There is a vitamin shoppe near where I live, that carries the store brand of CLA. Has anyone tried it before? It just seems a little too much of a coincidence that all the vitamin shoppe brand supps are less expensive than the other supps in the store. And on top of that, most have higher quality ingredients in them, according to the supplement facts. Can someone help me out here? I don’t want to get ripped off.
I’ve taken them without any problem, and I’ve taken their brand of CLA.
Not sure if I would have gotten better/worse benefits or results with a name brand.
I don’t take CLA anymore because I was taking it primarily for fat loss and I’ve read plenty of conflicting info about whether or not it works for that.
For what it’s worth, I didn’t see any changes with it, but that was before I had my nutrition more dialed in. Your mileage may vary.
I’m not personally familiar with Vitamin Shoppe, but never heard anything bad about them.
I think it’s quite natural that they can offer the “house brand” cheaper than some others, if only because they can most likely afford to do so, and still make more money than by selling what others make.
Their retail price of their house products to you, is most likely higher than what other manufacturers get while selling their products in bulk to stores. I think it’s natural to assume that commerce without a middle man will result in a benefit for everyone. One of the reasons I quite understand Biotest being able to offer their products at a better price at the T-Nation store than other places.
Thanks for your help guys. I’m trying to decide what would be a good fat loss stack. I will be doing intense aerobic training as well as lifting 3 days a week. I weigh 182lbs (in the morning before eating) and have about 17% body fat. I want to lose weight without sacrificing too much muscle.
My goal is to lose about 10-15 pounds getting under 12% body fat in 6-8 weeks.
My current supps are creatine (5g a day), Surge (half serving before workout full serving after), fish oil, ZMA, and BCAA (2.5g 1 hour after drinking Surge). I am thinking of adding in HOT-ROX Extreme. Also I have $25 credit at vitamin shoppe. Any suggestions on what to buy? I was thinking CLA, Green tea extract, or maybe some more BCAA.
I shop there often. I was told they have “name brand” companies make their products and then private label them for their store.
I’d go with the green tea extract and make sure you are getting enough quality fish oil.
I remember consumerlabs testing a couple different multi-vitamins. One result, the vitamin shoppe brand had lead in it.
Your goals are competing with each other a bit.
I will give you my own results as an example of what I mean. I went from 196 and 13.5% bf to 218 and 11.1% bf. So, as you can see, I didn’t lose any weight, but my body fat % did go down.
If you are interested in making the numbers on the scale go down, that is one thing. If you are interested in your bf% going down, that could be another thing.
What it sounds like is that you want your muscle gains to increase and your bft to decrease for an overall better body comp. It’s doable, but tougher than just losing weight or just decreasing bf. I hope that makes sense.
In any case, I think Creatine, BCAAs, and protein powder are the best suppliments for maintaining/developing muscle (though secondary to nutrition).
I’ve used Geen tea extract and am currently trying HRX for fat loss (also, secondary to nutrition).
My overall advice would be not to worry about scale weight too much (unless you are a boxer or wrestler or some other athlete that needs to meet a certain weight requirement) and really focus on body comp. And nutrition is key. Suppliments are just a little icing on the cake.
Vitamin Shoppe brand merchandise is just as good if not better than the other leading brands. It is illegal for companies to lie on the nutritional facts. Most of the powder supplements are nothing other than leading brands with the vitamon shoppe name on them.
I use Vitamin Shoppe brand for certain supplements and there is nothing wrong with them. They are cheaper, and sometimes better than name brands.
Their Whey does not mix or taste as good as Biotest though, and I do not recall them having micronized creatine.
[quote]Petedacook wrote:
I use Vitamin Shoppe brand for certain supplements and there is nothing wrong with them. They are cheaper, and sometimes better than name brands.
Their Whey does not mix or taste as good as Biotest though, and I do not recall them having micronized creatine. [/quote]
I use biochem creatine monohydrate. Its micronized and pharmaceutical grade.
[quote]tdrink wrote:
Your goals are competing with each other a bit.
I will give you my own results as an example of what I mean. I went from 196 and 13.5% bf to 218 and 11.1% bf. So, as you can see, I didn’t lose any weight, but my body fat % did go down.
If you are interested in making the numbers on the scale go down, that is one thing. If you are interested in your bf% going down, that could be another thing.
What it sounds like is that you want your muscle gains to increase and your bft to decrease for an overall better body comp. It’s doable, but tougher than just losing weight or just decreasing bf. I hope that makes sense.
In any case, I think Creatine, BCAAs, and protein powder are the best suppliments for maintaining/developing muscle (though secondary to nutrition).
I’ve used Geen tea extract and am currently trying HRX for fat loss (also, secondary to nutrition).
My overall advice would be not to worry about scale weight too much (unless you are a boxer or wrestler or some other athlete that needs to meet a certain weight requirement) and really focus on body comp. And nutrition is key. Suppliments are just a little icing on the cake.[/quote]
Sorry if I wasn’t clear. I am a rower in college. I am trying to make the varsity boat in the spring (8 people will be selected). To do this I need to lose scale weight. I am not trying to gain muscle. I am trying not to lose too much muscle as I lose fat. Its not that I need to make a certain weight, I just need to maximize my strength to weight ratio.
Strength is based of a 2k score on a concept2 ergometer, not strength in the gym. I definitely need to focus on the weight part of my strength to weight ratio, because im only 6 foot and theres at least 3 6’5" guys on the team and the rest are all over 6’.
And in crew, height means leverage, and leverage equals power. Dont get me wrong, I am not forgetting about the strength part. Its just that the weight part takes priority for making the boat. I gained a good amount of fat since the beginning of the year (almost 20 pounds).
Its not that I stuffed my face. I just ate what was around at the time, which happened to be really unhealthy. On top of that, I only got 2 hours of sleep a night for extended periods of time. With lots of stress and being a FFB, that is a recipe for disaster. But now I have my life under control again.
I set up my nutrition plan and have already lost 9 pounds in the last 6 weeks. Winter training with the team will start up soon. That includes 5 days a week of intense aerobic training, and 3 days a week of lifting with full body splits. With nutrition already dialed in I am starting up supplements for fat loss.
Like I said before, my current supps are creatine (5g a day with post workout Surge), Surge (half serving before training full serving after), fish oil (a combined 3000 mg of DHA and EPA per day), ZMA, and BCAA (2.5g 1 hour after drinking Surge). I will be adding in HOT-ROX Extreme. And I am thinking of adding in Green Tea Extract. How does that sound.
Once again my goal is to lose 10-15 pounds in 6-8 weeks. If it helps I can put up my stats, but I was thinking of starting a new thread to record how this progresses and to keep me motivated. Any advice is much appreciated.
[quote]pbnj wrote:
tdrink wrote:
Your goals are competing with each other a bit.
I will give you my own results as an example of what I mean. I went from 196 and 13.5% bf to 218 and 11.1% bf. So, as you can see, I didn’t lose any weight, but my body fat % did go down.
If you are interested in making the numbers on the scale go down, that is one thing. If you are interested in your bf% going down, that could be another thing.
What it sounds like is that you want your muscle gains to increase and your bft to decrease for an overall better body comp. It’s doable, but tougher than just losing weight or just decreasing bf. I hope that makes sense.
In any case, I think Creatine, BCAAs, and protein powder are the best suppliments for maintaining/developing muscle (though secondary to nutrition).
I’ve used Geen tea extract and am currently trying HRX for fat loss (also, secondary to nutrition).
My overall advice would be not to worry about scale weight too much (unless you are a boxer or wrestler or some other athlete that needs to meet a certain weight requirement) and really focus on body comp. And nutrition is key. Suppliments are just a little icing on the cake.
Sorry if I wasn’t clear. I am a rower in college. I am trying to make the varsity boat in the spring (8 people will be selected). To do this I need to lose scale weight. I am not trying to gain muscle. I am trying not to lose too much muscle as I lose fat. Its not that I need to make a certain weight, I just need to maximize my strength to weight ratio.
Strength is based of a 2k score on a concept2 ergometer, not strength in the gym. I definitely need to focus on the weight part of my strength to weight ratio, because im only 6 foot and theres at least 3 6’5" guys on the team and the rest are all over 6’.
And in crew, height means leverage, and leverage equals power. Dont get me wrong, I am not forgetting about the strength part. Its just that the weight part takes priority for making the boat. I gained a good amount of fat since the beginning of the year (almost 20 pounds).
Its not that I stuffed my face. I just ate what was around at the time, which happened to be really unhealthy. On top of that, I only got 2 hours of sleep a night for extended periods of time. With lots of stress and being a FFB, that is a recipe for disaster. But now I have my life under control again.
I set up my nutrition plan and have already lost 9 pounds in the last 6 weeks. Winter training with the team will start up soon. That includes 5 days a week of intense aerobic training, and 3 days a week of lifting with full body splits. With nutrition already dialed in I am starting up supplements for fat loss.
Like I said before, my current supps are creatine (5g a day with post workout Surge), Surge (half serving before training full serving after), fish oil (a combined 3000 mg of DHA and EPA per day), ZMA, and BCAA (2.5g 1 hour after drinking Surge). I will be adding in HOT-ROX Extreme. And I am thinking of adding in Green Tea Extract. How does that sound.
Once again my goal is to lose 10-15 pounds in 6-8 weeks. If it helps I can put up my stats, but I was thinking of starting a new thread to record how this progresses and to keep me motivated. Any advice is much appreciated.[/quote]
A lot of that is new info that you hadn’t given us before (at least not on this thread).
So it sounds like that you essentially are trying to get your weight down for a specific sport and will probably be crucial to making your team/getting a seat in the boat.
I’m not going to argue with you because I know nothing about crew, but I can’t imagine that maintaing or gaining strength wouldn’t be advantageous to you in this circumstance, so I wouldn’t ignore that by any means.
In any case, in all that I have read here it seems that BCAA’s are your best bet for maintaining the muscle you have while cutting weight.
HRX and Green Tea extract are popular for cutting fat, but are a distant third place behind workouts and nutrition. Sounds like you are finally getting your nutrition together and your upcoming workouts should be intense. I imagine you’ll see most benefits from that.
Understanding that you want to cut as much fat before you start workouts with the team, GTE and HRX couldn’t hurt if you have the money to spend. If you are like most college students and don’t have the money, you’ll get the most benefit from not going crazy at the cafeteria and adding some HIIT to your workouts. HIIT has helped me overcome some fat loss plateaus so I really recommend it.
And, back to where this all really started, seems like there is nothing wrong with the Vitamin Shoppe label.
Good luck with your goals.
FYI–vit shoppe just announced the withdrawal of womens multi while it investigates allegedly high lead content claim by consumer lab.
they contract their vit. out but being so big they “should” have quality controls in place.
personally not for me as quality in vitamins could make a HUGE difference.