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SUPPLEMENTAL SAVVY

Brian Rowley, MS

Looking for your magic bullet? M&F Hers examines the top nine supplements for fat-burning, performance and health.

Vitamin-mineral paks.Muscle-builders.Herbal tonics. Energy pills. So many choices, so little time. What's a healthy, fit woman to do? Most likely, the right supplements can help you feel better, look better and perform better. Take stock of what you want and need, then do your research to find the right supplement for that specific job. Are you trying to lose fat? Build muscle? Maintain optimum health? Think better? Cheer up? Specialized supplements may be able to help.

Here we discuss nine of the top supplements for active women. When deciding what's best for you, consider your lifestyle and your diet, and check out "Pantry Raid" on page 58 for tips on what certain women do and don't need. Then remember: Eat right. Even the best supplements can't make up for a poor diet.

For Fat Loss

Ephedrine-Caffeine (EC)
The combination of ephedrine and caffeine, two well-researched over-the-counter drugs, has been shown in numerous studies to cause about an extra pound per week of fat loss in overweight women. Furthermore, this celebrated thermogenic cocktail helps dieters preserve muscle while losing fat. Consider the results of one group of 50 obese women who lost less lean mass (0.8 pound of muscle mass per week) as a result of taking EC. That's 6 pounds of muscle saved over an eight-week period that would otherwise have been lost to dieting. This is good news for women trying to lose fat, especially since EC has been found to boost metabolism in lean women, too. In addition to its thermogenic effects, EC curbs appetite, which explains as much as 75% of its fat-loss benefit.

The usual dose is 20 mg of ephedrine (or ephedrine equivalents like ephedra or mahuang extract) together with 200 mg of caffeine (from guarana extract, Vivarin, No-Doz, cola, coffee, etc.) three times per day. Unfortunately, these doses initially cause side effects, so you should start out taking one-third or less of the usual dose as a test before jumping into the full-strength regimen. If you have high blood pressure or other health conditions, check with your physician before taking ephedrine. Exceeding the recommended dose of ephedrine can be dangerous, even deadly. You shouldn't take EC in an on-again/off-again way, nor take the combo with drugs used to treat mood disorders like depression. Initially, too much ephedrine-caffeine raises your blood pressure and causes nausea, insomnia and/or the jitters.

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