As the saying goes, if I was paid 1 dollar every time someone asks me if fat burners are worth the investment, I would be rich. In our quest for a better physique we try to find the fastest ways to lose our body fat. Often times, results aren’t coming in as fast as we would like them to and we search for short cuts. We stumble upon a muscle and fitness magazine full of advertisement for some sort of fat burners, with the official poster boy, a chiseled son of a gun who has our dream shape. Sometimes they are so lean that we could see their pancreas secrete insulin.
They try to make us believe that the fat burner could give you the shape of a Greek god. The truth is that you’ll need a good diet and an effective exercise program, no cheating allowed, to achieve those kinds of results. By the way, do you really think that those poster boys in the magazine only take this fat burner to get lean? I can assure you that they take all kinds of OTHER supplements aids, the kind Ben Johnson and Barry Bonds got busted for.
First, there’s the question of diet. People are left with the impression that it’s a magic pill, it will do the work by itself and you can still eat what you want. They could not be further from the truth. You absolutely need to be on a strict diet to have any kind of descent results. By strict diet, I mean a well balanced diet, with the right kind of food, not the kind of diet that starves you. The biggest problem with some fat burners is that they have some type of appetite suppressant in the formula. If you
There is also a problem with the adrenal glands in the long term. By training harder, you put your system through a lot of stress, and most of the times, even if you are able to eat the adequate amount of nutrient and calories, you won’t get enough of the necessary micro-nutrients to recuperate properly. Often times, people fail to reach the necessary requirement for protein and water intake, which should increase proportionally with the intensity you are putting in the gym. Adrenal fatigue syndrome is also known in the training world as overtraining. Too much weight training and cardio with a lack of sleep (which is a big problem when people take fat burners) or/and a good nutrition plan could lead to much bigger problems on short and long terms. Adrenal fatigue is a major concern.
Symptoms of Adrenal Fatigue appears as follows:
• Fatigue, lethargy
o Lack of energy in the mornings, and also in the afternoon between 3 and 5 pm
o Often feel tired between 9 and 10 pm, but resist going to bed
• Light-headed (including dizziness and fainting) when rising from a sitting or laying-down position
• Lowered blood pressure and blood sugar
• Difficulty concentrating or remembering (brain fog)
• Consistently feeling unwell or difficulty recovering from infections
• Craving either salty or sugary foods to keep going
• Unexplained hair loss
• Nausea
• Alternating constipation and diarrhea
• Mild depression
• Decreased sex drive
• Sleep difficulties
• Unexplained pain in the upper back or neck
• Increased symptoms of PMS for women
• Tendency to gain weight and inability to lose it – especially around the waist
• High frequency of getting the flu and other respiratory diseases – lasting longer than usual
All of these symptoms might be caused by an inability of your body to produce enough cortisol – the root cause of adrenal fatigue syndrome.
Unfortunately, some could and probably will have psychological effects after the fat burner stack is done, commonly known as ‘’the downer’’. It could be caused by the adrenal shut down or just by the lack of energy for the workout. While on the stack, you feel energized, even possessed, you can’t understand what drives you like that, it’s like 5 coffees in a pill. So when all is done, and you resume your training without the fat burners, you feel drained, no energy, you can’t even be close to the weights you were using while on the stack. You feel depressed and don’t even want to go train anymore. Bad habits start again and you put most if not all the weight (fat) back.
There’s some other alternative you can take as a supplement that will not only help you burn fat naturally, but also improve your overall well being. When someone wants to lose bodyfat, I try to identify what is the worst habit in their eating lifestyle. Usually, it is the reason why everything else falls apart. For example, someone that eats a lot of refined carbohydrates, will not only have symptoms of insulin resistance, but could also have trouble sleeping, chronic fatigue, depression, etc. By taking out the major culprit of a problem, your results come faster. If the bad habit was there for a couple of years, than it will probably take longer to see some improvement. My approach is the fatter you are, further back we go in time, evolution speaking. Meaning that if you are overweight, you should eat like a caveman, hunters and gatherers. They had to eat whatever was available, meat, berries, leafs, etc.
To determine what should be the appropriate protocol for someone, I do a thorough nutritional evaluation and a BioSignature Modulation. It’s a systematic approach to losing unwanted body fat in specific locations like the hips or the love handles. The science behind BioSignature Modulation comes from skin fold data Charles Poliquin has gathered over the past 20 years and comparing his data against blood, urine and saliva tests to determine a clients specific hormone imbalance Charles Poliquin has discovered 12 specific sites that can be measured to scientifically determine what hormones need to be optimized and which herbal supplements can be used to achieve rapid results in fat loss.
Results can come as fast as you want them to come. A simple change of habits could lead to a better lifestyle and dramatic results, lasting ones. Not only will you benefit from a change in body composition, but you’ll feel healthier than you’ve ever been.
Bodhi
