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Carnitine For Fat Loss

Carnitine is even more beneficial than we thought. Make it a mainstay in your supplement regimen.

Carnitine For Fat Loss

Carnitine is a must-have supplement that I highly recommend.

Carnitine aids fat burning and muscle recovery, as well as boosts nitric oxide (NO) levels. Now new research from University of Nottingham Medical School shows that carnitine can help you train harder by enabling you to generate more energy during workouts.

The UK researchers had athletes consume 2 grams of carnitine along with 80 grams of Vitargo (a fast-digesting carb supplement) or just 80 grams of Vitargo first thing in the morning and four hours later for 24 weeks.

They measured several metabolic factors during a low-intensity cycle test and a high-intensity cycle test, and also tested their endurance capacity. They found that during the low-intensity cycling the subjects taking carnitine burned 55% less muscle glycogen, while increasing fat burning by 55%. During high-intensity cycling the subjects taking carnitine had lower levels of lactic acid and higher levels of creatine phosphate. When they measured their ability to resist fatigue during a cycling test, they found that those taking carnitine were able to go more than 25% longer. This is likely due to the fact that they burned more fat, while preserving more muscle glycogen, as well as having lower levels of lactic acid and higher levels of creatine phosphate.

The UK researchers also found that despite adding 160 grams of fast-digesting carbs to their daily diet, the subjects taking carnitine gained no additional body fat.

The group taking the 160 grams of fast carbs without carnitine gained over 5 pounds of body fat. This may be due to carnitine's ability to keep blood glucose levels low even following a large carbohydrate meal. It does this by enhancing glucose uptake at the muscle cells. This was shown in a recent study from Scotland. So it appears that carnitine is dependent on insulin for entry into muscle cells, yet carnitine enhances insulin's actions at the muscle to aid glucose uptake. Carnitine also helps to carry more fat into the mitochondria of muscle cells where it is burned away for good. This mechanism could have also helped to keep body fat off despite consuming all those fast carbs every day.

Jim's take-home points and dosing recommendations:

There are many take-home points from this study. For starters, taking 2 grams of carnitine twice per day can help you burn more fat during cardio workouts. It can also help you go for longer by sparing muscle glycogen levels. When you consider that the high-intensity cycle tests are more like weightlifting than cardio, it also shows that carnitine can help you train with more intensity and strength during weight workouts by maintaining higher creatine phosphate levels and lower lactic acid levels. It also shows that taking carnitine can help you keep body fat off even when eating higher amounts of carbs.

The UK researchers had the subjects take carnitine with 80 grams of Vitargo to spike their insulin levels. That's because carnitine is reliant on insulin for entry into muscle cells. Do I think that you need to go to such extreme levels with the carb intake? No, but you should still take carnitine with higher carn meals. So I suggest that you take the first 2-gram dose of carnitine first thing in the morning with a 20-40 gram whey shake and about 30-60 grams of carbs. Then take your second 2-gram dose of carnitine with your 40 gram postworkout protein shake along with 40-80 grams of fast carbs. Combining protein and carbs will spike insulin enough to drive the carnitine into your muscle cells.

As far as forms of carnitine, I suggest that you use L-carnitine L-tartrate, which most of the research has been done with. This is often sold as Carnipure. If you can't find this form, L-carnitine works fine too. As far as acetyl-L-carnitine goes, take that separately from regular carnitine. Acetyl-L-carnitine provides better benefits on brain function. It also gets taken up better by the body in the absence of carbs. So take 1-2 grams of acetyl-L-carnitine once or twice a day when you have meals that are not high in carbs.

References:

Wall, B. T., et al. Chronic oral ingestion of L-carnitine and carbohydrate increases muscle carnitine content and alters muscle fuel metabolism during exercise in humans. J Physiol. 2011 Feb 15;589(Pt 4):963-73.

S. D. R. Galloway, Effects of oral l-carnitine supplementation on insulin sensitivity indices in response to glucose feeding in lean and overweight/obese males. Amino Acids 41(2):507-515, 2011.


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