L-Carnitine: The director of fat loss
L-Carnitine is an amino acid used by the body to transfer stored body fat for use as energy. Your body can produce its own L-Carnitine from Lysine and Methionine in adequate amounts in most situations, but not all. L-Carnitine is essentially a catalyst for mobilizing intercellular fat and transporting it to muscle tissue and mitochondria for use as energy. In other words, L-Carnitine is critical to burn body fat. In the absence of L-Carnitine, you would not be able to tap into fat reserves for energy, so one of two things would happen…You would either have to draw energy from other sources, or you would become very lethargic due to an energy deficiency. Further, not having enough L-Carnitine will reduce your body’s ability to use fat for energy, thus inhibiting fat loss, causing fatigue and making for a frustrating and futile diet. While a normal, unrestricted diet provides plenty of L-Carnitine and its required building blocks, Lysine and Methionine, people who are on a restricted diet in an effort to lose weight often don’t get all they need of these nutrients, so supplementing with L-Carnitine is essential to dieters.
There are a few instances when the body’s requirement for L-Carnitine exceeds its ability to produce it. Namely; during pregnancy, during periods of rapid growth (body growth or muscle growth), and when we don’t eat enough (such as on a restricted diet). Restricting the diet for purposes of losing weight is done so to create a calorie (or energy) deficit that will then force the body to turn to other sources of calories for energy, such as stored body fat, preferably. As it does so, stored body fat is broken down and transported to muscles and other energy-requiring areas of the body for use, all with the aid of L-Carnitine. When the body can’t mobilize fat, it still needs energy to function, so it will turn to other sources, such as muscle tissue and any other source it can most easily get to. A recent study out of the Department of Psychological Medicine,
Christchurch School of Medicine and Health Sciences, Christchurch, New Zealand demonstrated that, in fact, L-Carnitine supplementation will not necessarily increase overall weight loss on a calorie restricted diet. It showed that the body will pull from muscle and other sources instead. However, with L-Carnitine supplementation, the ease of using body fat used for energy is greatly increased and therefore the use of muscle and other sources is greatly decreased. In other words, the net weight loss is the same, but the effects to the change on body composition are profound.
So how much do you need? Allmax Nutrition recommends one to three servings daily of their 100% pure L-Carnitine L-Tartrate product at 735mg per serving. L-Carnitine L-Tartrate is a highly absorbable form of L-Carnitine that is very easily assimilated into the body. Allmax recommends up to three servings per day to keep a steady supply of L-Carnitine available at all times. Keeping your L-Carnitine levels high while dieting will be a very valuable tool to tapping into fat stores and dropping that unwanted fat.
