Yohimbe and fat loss

In the three months since my last entry I’ve embarked upon an odyssey to move from Massachusetts to who-knows-where. I rented out my home, sold off or stored my possessions, said goodbye to my friends and hopped in a car with my companion and her dog to drive across the country.

We ended up in Washington state where she is now working in Seattle and I am currently lodging in my mother’s place. Sixty-four next week and still living at home!

My normally careful diet and carefully planned fitness strategy have taken a beating. My fasting glucose and A1c are up, though not alarmingly. My weight and waist circumference are up as well. This means I’m putting on belly fat and eating too many refined carbs, calories and too much alcohol. (Any refined carbs and alcohol is, strictly speaking, too much.)

So now I’m back with a gym membership, introductory membership to a WTF-certified Taekwondo dojang and seriously following the Gymnastic Bodies program (gymnasticbodies.com). I’m doing HIIT 4-6 times a week, swimming in the river whenever I can and borrowing my brother’s bike or hiking through the woods. I miss my Jacuzzi and pool back in Leominster!

To get my weight back in shape I’m cutting out all refined carbs and giving up any form of alcohol. It’s basically a ketogenic diet, except that I include ripe summer fruit, mostly berries. And a couple squares of dark chocolate. I can do all that and still stay in ketosis.

The one really uncomfortable measure I’ve taken is to use yohimbe. Yohimbe is an herbal extract from the bark of an African tree that affects A2 adrenergic receptors. There are a lot of these in the belly fat and it creates a rapid conversion to ketosis. Anyone who has done the ketogenic diet knows the hard part is the first two or three days waiting impatiently to convert from carbohydrate metabolic dominance to fat-burning. Yohimbe gets me there in a few hours.

But it’s really uncomfortable. I feel nervous, jittery, anxious, even worried. My heart pounds and I have to be careful doing any major exertion like HIIT. My temperature management is all off and I swing from too hot to too cold. I sweat like a draft horse. The only positive thing I like about it is that orgasms are really fantastic. The major use for yohimbe outside of the athletic world is as an aphrodisiac. One should be careful combining yohimbe with other sex-enhancing medications like Cialis or Viagra. The combination can be lethal in men with heart problems. I’m also careful combining it with other stimulants like caffeine and modafilin.

Results? I’m dropping a pound a day and the waist is already down an inch after the first week. I’m the first to remind a patient not to watch the scale. Weight loss does not necessarily mean fat loss. But I can’t help myself. I want a flat tummy and narrow waist and seeing the positive results enhances my motivation to stay with it.