Weight Loss?
Hit the trainer for an hour of seated hill climbing tonight. Felt good, got a nice sweat on, and feel good about taking tomorrow off and then 2 hours of something on Saturday, whether it be gettin' a nippy ride outside or 2 hours in stankment.
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REVIEW: APPESTAT BY HAMMER NUTRITION
Had and e mail today from a reader of the Soiled Chamois asking if I've come to any conclusions about my experiences with Appestat from Hammer Nutrition. Kinda perfect timing since I just recently finished up on them and my conclusion is as follows.To refresh, Appestat is believed to help suppress appetite without stimulants, help increase the rate of fat metabolism and help to reduce potential for carb-to-fat conversion. It contains 5-HTP which is said to benefit appetite suppression as well as improve mood due to boosting serotonin levels.
Why was I taking Appestat? Well for more than 2 years I hovered between 170 & 175 lbs. (I'm 6'1" tall), but then a little over a year ago I started taking a mild anti depressant (Lexapro) and BAM! I was up to 185+ within a year! PANIC! PANIC!
Well come November of this year I made the personal decision to ween myself off of Lexapo for a variety of reasons as I mentioned here in the past, one reason be weight gain.
Other than enjoying a few too many quality, early off-season beers, I had not changed ANYthing about my diet in the past 3 years! Even the beer is normal. The season ends, and I lay back a few weeks and enjoy some malty goodness.
Come December I was off the Lexaopro, made a commitment to watch portion sizes, and utilized the free Trainingpeaks.com software to track my portions, calories, carbs, proteins, fat, and watch the amount of beers I enjoyed. Except with a couple holiday mishaps and last week's Barley's and Hop's "Thursday Beer Event"- NO beer on week nights!
On December 4th I started the Appestat. The plan is to take 2 pills one hour before lunch and another 2 an hour before dinner each day. Since I have the most control over my schedule Monday thru Friday, I took the pills mostly on those days. You are also supposed to take them for 3 weeks, take a week off then start a second program.
I also consulted Hammer on my evening usage, since I usually get home about 5:10 and work out from 5:30 to 6:30 or 7:00, should I take it before the work out or after since my dinner times vary on any given night? They replied that I should take the two pills after completing the work out.
The pills themselves are about normal size of most supplements and as most natural supplements do - smelled a bit like a gym locker room. Yum-oh!
I've recently completed taking them and might have a few left, but don't see the point since it wouldn't get me through another full round.
So you're thinking "enough of your blathering Jason, did they work???? " Truthfully, I DON'T KNOW???
First check these stats (click if you need to enlarge)...
As you can see I went from 185.5 on December 4th to 180 now. (the graph is off on days a bit, I think it goes by weeks). All in all 5.5 pounds. Not too shabby for about 45 days. Little over a pound a week with some few big ass dips (as low as 178) when I had weeks of heavy outdoor riding.
So 5.5 pounds, it must work? Well, I can't say. Yes I lost weight while I was on it, BUT I also was VERY strict with my diet. I weighed foods, measured foods, kept a meal log, cut out large portions of pasta, cut back on beer and REALLY kicked in my indoor workouts.
And truthfully I'm not a snacker. I don't eat junk food (except low fat chips and salsa on week ends), I don't eat candy, I don't eat out during the week, I hate fast food, etc., etc., So I can't say it helped me in that area.
It's also hard to really say for sure if they "helped to reduce carbohydrate-to-fat conversion" 'cause damn it, I work my ass off and really stepped up to get control of my weight. I'm sure watching my portion sizes of foods like pasta, breads, etc., helped immensely.
I'm also sure that it helped having the metabolic dead weight that is Lexapro out of my system now, so calories should be burning more the way they're supposed to for me.
So would I take it again? No. Would I recommend these to someone? No. If you're a junk food snacker who may NOTICE the benefits of an appetite suppressant go ahead and give 'em a try but I think you're better to do the following-
1. Utilize the Nutrition part of Trainingpeaks.com to track your foods, calories taken in, burned etc.,
2. Measure foods for at least a few weeks to at least get an idea of portion sizes.
3. Snack on good foods (I'll give you a sample menu of mine below)
4. Exercise. Dear God I hate when folks do nothing and complain they gain weight. Loosing weight is hard and there's nothing real fun about it (except getting to ride your bike for thousands of miles a year- JOY!!)
5. Remember IT'S A LIFESTYLE NOT A DIET!!!!!!! I can't say that enough. Think of your diet as the fuel to do a job. To do the job right you need to have the RIGHT fuels. Yes, I like my beer, I like Mexican food, etc., BUT NOT EVERY NIGHT.
6. LEARN TO COOK! Cooking your own meals is the only way to really control what you eat and how much you eat. I've adapted many a meal (mostly Mexican and Italian dishes) to meet my diet.
7. Watch red meats (hell meat in general) Real easy way to pile up some serious fat and calories. If you have to have ground meat, try ground turkey, chicken, or use ground Boca Burger. I also love buying the bags of frozen chicken breasts.
8. DO NOT DO FAD DIETS! Low carb fad diets are stupid. Your fitness WILL suffer. PERIOD.
9. READ! Books by folks like Chris Charmichael's "Food For Fitness" or Liz Applegate's (Eat Smart, Play Hard). Magazines like Oxygen, Cooking Light, etc., Web Sites like Calorie King, EatBetterAmerica.com and others (listed to the right). I also recommend reading Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser or watching Super Size Me to REALLY scare your out of eating that Big Mac.
10. You can take or leave my opinions. I've weighed a HELL of a lot more than 185 in my life and I hope to weigh a little less than 175 by April and I think at 180 right now I have a good shot at getting my weight back there with my normal training and controlling my calories.
Once good thing as I move into the Build period in the coming months I'll be able to (and have to) increase my calories. Hooray for food!
So there you go, there's my VERY long winded review. Unlike just about every other product from Hammer Nutrition, I can't recommend Appestat. There was just now REAL way of knowing if it was working.
I LOVE Hammer Nutrtion products (Heed, Hammer Gel, Perpetuem, Bars, etc.,) But I jus feel there are too many other ways to loose weight and didn't see how the pill helped me.
Now here's a random day's menu-
8:00 a.m. Breakfast- XXL Coffee, with skim milk, 5+ teaspoons of sugar (I know, I know, but it's a BIG cu of coffee!!), 3 egg fried egg whites, with a slice of melted fat free cheese, 2 pieces of whole wheat toast with "spray" butter, and some ketchup on the side for my eggs (I like ketchup, ok?)
10:30 a.m. Snack #1- Navel Orange
1:00 p.m. Lunch- Turkey Breast Wrap with Fat Free Cheese, and Baby Leaf Spinach. Side of Fat Free Blue Cheese Dressing (to dip), 1 to 1.5 servings of pretzels, 1 carton of Fat Free Yogurt and 32 oz. Water.
2:00 p.m.- MORE WATER, another 32 oz.
3:30 p.m.- Granny Smith Apple and maybe a little more water.
5:30 p.m. Workout- 1 to 1.5 hours, having about 20 oz. of sports drink. (in winter) Burning roughly 1,000 calories. WAY more if I get ride outside.
7:00/7:30 p.m. 2 servings of brown rice, with diced red/green peppers, onions, sauteed in 1 Tbs. Extra Virgin Olive Oil, ground Boca Burger, 1 can of black beans (rinsed), mixed with some taco seasoning/salsa and 1 serving of low fat Mexican cheese sprinkled over top.
8:00 p.m. MORE WATER PLEASE!!
Truthfully a day like above with a 1:30 work out, this is probably too few calories. As the winter goes on I'll be hitting up more calories to fuel harder, and harder work outs.
There you go. Somedays I even forget to eat or feel full and often with a big work out I come in HUNDREDS of calories in deficit!
This was WAY more than you wanted, wasn't it? Sorry.
Later.
Editors Note; I'll try to clean this up in the a.m., sorry if there's a lot of errors. I'm a bit tired right now.
As you can see I went from 185.5 on December 4th to 180 now. (the graph is off on days a bit, I think it goes by weeks). All in all 5.5 pounds. Not too shabby for about 45 days. Little over a pound a week with some few big ass dips (as low as 178) when I had weeks of heavy outdoor riding.So 5.5 pounds, it must work? Well, I can't say. Yes I lost weight while I was on it, BUT I also was VERY strict with my diet. I weighed foods, measured foods, kept a meal log, cut out large portions of pasta, cut back on beer and REALLY kicked in my indoor workouts.
And truthfully I'm not a snacker. I don't eat junk food (except low fat chips and salsa on week ends), I don't eat candy, I don't eat out during the week, I hate fast food, etc., etc., So I can't say it helped me in that area.
It's also hard to really say for sure if they "helped to reduce carbohydrate-to-fat conversion" 'cause damn it, I work my ass off and really stepped up to get control of my weight. I'm sure watching my portion sizes of foods like pasta, breads, etc., helped immensely.
I'm also sure that it helped having the metabolic dead weight that is Lexapro out of my system now, so calories should be burning more the way they're supposed to for me.
So would I take it again? No. Would I recommend these to someone? No. If you're a junk food snacker who may NOTICE the benefits of an appetite suppressant go ahead and give 'em a try but I think you're better to do the following-
1. Utilize the Nutrition part of Trainingpeaks.com to track your foods, calories taken in, burned etc.,
2. Measure foods for at least a few weeks to at least get an idea of portion sizes.
3. Snack on good foods (I'll give you a sample menu of mine below)
4. Exercise. Dear God I hate when folks do nothing and complain they gain weight. Loosing weight is hard and there's nothing real fun about it (except getting to ride your bike for thousands of miles a year- JOY!!)
5. Remember IT'S A LIFESTYLE NOT A DIET!!!!!!! I can't say that enough. Think of your diet as the fuel to do a job. To do the job right you need to have the RIGHT fuels. Yes, I like my beer, I like Mexican food, etc., BUT NOT EVERY NIGHT.
6. LEARN TO COOK! Cooking your own meals is the only way to really control what you eat and how much you eat. I've adapted many a meal (mostly Mexican and Italian dishes) to meet my diet.
7. Watch red meats (hell meat in general) Real easy way to pile up some serious fat and calories. If you have to have ground meat, try ground turkey, chicken, or use ground Boca Burger. I also love buying the bags of frozen chicken breasts.
8. DO NOT DO FAD DIETS! Low carb fad diets are stupid. Your fitness WILL suffer. PERIOD.
9. READ! Books by folks like Chris Charmichael's "Food For Fitness" or Liz Applegate's (Eat Smart, Play Hard). Magazines like Oxygen, Cooking Light, etc., Web Sites like Calorie King, EatBetterAmerica.com and others (listed to the right). I also recommend reading Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser or watching Super Size Me to REALLY scare your out of eating that Big Mac.
10. You can take or leave my opinions. I've weighed a HELL of a lot more than 185 in my life and I hope to weigh a little less than 175 by April and I think at 180 right now I have a good shot at getting my weight back there with my normal training and controlling my calories.
Once good thing as I move into the Build period in the coming months I'll be able to (and have to) increase my calories. Hooray for food!
So there you go, there's my VERY long winded review. Unlike just about every other product from Hammer Nutrition, I can't recommend Appestat. There was just now REAL way of knowing if it was working.
I LOVE Hammer Nutrtion products (Heed, Hammer Gel, Perpetuem, Bars, etc.,) But I jus feel there are too many other ways to loose weight and didn't see how the pill helped me.
Now here's a random day's menu-
8:00 a.m. Breakfast- XXL Coffee, with skim milk, 5+ teaspoons of sugar (I know, I know, but it's a BIG cu of coffee!!), 3 egg fried egg whites, with a slice of melted fat free cheese, 2 pieces of whole wheat toast with "spray" butter, and some ketchup on the side for my eggs (I like ketchup, ok?)
10:30 a.m. Snack #1- Navel Orange
1:00 p.m. Lunch- Turkey Breast Wrap with Fat Free Cheese, and Baby Leaf Spinach. Side of Fat Free Blue Cheese Dressing (to dip), 1 to 1.5 servings of pretzels, 1 carton of Fat Free Yogurt and 32 oz. Water.
2:00 p.m.- MORE WATER, another 32 oz.
3:30 p.m.- Granny Smith Apple and maybe a little more water.
5:30 p.m. Workout- 1 to 1.5 hours, having about 20 oz. of sports drink. (in winter) Burning roughly 1,000 calories. WAY more if I get ride outside.
7:00/7:30 p.m. 2 servings of brown rice, with diced red/green peppers, onions, sauteed in 1 Tbs. Extra Virgin Olive Oil, ground Boca Burger, 1 can of black beans (rinsed), mixed with some taco seasoning/salsa and 1 serving of low fat Mexican cheese sprinkled over top.
8:00 p.m. MORE WATER PLEASE!!
Truthfully a day like above with a 1:30 work out, this is probably too few calories. As the winter goes on I'll be hitting up more calories to fuel harder, and harder work outs.
There you go. Somedays I even forget to eat or feel full and often with a big work out I come in HUNDREDS of calories in deficit!
This was WAY more than you wanted, wasn't it? Sorry.
Later.
Editors Note; I'll try to clean this up in the a.m., sorry if there's a lot of errors. I'm a bit tired right now.
posted by Jason @ 8:17 PM
4 comments
4 Comments:
Thanks for the post. I was wondering about the appestat stuff. I'm 5'8 and weigh around 163 currently. Tryin to get down to 150. I've had a little success (lost 4 pds so far) with just riding my ass off and cutting out fried foods.(Harder than it sounds, I'm a southern boy and I love my fried chicken). Hopefully full on training in the spring will help kickstart the rest of the weight loss.
looks good man. I would agree that it appears everything else you did made a bigger difference than the appestat. I, on the other hand, am a snacker. If there is snack food around, I eat it. No problem at home because we specifically try not to have much handy but at work there is always something to graze on. As a result, I drink a ton of water and coffee (sans sugar) during the day to try to curb the snacking.
i've been, and am, watching what i eat closely. and that may be the trick. just being aware of what you eat and the portions cuts out alot of mindless eating and hundreds of unecessary calories. what you have been doing looks perfect. its really hard to tell if the applestat make a difference. after your make sure you've got the calories to get through the day and the training load and the nutrients to help rebuild its really a matter of burning more calories than you consume. i hope that you get back to your previous race weight.
Good article. Try stevia in your coffee. It's natural, sweet as hell, and no calories. The taste isnt identical to sugar, but 5 teaspoons a day adds up!
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