Need Advice....complete novice

[Fedorlives]

hey guys, need some advice here, told by some guys at the gym this is the place to get good quality advice.
Heres my situation, I am 30, 6'5 325 lbs about 34% bf, I am a former college pitcher and was around 210 lean 10 yrs ago.

Fast foward 10 yrs, married now, let my gym time decrease and bad food intake increase, hence the gain.

anyways enough frat. I am currently on phentermine from a weight loss clinic i go to. I heard about clen and wanted to get your guys opinion if I should take it with phen or without, OR if there is any other products out there I could try, I am trying to get down to 260 by august,

any help you can offer would be greatly appreciated!!!

[slfmade]

First - Welcome to the forum.

Now I don't believe in taking clen when your bodyfat is as high as yours. I have several reasons for this, but I'm sure somebody is probably already typing it out as we speak.

The most important thing you can do is go to the diet and nutrition section of the forum and start to read. You have 8 months to get down 65lbs. You can do this with diet and workout alone. I lost 55lbs in 7 months and this was before I found this forum. Had I found this forum before that, I would have lost it much easier. I think you could lose 2-3 lbs a week by simply changing your diet. That equals 64-96lbs in 8 months. 2lbs a week is a good goal.

Clenbuterol is not a magic pill....at your BF I would NOT recommend it.

[slfmade]

My girl is yelling at me to come help prep our meals for this week, but if nobody has commented more by the time I get back....I'll go a bit more into it.

[slfmade]

Okay...nobody has responded yet so I'll add a few more thoughts.

From a medical standpoint...If you're currently at 34% bodyfat, there's a good chance you already have high blood pressure. Clenbuterol increases blood pressure; therefore, not a good idea.

Also, I'm a firm believer that if you're looking for a quick fix you're not going to concentrate on the things that will "really" help you lose weight such as diet and exercise.

Think about it for a moment....every commercial you see for weight loss supplements always say "this person dropped x amount of weight with our supplement, AND (there's a big AND here) with proper diet and exercise". This begs the question...how much of it was from the supplement, and how much of it was from diet and exercise?

Sure there's a lot of things out there that will help a little bit, and that's what clenbuterol does. It helps a little bit. You take it when you have that last little bit of stubborn fat that needs to come off that you want that little extra help with. It's not magic pill...it won't "make the fat melt off". You might be thinking to yourself..."I need to lose a lot of weight, I need that extra little bit". YOU DON'T NEED IT NOW. Here's my problem with taking it early on.....

More than likely you don't know how to diet properly; Otherwise, you wouldn't be at 34% BF right? Not being mean, just stating the truth. When starting a diet you may have a great idea of what's going to work, but you'll constantly be making changes to fine tune your diet. Everybody is different and you have to figure out what is going to work for you. This takes a little time. It's hard to see what's working and what's not if you're taking clenbuterol.

Also, clenbuterol takes a little dieting discipline and you need experience with dieting to make this properly work. Since it's recommended to take clen in a "2 week on 2 week off" type of cycle it's very hard to get into PROPER eating habits. Let's say it's recommended for you to consume 2000 calories a day. Most people will find that clen works as an appetite suppressant. For 2 weeks you find that you're diet is pretty easy (or a least doable), you're not feeling that hungry while you're on and everything is going great. Then it comes time to take 2 weeks off (since clen is a beta-2 antagonist it will down-regulate your beta 2 receptors, and you have to take time off it to up-regulate them or it will stop working) Anyway...You take 2 weeks off of the clenbuterol. Now you feel like you're starving, you feel sluggish, you get hungar pangs, feel lethargic, and you can't take it anymore. Now you've ruined your diet and you're right back where you started. You've gained nothing by taking clen except for the now added depression of feeling like nothing will work!!!!

I've seen a lot of people including my friends that have taken clenbuterol only to fall on there ass with nothing to show for it. Why? Because they didn't have they're diet and training down.

If you don't already know - you can't (or it isn't advised) that you take clenbuterol for extended periods of time. IMO I say 8-10 weeks of 2 weeks on 2 weeks off is the most you should run it at a time. Let's take the high number 10 weeks. That means you're on clenbuterol for 6 weeks. Now let's say it helps you lose an extra 1/2 lb a week (I have no scientific evidence that clen increases your metabolism at a rate of a 1/2lb loss per week...just illustration) that you're on. That means you've lost an additional 3lbs over 10 weeks that you wouldn't have lost on diet and exercise alone. Now is increasing you're blood pressure as well as all of the above mentioned worth the risk of losing that additional 3lbs? Really? You're not even gonna notice those 3lbs at 34% BF.

But you've heard that it works wonders have you? Listen; to guy that's already 10% BF - losing that same 3 addition "fat pounds" in 10 weeks is a wonder and it does it well - but for your situation....not so much.

As I mentioned before I've lost over 50lbs and I'm currently at about 15% BF without anything other than diet and exercise and I still have a little ways to go before I run another clen cycle.

Here's the most logical/responsible/most beneficial way to lose your weight.

Go research the diet and nutrition section of the forum. Read some of the stickies. Once you feel like you have diet and exercise plan in place....post up a new thread. You'll get valuable info and start working on changing your life. If you stay committed you'll be well on your way to achieving your goals. Later on down the line when you've got a good base, a lower BF, and your body starts getting use to the changes you've made, then you can start looking at clen. Until then it's not worth it.

Good Luck and I hope to see you at the diet section.

Now it's time to copy this to my computer so I can just cut and paste next time somebody ask so I don't have to write this book all over again.

Step 1:

[slfmade]

Here's a interesting read that I've had on my computer for a while. If I remember correctly I found it on this forum years back. I won't say I agree with everything in the article, but it's an interesting read nonetheless.

The Rise and Fall of Clenbuterol
by Jerry Brainium

Clenbuterol is a beta-2 adrenal agonist drug, which means it has a structure similar to the natural catecholamine hormones in the body, such as epinephrine. The primary medical uses for clenbuterol are for treatment of asthma and other respiratory diseases. Clenbuterol assists in respiration because, like epinephrine, it promotes dilation of the bronchial tubes in the lungs. Asthma is characterized by constriction and inflammation of the bronchial tubes.

Clenbuterol , however, has never been approved for sale in the United States for use by people. Drug companies are most interested in profit, and clenbuterol offers no particular medical advantages over existing beta-2 asthma drugs. Clenbuterol does have notable disadvantages, however. It has a long half-life, remaining active in the body for up to 36 hours. While that sounds good, it also increases the likelihood of serious side effects , thus making it less attractive to litigation-wary pharmaceutical companies. In contrast, the body degrades and eliminates the current leading beta-2 agonist drug sold in the U.S. after only about six hours.

Clenbuterol is sold in other countries, chiefly by Mexican pharmacies, under various trade names, such as Clenasma, Spiropent and the veterinary injectable Ventipulmin. It first attracted the attention of bodybuilders years ago after animal research showed that it offered potent repartitioning effects—it appeared to decrease bodyfat while simultaneously fostering increased muscle size, particularly in the type 2 fast-twitch fibers, the fibers most amenable to hypertrophy from weight training.

Those animal studies, however, typically used dosages in the one-to-five-milligram-per-kilogram-of-bodyweight range. That amounts to a daily dose of 450 milligrams of clenbuterol in a 200-pound athlete. For human use clenbuterol comes in microgram amounts. One thousand micrograms equal one milligram.

Despite those discrepancies, clenbuterol quickly earned a reputation as an anabolic and “cutting” drug, favored in precontest cycles , and athletes who tried it soon discovered two things: 1) Its effects didn’t last more than three to four weeks, since beta-adrenergic receptors are extremely sensitive and turn off, or downregulate, rapidly; and 2) it provided no discernible anabolic effect. It did, however, provide a potent thermogenic effect conducive to fat oxidation. You could tell the thermogenic properties were working by the perception of increased body heat.

The most common suggested clenbuterol dosage was one to two tablets a day, gradually increasing to eight to 10 per day. To extend its therapeutic potency and blunt down-regulation of beta-adrenergic receptors, users were advised to take the drug on a two-days-on/one-day-off cycle ; however, it was never proven scientifically that the off-and-on cycle offered any real advantages.

The same holds true for another drug, ketotifen , said to help maintain the potency of beta receptors. Whatever benefits ketotifen confer on open beta receptors come at a price. Ketotifen is an antihistamine, which can cause acute drowsiness—not exactly conducive to intense training. What of side effects ? Taking too much clenbuterol has the same effect as a flood of epinephrine in your body. Symptoms include increased blood pressure, possible heart-rhythm disturbances, muscle tremor and insomnia. In Europe clenbuterol was used in meat processing, and some who ate the drug-laden beef experienced the same side effects .

More recent animal studies—again using far higher doses than would ever be ingested by humans—showed that clenbuterol decreases endurance by degrading the heart structure. Indeed, some of the research animals died from heart failure. A recent study that examined the heart and skeletal muscles of rats given clenbuterol identified direct toxic effects from the drug.1 What’s particularly interesting about that study is that the bad effects resulted from just a single dose of injectable clenbuterol —a form favored by some bodybuilders and other athletes.

The results showed that clenbuterol didn’t just harm heart-muscle cells but actually killed them. Heart-muscle-cell loss led to increased collagen deposition. In effect, active heart cells were replaced by scar tissue, setting the stage for sudden heart failure.

Several theories explain clenbuterol ’s adverse effects. The first involves the fact that clenbuterol depletes the amino acid taurine in the heart; taurine has protective properties, such as modulating the calcium levels that keep heart rhythm stable. Clenbuterol may also increase norepinephrine-induced stimulation of the heart, which can damage the heart if excessive.

You may reason that the research animals got megadoses of clenbuterol and that the lesser doses athletes use wouldn’t have the same effects—but that’s just wishful thinking. According to something called Kleiber’s law, the animal dose of clenbuterol is equal to a human dose of five to six tablets. So the same side effects could be expected. In addition, because of the extended time that clenbuterol takes to degrade in the body, it could build up and have cumulative effects.

The findings of heart damage from clenbuterol could partly explain the mysterious deaths of a few bodybuilders who combined clen with anabolic steroids . That is, of course, pure speculation. Athletes who use clenbuterol should ensure that they also supplement taurine, which may offer some heart protection.

Other studies send further grim news about clenbuterol .2,3 When it was given to pigs, the portion of the testes that synthesizes testosterone (Leydig cells) increased in size, suggesting increased testosterone production. But the testes cells where sperm is manufactured (Sertoli cells) were permanently damaged. That implies that clenbuterol may adversely affect fertility.

The increase in the cells that secrete testosterone isn’t that surprising. Natural catecholamines like epinephrine, for which clenbuterol serves as a synthetic substitute to some degree, are known to promote testosterone synthesis. Short-term stress, characterized by increased catecholamine release into the blood, leads to upgraded testosterone . But if the stress persists, other stress hormones, such as cortisol, are released and reverse that effect—that is, decrease testosterone synthesis and release.

Edit: Yep....just searched it and it was here that I found it.

[Times Roman]

Here's my .02
and welcome to the board mate!
I've been heavy before. never took drugs as a short cut to diet and exercise.
In general, clen is taken for 2 weeks, to get that stubborn last 1% BF off.
If you do not learn to modify your bahavior, how you got in this mess in the first place, then taking drugs will make you prone to the yo yo effect.
No crutches mate. Eat clean, forget the drugs, cardio, and lift.
This is hard work!
---Roman

[slfmade]

^^^LMAO!!! Or I could've just said that!!!

[Fedorlives]

guys, thanks so much for your input...its nice to see some guys that are willing to help and care about other peoples success.....i will be sure to check back with you every few weeks and let you know how the process is going, thanks again you guys are awesome!!!!

[lmmalone]

Threads like these remind me why I love members like slfmade. Great info. Good read. thanks man