Wanted: Human Guinea Pig For Performance Drug Testing… Kind Of

As a Personal Trainer, people often ask me about training supplements; whether they’re any good and which ones would be best for their needs. Usually these questions stem from the newer gym users who want a body like the latest airbrushed models adorning the cover of Men’s Health or Zest magazines. The catch though is that they pretty much always want it without actually having to step into a gym and huff and puff in front of a group of intimidating strangers whilst they struggle to lift the unloaded bench press bar. But we all have to start somewhere right? Anyway, I digress.

To be perfectly honest, I’ve never really played around with any supplements outside of the occasional protein shake and a little bit of time spent using Creatine, so a lot of the time I have to ask someone else before passing off the information verbatim as if it’s materialised from my own brain; but I’ve now come to the decision that it should be something that I know about rather than relying on another person’s knowledge or simply recommending “Hydro-super-bulk-fat-loss-mega-cut-extreme” before scuttering away and hiding in the toilets.

After much deliberation, I figured that the best way to find out what these supplements really do is to take them myself and see what effect it has on my figure and my training. Don’t get me wrong here; I consider myself in pretty decent shape at the moment (current stats and pictures at the bottom of the post), and being a Personal Trainer, I know that my training regime and eating plan is excellent (though I’ve recently changed from fat-burning workouts to a more hypertrophy based training); but I’m also genuinely curious to know what all those products in GNC with the fancy names do. Who knows, one may have been created by some underappreciated genius and will grant us the body of our dreams without lifing a finger… maybe.

After asking around, and considering that I’d rather be lean and mean than big and bulky any day of the week (think Brad Pitt’s Mickey in Snatch over Daniel Craig’s Bond) I’ve decided to go for a combination of the following:

Hydroxycut – Fat-Loss Support Formula
Taurine – Essential Amino Acid
Vitamin C Tablets

So, what and why? Well, let’s begin with Hydroxycut. Hydroxycut claims to be the “#1 Selling Diet Brand in America” and “Supports weight loss, increases energy and boosts metabolism”. I’ve done a little research on it, and it seems that the general idea is that it raises your body temperature and subsequently your metabolism so that your body feeds on significantly more of your fat stores. At £42 for a months supply it’s not the cheapest supplement on the shelf, but far from the most expensive either.

Moving on to the next choice, Taurine (which I’ve actually been using for a few weeks now) is one of your essential amino acids which your body optimises the use of to store and convert protein for muscle building. Two months supply cost me just £2.50 when I picked it up in a Holland & Barrett’s sale. Bargain.

Finally, Vitamin C. The tub of 100 tablets states that you should take one tablet (1000mg) a day, but I’m actually starting with six tablets a day for the first week and will be moving up to eight, and then ten tablets daily over the next couple of weeks. The idea of taking that much Vitamin C is that it forces you to need to urinate a lot more, and if your intake doesn’t increase massively (I’m currently drinking four to six litres a day) then you start to remove a lot of the excess water from your body, giving yourself a significantly more ‘cut’ appearance. Professional body builders have tendencies to do this on the build-up to a show, so hopefully it’s going to do some good.

So, day one, and as I write I’ve just taken my second daily dose of Hydroxycut and Vitamin C and I have to say, already, it’s weird. I feel really hot, like I should be sweating all over the place, but I’m not actually sweating. It’s kind of like being in a sauna, but in reverse. I put it down to the Hydroxycut and I knew this would happen; that it would be a little uncomfortable, but this is just odd. I feel a little floaty and my hands are really moist, but I reckon that’s because my laptop is blasting out 5.2 billion degrees of heat.

Anyway, I don’t expect loads to happen over the first couple of days, but I’ve also been told by people that I could see very fast results, especially with my current training and eating regime. I guess time will tell. I’ll keep you up-to-date, but right now, I’m going to go and stand under the air conditioning. Lovely cold air!

Current Statistics

Height : 175cm (5'7")
Weight : 73.5kg (11.5st)
Body Fat : 10.80%
Chest : 101cm (40")
Waist : 81cm (31")
Arms : 34cm (13.4")
Thighs : 56cm (22")