Avoiding Carbs Helps With Carnitine Weight Loss

Benefits, Efficacy, Weight Loss

Eliminating carbs from your diet can help with carnitine weight loss.  Cheap carbs and simple carbs like breads, pastas, rice and potatoes (as wholesome as they all sound), are quick to convert into glucose in the body.  The glucose spikes an insulin response, and this leads to fat storage.

Carnitine for weight loss is most effective, according to Robert Crayhon, when carb intake is next to nil, because based on his studies (and against what doctors such as Dean Ornish claim), his clients start getting into trouble when more than half their calories come from carbs.  This includes fruits, fruit juice, candy, and cereal.  For maintenance, Crayhon recommends no more than 45% carbs in one’s diet.  For weight loss, Crayhon recommends no more than 35% carbs.

The low limit on carbs goes hand in hand with the research of Gary Taubes, author of Good Calories, Bad Calories.  Taubes goes so far as to say that carbs will kill you.  His advice is almost the exact opposite of that of Dr. Oz and Ornish.

Carnitine works well with anyone on a low-carbohydrate diet because carnitine supplies energy and without it, low-carb diets can lead to fatigue and food cravings.  With carnitine, it becomes easier to stay on the low-carb diet, and the cycle becomes reinforcing, since less carbs also makes the weight loss action of carnitine more effective.  Carnitine, but also Acetyl-L-Carnitine, are especially effective at maximizing carbohydrate metabolism.

This is yet another reason why those doing the slow carb diets (or the Four Hour Body diet) should consider supplementing with carnitine.

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Carnitine and Mitochondria: How Cells Produce Energy

Mode of Action

When it comes to thinking about how cells work in the body, you can consider their tasks in terms of defense and offense.  Defensively, cells need to protect themselves from all the toxins thrown at them.  But that alone is not enough to guarantee cell vitality and optimum health.  Cells need offensive power, and that power comes in the form of cellular energy.

There are several “cell-energizing” nutrients that contribute towards cell vitality (not merely defense against toxins or deficiency):

  • EPA and DHA (fatty acids)
  • B-complex vitamins
  • Lipoic acid
  • medium chain triglycerides (MCTs)
  • flaxseed oil
  • CoQ10
  • magnesium
  • Carnitine
  • Acetyl-L-Carnitine

Mitochondria make use of all of these vitamins and nutrients in order to produce energy for your cells.  All the cells of your body (except mature red blood cells) contain mitochondria for this reason.  They turn food into energy.  Carnitine helps turn fat into energy.

Nearly all of the energy you experience comes from the work of mitochondria.  The more active you are, the more mitochondria you have.  If your mitochondria start wearing out and dying off, so do the cells, and so do you.  So to continue to experience good health and energy, you need to make sure your mitochondria are receiving everything for their energy-producing needs.  It takes energy to make energy.

So if you’re going to focus on supplements, start at the bottom and make sure your cells have enough energy to even begin processing them.  Carnitine is probably the most important of these cell-energizers. This is why carnitine is effective for weight loss.  It works on its own but you might have even more success supplementing with carnitine on a low-carb diet.

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Is Carnitine Recommended on the 4-Hour Body Diet?

Benefits, Dosage

Yes, Tim Ferriss talks about L-Carnitine in the 4-Hour Body.  One would be surprised if he didn’t.  What does Ferriss say about L-Carnitine?

Ferriss notes that carnitine does improve sperm health (specifically, sperm production (spermatogenesis) and motility (motion)), and he is talking about it in the appendix along with his other comments on improving male sex drive.  But has Ferriss completely missed the other benefits of carnitine?

Tim Ferriss also confirms the clinical dosing of carnitine, which is two (2) grams a day.  This is equivalent to 2000 milligrams.  Ferriss does note that he suspects “there are nontrivial effects at doses less than two grams per day.”

At the end of the day, it appears that Carnitine is not one of Tim Ferriss’ favored supplements, even for using carnitine for weight loss.  This is a bit surprising; one would expect him, perhaps, to have done systematic studies differentiating the effects of different types of carnitine, including the difference between acetyl-l-carnitine and L-carnitine.  But Ferriss’ comments do confirm some of the most commonly held views about carnitine (namely, that it occurs the most the redder the meat is and that it helps with male reproductive health.).

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Carnitine and Weight Loss: No Myth

Side Effects, Weight Loss

Carnitine helps with weight loss.  It’s not a myth.  Studies have shown that lots of people have had success with carnitine for weight loss.  The efficicacy of carnitine on weight loss has been shown most dramatically in doses of carnitine of at least 1000mg a day.  Some people find that weight loss speeds up dramatically once they begin taking up to 2000mg of carnitine a day.

Using carnitine for weight loss should be approached with caution and the guidance of your own medical provider, but no studies so far have shown that it is possible to overdose on carnitine, and there have been no reports of toxicity from carnitine overdosage.  However, large doses of carnitine might cause slight odor and diarrhea.

Carnitine is converted into acetyl-l-carnitine via enzymes that absorb excess acetyl-CoA in the body.  The process helps carry long-chain fatty acids across mitochondrial membranes and into the “fat furnaces” where they are burned for energy.  If you follow a diet high in carbohydrates and do not also exercise, you are likely to not notice any benefit from taking carnitine.  In order to lose weight with carnitine, you also need to be eating right and moderately exercising.

Carnitine is better for weight loss in certain people rather than others.  If you are very overweight, and are carnitine deficient, it should help greatly.  If you are only moderately overweight and your body is already making its own carnitine with no problem, you may not see as much of a difference – or you may just need to take larger quantities of carnitine.

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Carnitor and Levocarnitine

Types

Carnitor and Levocarnitine are additional names for L-carnitine (el-KAR-nih-teen), an amino-acid derivative that is made in muscle and liver tissue.

Specifically, CARNITOR® is the registered trademark name for intravenous levocarnitine injections issued by Sigma-Tau Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

Levocarnitine is a carrier molecule that transports long-chain fatty acids across the inner mitochrondrial membrane.  According to Sigma-Tau Pharmaceuticals, Levocarnitine is “a naturally occuring substance required in mammalian energy metabolism.”  Levocarnitine facilitates

long-chain fatty acid entry into cellular mitochondria, thereby delivering substrate for oxidation and subsequent energy production.  Fatty acids are utilized as an energy substrate in all tissues except the brain.  In skeletal and cardiac muscle, fatty acids are the main substrate for energy production.

L-carnitine is a form of carnitine and is used as a dietary supplement in patients who do not make enough of their own carnitine themselves.  Carnitine (named after the Latin word for “flesh,” carne) is found naturally in meat, poultry and fish – as well as some dairy products, in lesser amounts.  Thus, individuals who do not eat animal or dairy products are highly likely to be deficient in carnitine.

Sigma-Tau also produces CARNITOR in oral solution and tablet dosage forms.

Carnitine is thought to have a number of benefits, including potential prevention of tissue damage from chemotherapy as well as potential as a weight loss supplement.  In the body, L-carnitine is used to produce acetyl-l-carnitine.

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