Hello. I wanted to start LCing and I wanted to know what are the supplements that are necessary because of this kind of eating. Currently I take one xenadrine before a workout, a multi-vitamin, extra vitamin C, Whey Protein and A meal replacement (that looks like it's going to need to be replaced by a low carb. replacement). Anyways, Can someone fill me in on the supplements I should not do without? Thank You.
Alex

You might get a few varying opinions on this but here's what I think, in order of decreasing importance.

I reckon the multivitamin and extra vitamin C you're already taking ought to be fine. If you take a multivitamin, it's better if the minerals are in the form of chelates rather than salts, and preferably it should be free of sugar, starch and lactose too. This tends to make them slightly pricier, though.

I'd also suggest that you take a fatty acids combination, such as cod liver oil - fatty acids are every bit as important as vitamins and minerals for your health, but tend not to appear in multivitamins because they only exist in liquid form.

You may also find that taking separate chelated chromium, or chromium picolinate, is also handy. Chances are your multivitamin already has chromium, but you might want more, because chromium lowers your insulin resistance, thereby helping you to control and / or lose weight on a low carb diet.

Although it's not essential, you may find that L-glutamine in powder form under your tongue helps you out when you get cravings.

Oh yeah, go easy on the Xenadrine by the way - it's got ephedrine and caffeine in it. Try to do without it completely if possible, and if you can't, you definitely shouldn't be doing it every day for more than a few weeks without a break of a few weeks. L-glutamine won't help you lose weight by itself, but you may find that it helps with cravings for ephedrine and caffeine as well as cravings for sugar. Hope that helps.

Alex, the 3 biggies in LCing are:

• A good multi vitamin
• A calcium / magnesium combination supplement- ratio usually 2:1, chelated (malate, citrate - not calcium carbonate) 1200-1500mg RDA for cal / 400-600mg RDA for Magensium
• Potassium - either in pill form or from a salt substitute such as Morton's Light Salt, or NuSalt. 400mg a day (4 pills or 1/8th of a teaspoon of salt substitute)

Anti-oxidants are up there on the list of vits and supplements that are highly recommended for any way of eating. These include:

• Vitamin C - 1000mg, either a time release forumla or in 250mg doses
• Vitamin E - 400 I.U. is the minimum
• Beta-Carotene - about 5,000-10,000IU per day of beta-carotene will give you 3-6mg of Vitamin A

If you head up to the top of this forum and click on the Supplements Resources link you'll find a few places where you can get more detailed information on all the supplements I listed here.

Also, check out Trainerdan's mega thread in the General Exercise forum for information on ECA Stacks (which is what your Xenadrine is - assuming it's the one with the ephedra in it).

HTH
Nat

Thanks squid and nat for the replys. This site is great. I've already told some of the people I know to check this site out and I'm going to check the links on the top of the board. I want to say, right now I'm just doing high protein and very low carb. with no attention to fat. I'm getting my salmon, olive oil, peanut butter etc. but not counting. So today I went to the grocery store to go food shopping. And when I was reading labels I was getting scared to drop things in the cart because of the fat content. It was weird cause I was in there going for foods without carbs (minus the greens) and yet it was still hard for me to get over the whole fat stigma. I'm ampt.