ALA / CLA / Glutemine

[Temple]

It increases the cells ability to soak up glucose.
Decreases the amount of insulin your body needs to excrete to shuttle nutrients into your cells. Taken post workout
Creates a nutrition partitioning effect which gives you more muscle gain/less fat gain.
It is an antioxidant.
Does this translate into being anticatabolic - I don't know.
Basically what it will do is make a really clean diet more effective in providing nutrients to your muscles and help with glucose disposal when you have an occasional carb slip up like eating that donut.

 

[hookdup]

Thanks for all your help Temple01. I think I'm getting it ... at least better than I was yesterday!

Okay well, I want to try it because I'm losing the weight but my bodyfat is so consistant that I'm going crazy.
I gotta keep some of this lean body mass!!!

So how much glutamine per day? And when (before and after my work out ... or just after?

How much ALA? And when?

I'm at 117 pds, 21% bf

Thanks

 

[Temple]

I know your primary interest here is in the supps but if you are losing a substancial amount of lean mass then something else is not right.
What exactly does your training/diet and cardio program look like?
How are you having your bodyfat measured? Where did you start as far as stats and where are you now?

 

[hookdup]

I'm trying to do the Body For Life program and have tried to stick to it just out of curiosity,

so this is my diet:
8:30 - 2 egg whites, 1 egg, 1 bowl instant oatmeal

11:00 - 1/2 protein shake, 1/2 yogurt

1:30 - chicken breast, veggies (bok choi, broccoli, etc.) 1/2 apple

5:00 - 1/2 protein shake, 1/2 yogurt

7:30 - 1:30 - chicken breast, veggies (bok choi, broccoli, etc.) 1 cup boiled sweet potato & 1.5 tbsp of flax seed oil.

9:00 - 1/2 protein shake, 2 melba toast wth 1 tsp of light cream cheese.

That's about 1400 cals on most days. (Sunday is a free / cheat day ... eat what I want)

TRAINING
Monday - 20 min HIIT cardio, 20 min moderate int. cardio
Tuesday - 1 hr. upper body weight training
Wednesday - 20 min HIIT cardio, 20 min moderate int. cardio
Thursday - 1 hr. lower body weight training
Friday - 20 min HIIT cardio, 20 min moderate int. cardio
Saturday - 1 hr. upper body weight training
Sunday - Free day

I started at about 125 pds & 23% body fat about 4 weeks ago and am 117% and about 21% body fat.

I'm using a Tanita scale for the body fat ... and I have heard that it may concentrate more on your lower body fat, in which case it might make sense that it's going so slow cause the lower body fat is the last to go, right?

Anyway, once this program is over I'm going to go to a 4 or 5 day split, I just wanted to see if this program was as good as they make it out to be.

 

[Temple]

I also did the BFL way back when. It is IMO a good place to start as it gets you into some cardio and some weight training but IMO is not the optimal way to train. If you feel you must stick it out for 12 weeks I would be interested to see what your stats are at the end. I personally ended up just feeling overtrained.
The tanita bodyfat scales are not that accurate from what I understand so I don't know if we can assume that you are dropping 1# of lean mass for every # of fat but if that is the case it is not what you want to be happening. I got MUCH better results when I did the following:
1. Increased calories to 2000-2500, you will probably retain some water at first until your body adjusts and your metabolism kicks in so stay away from the scale. This is critical - at 1400 your body is going to cling to the fat that it has as it thinks you are going to try to starve it to death.
2. cardio AM/ES 45 min moderate intensity work up to 1 hour. EOD
3. Change to a 4 day split now following the format that I gave PolarPixie or something similar - I do cardio in the morning and lifting at night so I am totally off EOD.
4. Starchy

 

[hookdup]

Yeah,
the only reason I'm continuing with BFL is purely curiosity. I actually don't think I'm working my muscles enough ... but as far as cardio, I added an extra 20 mins just cause 20 mins x 3 times per week seemed so little to me.
I am only using the Tanita scale to measure the bf difference, not really the bf. I might have to get the calipers done soon. I mean I can see abs ... not great, but better than anyone else at my gym ... sad, I know ... but I'm still at 21 - 22% ... should I be seeing any definition at that percentage?

Isn't 2000 too many cals?
My maintenance is about 1500 - 1600 so I'm afraid I'll gain weight (fat) at any more than that. I am trying to raise it to about about 1500 - 1600 though.

What is EOD.

Starchy ??? Are you saying my diet is too starchy? I'm trying to think of a replacement for the yogurt for a little snack. Fruit is too starchy too. One piece whole weat melba toast?

 

[Temple]

Sorry - I got a phone call and hit the post button before I was done.
Let me finish my thoughts and then I'll answer your questions.

Starchy carbs - before 2 pm, fibrous carbs after 2 pm. On weight training days if you lift in the evening eat some low glycemic carbs 1.5-2 hours before you lift.
Change the cheat day to a cheat meal - nobody needs that much cheating.
Change the instant oatmeal to the old fashioned kind - takes the same amount of time to cook in the microwave but the glycemic index is much lower on the old fashioned kind.

I want you to throw this maintenance calorie thing out the window - by adding lean mass you will restructure your metabolism and those formulas will no longer apply for all practical purposes. The only way to add lean mass and restructure the way that your body works is through hard training and adequate nutrition. If you are packing on too much fat then we can look at cycleing some carbs. It may feel like you have gone into neutral for a few weeks but ultimately these are the things that will make you very lean and be able to maintain it.

I'm not sure that the tanita is even a good method of judging variance.

I am going to have to do some checking but I think the type of cardio that you are doing is contributing to your muscle loss - try the 45-60 at moderate intensity and see what happens.

EOD = every other day

 

[VeggieLifterChick]

Temple,

You really think 2000 kcal is better than 1400 for fat loss? Is that true at any fat loss desired? I wonder about that because I thought 10-12x weight in lbs is the rule for "cutting."

 

[Robboe]

there's loads of reasons why i think glutamine is overrated, but i had a huge long running arguement on another board about this and explaining it all again doesn;t really appeal to me.

Biotin is a B vitamin.

i could give you some blerb about how it's good for hair and nails and whatever but i'd sound like a magazine.

if you do decide to take ALA, i;d suggest you check your diet for how much biotin you're getting down over the course of the day.

ALA and biotin have similar structures and use the same transport mechanism. taking any dose of ALA over 100mg and you could end up with with a biotin deficincey which could piss about with your levels of fatigue and screw up your training.

if you take a multi vit throughout the day maybe you don;t have anything to worry about.

IMO, the only supps worth taking are:

multi vit
extra vit C and E
cal/mag/zinc combo
protein powders, PB, flax, any kinda EFAs should really be considered part of diet rather than supplement regime.
creatine - maybe, but only if diet is well sorted.
green tea <---- this stuff rules.
glucosamine/chondroitin.

antioxidants if you feel you need them.

That's pretty much it.

 

[Temple]

http://boards.elitefitness.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=64969&highlight=introduction

Read this, reread it and when you think you understand it then read it some more!!! I spent 8 months fighting this concept and as a result had to spend alot of time replacing the muscle I had dieted off. Calorie restriction is never ever the answer to fat loss. At 1400 Calories your body believes that it is in for a fast and will hang onto your fat stores and catabolize your muscle, then when you up the calories your metabolism will be lower and more of what you eat will be stored as fat.