I'm curious as to how many of you all use green tea/coffee/ginseng/any other of these natural stimulants throughout the day or as a pre-workout boost. The reason I didn't see any real gains muscle wise during my first serious attempt at fat reduction was because I was too fatigued to really get an intense session in due to getting up early/putting intensity into my fasted cardio. I'm going to start doing my cardio again to cut down into the lower bf% ranges, and so I figure I might be fairly tired by my evening lifting session, so if things go bad the first couple of weeks, I might introduce a natural source of caffeine into my diet. Just wanted to hear a few thoughts if possible. Thanks guys.

-Shafe

Caffeine does not help me at all in the gym. I was taking Lipo 6 at one point and that has 200mg or so of Caffiene. I even popped a NoDoz pill once 10 minutes prior to workout and it did next to nothing. I just prefer to eat for energy :\ Maybe I've developed a resistance to it from all the Mountain Dew I'd used to drink (6 liters or so on the weekends, and countless 20oz bottles).

I have tried xenadrine, trimspa and now am trying thermoboost... i think its called (GNC brand) I don't feel they change the fat loss.. but they def. change energy levels. (try drinking a black coffee,... 45 minutes before you work out)... Let US KNOW!

Alright, thanks guys. Ninja, I haven't touched caffeine since back in December, and a few months ago I drank 1/3 of a caffeine free energy drink (no sugar, no caffeine, just B vitamins and a hint of ginseng in a Red Bull sized can) and it made me jittery for about an hour. I'm definitely not interested in any of the commercial products for fat loss or energy boosts, ever. But I'm going to hold off on using the stuff until I've gotten up to having to do a lot of cardio to lose weight, or make my diet more strict/totally unenjoyable...but thanks for the input.

-Shafe

I started taking green tea extract last Friday and after that the first workout was on Sunday.

I must say that I did feel quite good on the Sunday workout, especially the chest press machine (which I use to finish my pec exercises after three other exercises) felt so light that I almost couldn't believe it. Usually my pecs are so fatigued after the three other exercises that I just use the chest press maching to squeeze any last drop of pec endurance out of my system (chest press machine is last pec exercises on purpose: I can fail safely) with 6-8 reps but now I could do easily 12 reps and another set of 8 reps before failing.

Of course I can't automatically attribute it to GTE, who knows, it just might be that my pecs are getting stronger... At least it hasn't caused me any side-effects and hasn't affected detirementally to my workout performance so I think I'll continue using it.

Although you've stated that you're opposed to commercial products for this purpose I'd like to say that I've had excellent results with 2 creatine products.

My first tub of creatine was PhosphogenHP, and I think it had about 30 or 60 grams of dextrose. It also had guarine (sp?) which is a big ingredient in Red Bull, IIRC. I found that my stamina on the later half of a lifting session was still going strong. When I didn't take creatine before a workout I was usually tired halfway through.

I can't remember what my current creatine supplement is, but it has 60 grams of dextrose per dose.

All that sugar's gotta make ya feel good, I figure.

I use the One a Day weight Smart with Green Tea and Caffeine, since I don't drink Cofee, Soda or Tea, this has a great effect on my energy level. Man am I ticked about Xenadrine the real stuff, it worked great with no jitters, Oh, well.