How to Safely and Healthily Lose Weight Fast: Part 3
Welcome to the third and final part in this article series on how to safely and healthily lose weight fast.
In the first part of this series, we covered the diet and nutrition part of rapid, healthy weight loss.
In the second part, we discussed various exercise strategies you can use to speed up the fat loss.
In this part, we’re going to talk about what types of safe, effective supplements you can use to lose weight fast.
So, let’s start with a simple fact that the weight loss pill manufacturers don’t want you to know…
Weight Loss Supplements Aren’t Wonder Pills
No matter what the advertisements or sponsored athletes say, know this:
Weight loss supplements can only help speed the process if you’re maintaining a calorie deficit.
There is no such thing as a safe, natural substance that will cause you to lose fat if you’re not properly restricting your caloric intake (as discussed in part one). And ironically, many of the weight loss pills on the market won’t do anything at all, proper diet or not.
That said, there are a handful of natural supplements that, when combined with proper diet and exercise, you can use to safely speed up weight loss.
Personally, I use all of the supplements below when I’m dieting to lose weight. I’ve gotten to the 5 – 7% body fat range both with and without supplements, and there’s no question: it’s faster with.
The main reason why I want my “cutting” to go as quickly is possible is not impatience, but because it negatively affects my training. When you’re dieting for weight loss, you eventually begin to lose strength, and as time goes on, you can lose more and more muscle.
Thus, my goal when cutting is to use all the safe, natural, and effective methods I can to reach my target body fat percentage as quickly as possible.
So, let’s look at the natural weight loss supplements you can take to lose weight fast, and how to take them properly.
Weight Loss Supplements that Work
There aren’t many weight loss supplements that have been scientifically proven to help you lose fat, but here are the ones that we know work:
Caffeine
Caffeine helps you lose fat by simply increasing your body’s daily energy expenditure.
As weight loss boils down to energy consumed vs. energy expended, caffeine helps you maintain a calorie deficit.
Caffeine has other benefits for us fitness folk. It improves strength, muscle endurance, and anaerobic performance, and also reverses the “morning weakness” experienced by many weightlifters.
Now, you can get your caffeine from a beverage like coffee, but interestingly enough, research has shown that the pure form you find in most pills and powders (caffeine anhydrous) is actually more effective for improving performance.
Thus, I recommend you take caffeine pills.
If you’re training fasted, take the caffeine 15 – 20 minutes before starting training. If you’re not training fasted, have it 30 – 40 minutes before training.
In order to maximize caffeine’s effectiveness, you want to prevent your body from building up too much of a tolerance.
The best way to do this is to limit intake, of course. Here’s what I recommend:
Before training, supplement with 3 – 6 mg caffeine per kg of body weight. If you’re not sure of your caffeine sensitivity, start with 3 mg/kg and work up from there.
Keep your daily. intake at or below 6 mg per kg of body weight. Don’t have 6 mg/kg before training and then drink a couple of coffees throughout the day.
Do 1 – 2 low-caffeine days per week, and 1 no-caffeine day per week. A low day should be half your normal intake, and a no day means less than 50 mg of caffeine (you can have a cup or two of tea, but no coffee, caffeine pills, etc.).
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Green Tea Extract
Green tea extract is a weight loss supplement made from green tea leaves.
It’s rich in antioxidants known as catechins, which are responsible for many of tea’s health benefits, and which have been proven to help with weight loss. Research has also shown that catechins can help reduce abdominal fat, in particular.
Catechins accelerate fat loss by blocking an enzyme that degrades catecholamines, which are chemicals the body produces that trigger the use of fat for energy.
Where many people go wrong with green tea extract supplementation, however, is they simply don’t take enough.
If you look at the dosages proven effective in clinical studies, you’ll see that 400 – 600 mg of catechins per day is the normal range.
Each pill of the product I recommend below contains about 150 mg of catechins so I take 4 per day both when I’m cutting and maintaining. (I take green tea extract when I’m maintaining simply because it helps prevent fat storage and promotes a generally leaner physique.)
When you take green tea extract doesn’t really matter. Research has shown that absorption is faster when pills are taken in a fasted state, but plasma catechin levels remain elevated for several hours after ingestion, whether fed or fasted.
Personally, I train fasted when cutting, and I have 300 mg 30 minutes before training, and another 300 mg a couple hours before I do cardio later in the day.
You should also know that nausea is common if you take green tea extract on an empty stomach. If I take more than 200 – 300 mg on an empty stomach, I get quite nauseous.
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Yohimbine
Yohimbine is made from the Pausinystalia yohimbe plant, and it helps the body “tap into” fat stores.
(Not a very technical explanation, I know–if you want to know exactly how it works, check out this article of mine on how to lose stubborn fat.)
Yohimbine accelerates weight loss, but only works if you’re training in a fasted state. Elevated insulin levels negate yohimbine’s effects.
In terms of dosages, research has shown that .2 mg/kg of body weight is sufficient for fat loss purposes, and that ingesting it prior to exercise is particularly effective.
Some people get overly jittery from yohimbine, so I recommend you start with .1 mg/kg of body weight to assess tolerance. If you feel fine, then increase to the clinically effective dosage of .2 mg/kg.
Furthermore, yohimbine can raise blood pressure. If you have high blood pressure, I don’t recommend you use it.
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Summary of Rapid Weight Loss Strategies
I want to wrap up this series of articles with a summary of everything covered, for easy reference and reminders. (Make sure to read parts one and two of this series if you haven’t already–the bullet points below won’t quite make sense if you don’t.)
Maintain a mild-to-moderate calorie deficit, not a severe one
Don’t just focus on calories, but on proper macronutritional ratios to maximize weight loss while preserving muscle
Create an exact meal plan to follow and stick to it every day
Don’t cheat on your meal plan as it will only slow things down
Train with as high of a frequency as your body can take, which is likely no more than weightlifting 5 times per week and HIIT cardio 4 times per week
Lift heavy weights, and focus on compound lifts
Do high-intensity interval cardio
Train in a fasted state
Take caffeine, green tea extract, and yohimbine before workouts (and, if applicable, the rest of your green tea extract at a different time in the day)
Limit and cycle caffeine consumption
Well, that’s really everything there is to say on the subject of safely and healthily losing weight fast.
If you use the strategies outlined in these articles, you will rapidly lose weight, and you won’t pay for it later in metabolic damage or muscle loss.
What do you think of these weight loss supplements? Have anything else you’d like to share? Let me know in the comments below!
