
support it's use assuming you're eating a normal meat based diet
(carnitine is synthesized from lysine and methionine) which you
should be on Bodyopus. It's possible that some could have a deficiency
and supplementation might be useful. Or that the particular
situation of a ketogenic diet would make it useful. But, I can't say
for sure.
Dose: 2 grams taken 30 minutes prior to aerobics.
Hydroxycitric acid (HCA)/Citrimax: Some have suggested that ingestion
of HCA prior to cardio may allow the carnitine transferase shuttle
to work more efficiently. HCA inhibits conversion of excess carbs
and protein to fat in rats (although, Larry Hobbs in "The New Diet Pills"
does not believe it will do the same thing in humans). I had the most
success using HCA on weekends during recarb since I tended to eat
too much. It kept me full and seemed to help me avoid fat spillover.
Seem to preferentially refill muscle and liver glyocgen while avoiding
conversion of carbs to fat.
Dose: 750 mg taken 30 minutes prior to cardio for fat burning.
750 mg taken 30 minutes prior to meals during recarb 3-4 times per
day.
Yohimbe: Yohimbe is a beta-receptor agonist. It may help women to
lose stubborn lower body fat but realize that fat tissue has poor
circulation and oral yohimbe may have little result. Direct injections
or possibly a yohimbe/DMSO combination might work better. However,
yohimbe did seem to help me maintain a higher body temp while dieting.
I recommend Twinlab Yohimbe Fuel as it's standardized. Most herbs are
not.
Dose: 8mg 2-3 times per day. Or get some of Twinlab's Dick Fuel
(aka Male Fuel) if you can't get it up for the girlfriend.
Cayenne pepper: Cayenne is another thermogenic but it works through
a different pathway than ECA. You can definitely feel this one working.
Almost immediately in fact. You'll get some hearburn and start sweating
really quickly. And, make sure and swallow the capsules fast or it will
burn your throat. Hell, leave it on your tongue too long and you can feel
it starting to burn as the capsule dissolves. Get Cool Cayenne if you can
find it as the normal stuff tends to give me heartburn.
Dose: 40,000 Heat units (HU's) - 80,000 HU's three times daily.
DNP: Just messing with you there. You can't buy it. You can make it
although you'll probably just blow yourself up. And, use too much and
it will kill you. Just diet for a week or two more and get over it.
Some other questions I receieved recently:
10. "How important is vitamin supplementation? In your week 6 and week 9
posts you "mentioned it in passing" but haven't really said whether
it's that necessary or not. I'm sure some of it would depend on how
you eat during the phases but it might be difficult to eat enough
non-carb high-vitamin foods."
Good one. In my quest to discuss all the esoteric supplements, I forgot
about the basics. Most of the books I've read regarding the ketogenic
diet (Bodyopus, Anabolic Diet, Atkins, the Epilepsy Diet book) seem
to agree that a bare minimum of a one a day multi-vitamin as well as
extra calcium should be consumed while on the diet. Now, while some
may use this as ammunition that ketogenic diets cause nutritional
deficiciencies, please consider that most American's eating a typical
mixed diet are typically deficient in one or more nutrients and, according
to research into intake patterns, literally no one gets adequate
calcium and a supplement is recommended to almost everybody. And,
while the research is still somewhat equivocal over whether or not
hard training athletes need more micronutrients than they get from
a mixed diet, I'd put forth that future research will support the idea
that this is the case. In any event...
I would suggest at the bare minimum a basic one per day multi-vitamin/
multi-mineral (I use Twinlab Daily One caps without Iron) as well as
a calcium carbonate supplement (600-1200 mg/day depending on
dairy consumption on the diet). I suggest using the cheapest calcium
carbonate you can find, usually the supermarket generic.
For those who are concerned about the high amounts of saturated fats
which may be present (although it's more than feasible to do a ketogenic
diet on unsaturated fats, it's just not as fun since you can't eat lots of
steak all the time and you have to smother your chicken in mayo)
additional anti-oxidants may be useful. Also, there is data that some of
the muscle damage and soreness following training is caused by free-
radical production so it's feasible that anti-oxidants might prevent
some of this. I generally take
Vitamin C: 1-3 grams (more on training days to help control cortisol)
Beta-carotene: 10mg/day
Vitamin A: 5k IU/day (And, yes, I know vitamin A can become toxic if
you're not careful. And I know that beta-carotene will convert to Vitamin
A if needed. But, beta carotene seems to have anti-oxidant functions
independent of vitamin A so I take both.)
Vitamin E: 400-800 IU/day of alpha-tocopherol
Others like selenium, NAC, CLA or whatever might also be useful additions
but it starts to get expensive fast. I stick with the standard ACE stack
(Vitamin's A, C, and E). Again, I typically buy the supermarket generic
or the GNC "Buy one get one half off" product.
11. Ok, the topic of this week's FAQ is Bodyopus Recomposition.
I find it strange that this is where people are having the most
problems since it's the one area of the book that Dan went into
the most detail about. Go figure. First, let me say that I'm not
going to give out the exact recomposition numbers. Buy Bodyopus
if you want the details. What I will answer is some of the main
questions I'm getting in terms of food choice, protein intake, fat
intake, supplement intake, etc.
12a: Should I still be dieting during the carb up? Should I still consume
25% protein and 75% fat in addition to all my carbs?
No, no, no. The whole point of the carb-up is to supersaturate the muscles
with carbs, water, electrolytes etc. This takes lot of calories so you
shouldn't be dieting. And, fat should be minimized to keep insulin
levels high. I'll discuss fat requirements and where I think the fat
should go next week.
10b. How many calories should I eat?
It's determined by the recomposition guidelines. Again, I'm not
giving you the actual numbers. Go buy a copy of the book. Sufficed
to say, it's a shitload compared to what you're eating during the week.
I'm pretty small and I, according to Dan's numbers, I have to put away
about 3500 calories or so of just carbs in the first 24 hours. When
you've been on 1500 calories during the week, that's a lot of food.
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