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Designer Supplements Lean Xtreme  90 Caps

Lean Xtreme: The only true cortisol controller, excellent for post cycle therapy (PCT)!

The place of 7-OH in the overall strategy to achieve optimal body composition.
7-OH fits into our supplement arsenal by addressing the problem that your body has a natural mechanism which robs from the anabolic and fatloss paycheck that you painstakingly earn – in the gym, on the road, and through the sacrifices and self-discipline you maintain in the kitchen and out on the town. All of these are less than they could be, and your progress comes slower than it could be coming. This is because as far as training goes, you can only achieve results by doing hard work: without this there is no hope for body recomposition. But your body taxes you for putting it through this. After all, your body is just an organic system, it simply responds as it is set up to respond, and you cannot reason with it. This is where supplements come in to the picture. 7-OH supplementation works as a manual override to your body’s otherwise automatic response to the stress of serious exercise.

What limiting cortisol will actually do for you
Other companies have made outrageous claims for what their products can accomplish. We aren’t going to do that. They often fail to explain the mechanism, even when they actually understand it. They bottle and sell Hope. It is as though the discussion around the corporate board room goes something like this:

“Hey, what is some Hope that we can tap into that will allow us to sell stuff? And what can we throw in there that will make it believable that it could work? What kind of profit margin can we get by using these ingredients? Never mind the dose that works, does the ingredient itself work at some dose? We want it so we can’t be sued, and we should be fine as long as we say that our product contains an ingredient which is effective, right? OK, so what is a harmless dose?—we don’t want anyone complaining about any side effects, let alone suing us. Customer service is expensive enough. Is this harmless dose just effective enough to keep the customer buying it? Just enough to keep them wondering if it might not just be working, or that it will probably work better once they ‘get back to’ the gym? Once we bottle up a month’s worth of a harmless dose, how much can we charge for it while people are still willing to go for it?” … ad nauseum

I wish that I was able to say that this is hyperbolic for the sake of humor… No wonder such companies occasionally get sued by the FDA – no names mentioned. The trouble is that because of this sort of marketing, the whole idea of controlling cortisol has been tarnished. So what we are doing here is, in part, setting the record straight. At Designer Supplements we feel it is worth the effort to educate our customers, to give them accurate guidelines for what they can actually expect and how to utilize our products to the greatest effect. If you are going to buy our products, we would actually prefer that you see the greatest benefit from using them. In coming up with products, our foremost concern is product efficacy, and we hope to win over a customer base which is loyal because satisfied, loyal because our supplements helped to maximize their fitness. We research the most promising substances, whatever their cost, then try to get the price to a reasonable level. We bring products to market that no one else would touch because the profit per bottle wouldn’t come close to meeting their cut. We also research alternative methods of delivery, because we are interested in selling products that work, and work very well, not just in selling a product. But enough of that.

The point is that we will not market 7-OH as a miracle product. So before we go any further we need to make some things clear. Controlling your cortisol levels does not by itself build muscle; you build muscle. Cortisol taxes your muscle gains, it robs you of what you have earned. What will 7-OH do for you? To put it metaphorically, 7-OH will blackjack your body’s tax collector before it can make those hidden deductions from your earning. This is how 7-OH will help you speed your anabolic progress. Controlling your cortisol levels does not by itself burn fat or spot reduce abdominal fat; you burn fat from all over your body. Cortisol counteracts your fatloss achievements, robbing you of part of what you have earned, by increasing blood glucose levels and then ‘has the audacity to’ disproportionately direct fat deposition into your abdomen. 7-OH blackjacks this saboteur before it can diminish the results of your hard efforts and sacrifices. This is how 7-OH will help you speed your efforts to reduce abdominal fat. 7-OH does not work miracles, and if you do nothing to earn a transformation in your body recomposition, its helping hands will not be able to do for you what they could if you put in maximal effort. The more effort you put into your training, the more your earnings will be taxed by higher levels of cortisol. And wherever you lie on the political spectrum, as an athletic trainee or fitness enthusiast, this progressive and redistributive system of taxation should be unwelcome. 7-OH deals with only the problem of elevated cortisol, and it does this important job very well.

If cortisol levels are kept low, the obviously detrimental effects of high cortisol levels will not be experienced. Of course, a person could still build muscles by going to the gym while guessing that a ‘cortisol’ could be that umbrella waiters put in women’s drinks. Of course, abdominal fat could still be taken care of without supplements, eventually, given the proper dedication to really reduce overall bodyfat levels to the point where any extra distribution of fat to the abdomen is hardly noticeable. But by controlling your cortisol levels, these goals will be noticeably easier to accomplish. So much easier, because when you earn gains in muscle or fatloss your body will not work against you by trying to take a bite out of your newly stored protein, and it will not frustrate your efforts by redepositing more fat to your abdomen than everywhere else. By keeping cortisol levels consistently low, 7-OH just levels the playing field. For every ‘dollar’ worth of effort you spend in the gym, cortisol taxes you. The more effort you spend, the more cortisol takes away. You still see better gains the harder you work, but if you take cortisol out of the equation, your gains will be both quicker to be realized and easier to maintain.

7-OH in practice
Let’s talk about cardio here – and don’t skip over this! Everyone knows that cardio is in some way good for them, but as I mentioned earlier, it is really not uncommon for weight-lifters to take one (squinting) look at endurance athletes before promptly swearing an oath to Heracles that they will have nothing to do with cardio, regardless of what ‘they say’ it supposedly does for their health. Cardio is an unpleasant chore, true enough, but it is not as though these guys are lazy – they laugh as they move the equivalent of a truckload of weight each time they venture into the gym. They just look at cardio as an unnecessary evil. 7-OH overcomes what justification there may be for the bodybuilder’s fear of cardio induced catabolism. 7-OH can make cardio choice worthy for those primarily interested in gaining muscle.

Cardio on an empty stomach is excellent for burning fat, yet this will cause a substantial cortisol spike as the body tries to find the energy to replace what was lost through the cardio. The trick is to take 7-OH so that muscle catabolism is minimized, and fat-burning is maximized. People who use 7-OH will be able to get the health and fat burning benefits of cardio, even if they only do three 20-minute HIIT cardio sessions in a week. They will be able to bulk more cleanly, thereby avoiding having to become quite as fat while gaining muscle, and therefore they can avoid having to work quite as hard to achieve their cut. At least as importantly, for anyone using anabolics, cardio should be considered a necessity, since all anabolics (not just orals) cause unhealthy changes in cholesterol levels, and cardio is a very effective way of improving this. Lastly, cardio is essential to bridging the gap between looking good and being able to perform as good as you look. OK, so remember: 7-OH can make cardio, which is actually good for you, safe for bodybuilders.

7-OH has a valuable role to play even though its effects are not as immediately obvious as with stimulants or anabolics. 7-OH cannot perform miracles to correct egregious mistakes in your training or nutritional regimen, but it can do valuable work in taking obstacles out of the way of the progress to your self-realization. So let’s talk about 7-OH in different situations.

If (against our recommendations) you only do cardio:
7-OH will help you keep the muscle you have, and help to prevent disproportionate fat deposition in the midsection, but there is only so much that can be done in the absence of weight-training.

If (against our recommendations) you only weight-train:
7-OH will help you keep your gains by minimizing your losses to catabolism, and by allowing you to shed abdominal fat through an intelligently planned nutritional regimen. Using a protein-carbohydrate drink while working out will limit the catabolism cortisol causes, but there are reasons that this does not make suppressing cortisol superfluous. The high levels of cortisol following intense exercise contributes to the temporary (partial) suppression of the immune system, and unnecessarily delays the immediate job of repairing the damage done to the muscles over the course of the workout.

If you use 7-OH in conjunction with weight-training and cardiovascular exercise:
7-OH will help you keep the maximum of what you earn through your dedication and self-discipline in and out of the gym.

If (really, really against our recommendations) you do no exercise:
7-OH will be limited in what it can do for you. It can still do something, but unless you are psychologically stressed, your body’s cortisol levels are unlikely to be elevated. And without exercise, it is unlikely that there are supernormal amounts of muscle to preserve from catabolism. If you are highly stressed, or you are a day-sleeper, but you watch your diet so that (by carb-cycling for example) you have an intelligently designed net caloric deficit, then using 7-OH could help contribute to a reduction in abdominal fat through limiting targeted fat deposition there which would otherwise result from your high cortisol levels.

Other considerations:

Cortisol and appetite:
Controlling cortisol levels will eliminate whatever extra appetite high cortisol levels may have otherwise contributed to. Of course the far greater part of overeating is habitual, and cannot be countered except through self-discipline and adherence to a plan to overcome it. Bodybuilders might slightly miss the appetite boost from high cortisol levels, insofar as this helps them to wolf down the large amounts of calories they consume, but if they know that the 7-OH is helping to keep their gut in check, we think they will find some other way to keep eating.

During PCT:
Following the cessation of the supplementation with anabolics, testosterone levels are very low, estrogen levels are high or on the rise, and your metabolism is slowed. You will have to use something like Rebound XT to recover your natural testosterone production, but 7-OH during this time will be really invaluable. 7-OH is anti-catabolic, it raises T3 levels from subnormal levels, plus it has a slight anti-e effect due to the hydroxyl group. The usual advice, which is sound enough in the absence of a cortisol limiting supplement, is to reduce training volume and keep eating a lot during PCT to avoid muscle loss. Unfortunately, when this is followed, in part because T3 levels have gone down, fat gain is very difficult to avoid, especially when elevating cortisol levels are eager to ‘take from the rich’ (your new muscle tissue) and ‘give to the poor’ (your always greedy fat cells). By now you should know all the ways in which 7-OH gets us through this situation with as little compromise as possible. The amount that 7-OH increases T3 is not comparable to external thyroid supplementation, at which levels T3 is catabolic. By restoring T3 towards normal levels, 7-OH helps to keep fat metabolism going, while it is not enough to be catabolic. If you exercise at the same pace as when you were on cycle, while leaving cortisol levels unchecked, you can say goodbye to more of your gains than you would afterwards like to admit. And if you eat at the same pace as when you were on cycle, while leaving your cortisol levels unchecked, you can say hello again to a whole lot of bodyfat that you thought you had sent on a steamboat to Madagascar through your boring food selections and cheesecake abstinence throughout your cycle.

When not to use 7-OH:
Cortisol secretion is important to the body’s capacity to resist infection, especially an intestinal infection such as in the case of diarrhea. At the first signs of sickness, 7-OH use should be discontinued. Let the body go back on autopilot to deal with it. 7-OH can be safely used as a manual override of the otherwise automatic response to physical stress when that stress is deliberate, and we are trying to achieve a healthier state through the use of this override. Any anticipated events of serious mental or physical stress, events such as surgery or exposure to extreme temperatures, would also be very good reasons not to use 7-OH for those periods of time. Don’t fight the body’s efforts to restore conditions unless you can do it better. Cortisol increases the formation of glycogen in the liver, so shortly before participation in an endurance competition, 7-OH should be discontinued. Potassium wasting diuretics should not be used with 7-OH.

Other than those instances, there is no reason 7-OH would need to be cycled on and off. Moreover, there are no negative side-effects from 7-OH use which would require the use of additional supplements to counter them. The side-effects from the use of too much 7-OH are eliminated by scaling back to a safe dose.

Women:
The anti-estrogenic effects of 7-OH are not comparable to those of a dedicated anti-e, however, for women using oral contraceptives it would be worth it to take extra precautions, at least until we have some blood work which proves conclusively that estrogen levels are not altered to such an extent that pregnancy could be a possibility.