Let’s face it, if you are doing P90X, Insanity or Turbo Fire the odds are that you want to burn fat – lots of it.  Sure adding some lean mass is a goal but if your gut is too big it’s because you are too fat.  So if fat loss is the goal, should you take a fat burner while doing any of these programs?

Before I answer that, we need to take a look at fat burners.  What fat burners should do is raise your caloric burn rate via some thermogenic process and, at the same time, encourage your body to release fatty acids as fuel for that extra thermal effect.  Taking something that can effectively do both is likely to help you burn more calories and a higher percentage of them from fat if taken on an empty stomach shortly before a high intensity workout like P90X, Insanity or Turbo Fire.

As I mentioned in my prior post on what supplements I take, most fat burners aren’t worth the money.  In fact, just drinking a little black coffee or sipping some green tea is a more economical choice that works just as well as most of the over hyped products on the market these days.  The caffeine in both will help raise your metabolism and both have been shown in studies to promote a greater release of fatty acids.

But there used to be good thermogenic fat bruners – what happened?.

A decade or so ago, there was the ephredra stack.   Most of the big supplement companies had some version of this in their fat burners.  At the core was ephredra, caffeine (supplied via guarana) and salicylic acid (often supplied via asperin).

But misuse of the ephedra suppliments caused the FDA to step in and ban ephedra.  Every once in awhile, the rules change and ephedra comes back for awhile but overall, given the bad press associated with ephedra, it’s unlikely we’ll ever see it widely offered again.

So the suppliment companies scrambled to replace ephedra but have had little success finding anything that could come close.  What you often see in these fat burners is something called Synephrine which has repeatedly been shown to have little to no effectiveness.  Yet almost all the big brands include it.  You’ll also find caffeine and green tea extract in most of these for fat burning and often L-Tyrosine to support the thyroid.  Then there will be some fancy named ingredient that is sure to be the newest big thing to make their product better.  Hoodia used to be touted as a bit appetite suppressant but recently has lost some favor.

You could spend a lot less by buying a bottle of L-Tyrosine and taking that with coffee just prior to a workout.

Recently, I was reading about a new fat burner released by USP Labs called Oxyelite Pro.  These guys make Jack3d which I sometimes use and like so I was intrigued.  Here’s what I liked – no synephrine.   It also sported a host of ingredients that were new to me but based on the research appear to help release fat.  It also is a very strong appetite suppressant.

I went and bought a bottle.  Now I have to say that I only take 1 capsule and I’ll only take it before 1PM. I also don’t take it every day.  I don’t take it on the weekends and won’t take it unless I’m going to be working out very intensively.

You will feel more energy.  You are likely to sweat a lot more than usual during your workout and after – I sweat huge amounts when I take this and do an intense workout so be sure you are drinking lots of water.  I do notice a significant reduction of appetite and don’t even think about eating for 4+ hours after taking it.

All in all, I like this product.  Perhaps it’s better claim is as an appetite suppresent than fat burner but whatever gets you to your goal of losing fat is a good thing to me.  I’d buy Oxyelite Pro again.