So blackstone labs released a stimulant free fat burner a while back called trojan horse, if you just looked at it without understanding the science you would likely come to the conclusion that its a bunch of ineffective random ingredients thrown together, kind of like I did until I dug into it.
Well essentially the ingredients work together to create an allegedly very effective product through a rather complicated process I will kind of explain
Long story short Hydroxycitric acid blocks the normal way your body metabolizes pyruvate which is the end product of glucose metabolism, and in short this sets off a few chain reactions that result in allot of energy being used to convert it to malate, go though a cycle of converting it into something that just gets converted back into pyruvate, and limiting some key blocks in producing ATP, which your body responds to by breaking down fat, its a huge complicated interesting process and if you are interested in the science check out the video below explaining it.
Behind The Muscle: Trojan Horse Explained with the Guerrilla Chemist - YouTube
Now it took me a fucking long time to find this study as its nearly 20 years old, they don’t link it in their marketing and only mention it once saying the people in it lost 20 pounds in 4 weeks and don’t mention what exactly they used in the study.
I finally found it here, I thought it was a follow up and there was another study but this one covers that here.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10416948
I also found a free fully readable version here.
https://www.scribd.com/document/126926104/Pyruvate-and-hydroxycitrate-carnitine-may-synergize-to-promote-reverse-electron-transport-in-hepatocyte-mitochondria-effectively-uncoupling-the-oxi
Pilot study covered on page 412-414
Long story short in the study they had 12 grams of pyruvate 1.5 grams of HCA 250 mg of carnitine split into 3 doses though the day, and lost an average of 1.5 KG a week, with 2.3 KG of fat loss, or if you aren’t a filthy communist 3.3 pounds of weight, and 5.06 pound of fat per week, with some calorie restriction and a draconian exercise program of 20 minutes of brisk walking, per day, every day. Needless to say the results are really impressive and are likely free from corporate taint given its age.
Now blackstone formula will work for this but it would only get you 20 days for 30-40$ depending on where you buy it, me being massively cheap decided to just buy the components and use that instead, Though given its price it didn’t save me a huge amount(assuming I could find it for 30$ with no shipping I saved about 3$), but did get me some more HCA per dose and let me use my ALCAR that I had lying around. This is why the title has “(sort of)” since I am just using their formula instead of actuly using their product.
If any of you want to do what I did for some reason here is my guide so far.
If you have gym buddies or don’t mind buying allot of the stuff bulk supplements does have some nice discounts for large purchases, or rather shitty pricing for small purchases.
Buying the dose for a 60 serving run(240 grams) will cost you 18$ for one run, 14.50 per run if you buy 2, 11.50 per for 4.
As for the HCA the best deal I could find was this, at 750 mg at 95% purity, it also gives you the chromium(10$, last 60 days or 30 days on a full run)
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B06XWGM26J/
I’m just using primaforce ALCAR, I already had this so I didn’t count it. The original used LCLT, which I am not certain has any benefits over ALCAR, its just been studied more for recovery.
Now on to taste, I had heard pyruvate tasted bad, but there is something intensely disturbing about knowing something will be bad, then smelling it and it smelling distinctly like maple syrup.
It isn’t actually that bad but there is a trick to it, along with everything else detailed below
Calcium pyruvate
This doesn’t dissolve well in water. Do not try to mix it in water. it taste worse and is hard to actuly consume like that, instead take a sip of something, add it to your mouth and swallow, wash it down, there is a mildly unpleasant maple syrupy taste, but it not horrid.
ALCAR, this has a intense sour somewhat akin to cituline mixed with a battery acid bite, don’t take this straight, add it to something and drink, it will have a minor sour but its barely noticeable like that. Its a strong flavor on its own but it doesn’t keep it when diluted
HCA, just take it in a capsule, there’s no reason not to given the dose.
I am already a few days in, with an initial non-restricted diet that I am going to transition into a more diety diet.
Started off doing 4 grams once a day but after looking at the study I am going to swap to the full 12 grams, which is going to make this allot shorter but it should give a slightly better replication of the study.
Along with this I am going to be taking some other supplements which I will detail as I use them. Fasted cardio with Yombie is going to be a likely candidate.
Now I don’t have a great scale so the estimate for the starting weight is going to be 182(This is not lean 182 btw).
As for the diet plan, vaguely moderate everything fat being lower then everything else, I don’t see much value personally in strict planning, I may do a short (3-7 day) fast, my advise for fasting is to treat the first two days as a sprint into ketosis, if you are burning carbs while fasting for a while you are going to burn muscle along with it.
Forgive the messiness of this first post I will come back and pretty it up once I get some nice sleep in