[Cagatay Keles]

It’s considered a natural ‘fat loss’ supplement. However, it isn’t a shortcut or magic pill, you still need to have everything else in place, but it can have a mild effect on stubborn areas of body fat.

These areas tend to have more alpha-2 adrenergic receptors which make it difficult for the body to efficiently burn the fat in that area. Yohimbine HCL can temporarily inhibit those receptors and free up stored fat for use.

It also improves blood flow to these areas.

Once the fatty acids have been freed, they can be ‘burned’ during cardio. However, Yohimbine HCL doesn’t work when insulin is high, so timing matters. Taking it fasted, pre cardio is the best time to get the best results.

The effective dose is 0.2mg per kg of body weight, but start low at 0.2mg to assess tolerance and gradually build up to your max dose.

Some people find it to be effective, some people don’t get on with it and have negative side effects, some people don’t notice much.

Hello Clare, thank you for your response. This was actually something I was curious about too. Your explanation is quite clear, but like Nicolas mentioned, the fat around my waist and lower abdomen is very stubborn—just like it is for everyone—and I haven’t been able to slim it down for a long time. I was planning to try Yohimbine HCL, but since I sometimes experience anxiety or even palpitations from high doses of caffeine, I’ve always been hesitant, to be honest. Do you think it’s worth trying as a supplement? Assume my diet, rest, and training are all on point. I wanted to ask because, aside from basic supplements, I’ve never used anything like Yohimbine before, and I’ve been doing this sport naturally. If I do experience side effects, what are they usually? Also, would using it 3-4 times a week on an empty stomach in the morning be enough?

[Cagatay Keles]

Hi Andre,

Of course, the athletes on the forum will provide much better information on this subject, but I just wanted to share a few tips that worked for me personally, since I had similar bloating and gas issues.
• I tried to eat vegetables mostly cooked. The only raw vegetables I consumed were things like cucumbers, red bell peppers, or parsley. If you want to eat real vegetables instead of powdered greens, you can try adding spinach or purslane. These worked for me.
• Excessive consumption of protein powder and casein (COR) also caused gas problems for me. I reduced this to just once per day. I tried to focus on eating more “real foods” instead of whey or casein whenever possible (even though I don’t really like that phrase). I aimed for things like meat, fish, or chicken with rice-based side dishes.
• I used to have major gas issues even with the smallest amount of dairy, simply because I never consumed such products and my body couldn’t handle them. I gradually reintroduced small portions of dairy into my diet, and increased the amounts over time. If you don’t have lactose intolerance, you can support your gut health by adding foods like Greek yogurt, quark, or skyr. I’ve been seeing real benefits from these lately.
• If you have time after meals, taking 15-minute walks to aid digestion can really help as well.

The things I’ve listed above are suggestions based on my own experience, and they’ve helped cut my symptoms roughly in half. From what you wrote, things like COR, whey (if you’re consuming a lot), and very high fiber intake can all cause gas issues — as I mentioned earlier. (For me, fatty meats still cause gas as well, just something to keep in mind.)

[Cagatay Keles]

The particulars of the upper lower make zero diff , start with whatever you want , end with whatever you want , progress your lifts , in 6 months make sure everything has progressed superbly well , that’s it . I understand the question and why you ask , but the hard part will be accepting the answer that it truly doesn’t matter , as after 6 months you will need to change the order anyways and whatever was at the end gets started with

Hi Jordan, first of all, thank you for your help. I understand what you mean. The reason I asked was this: I currently have two different splits for each day—Upper A/B and Lower A/B. Each of these splits lasts about an hour and a half. However, these splits don’t include any calf or ab work. I didn’t add them because I thought the sessions would get even longer, but I wasn’t sure if leaving them out would be a problem.

To avoid leaving them out, I was thinking of maybe adding Upper/Lower C and D splits, creating a system that rotates back to the start every two weeks, so I could include calf and ab exercises that way. That’s why I asked.

But as I understand it, for the next six months I should just focus on progressing with Upper A/B and Lower A/B, and later on, I can add the lacking areas into this split while reducing the sets for the more developed muscle groups.

[Cagatay Keles]

Any help would be very good for me 🙂

[Cagatay Keles]

First of all, I’m really sorry for the late reply — your answers mean a lot to me, and I truly appreciate the time you’ve taken to help. I’ve been continuing with my diet just as you suggested.

Every time I read or reflect on things, I end up with more questions popping into my head 😅
I have one last one — this time about sugar from fruit.

I absolutely love eating fruit. It really helps keep me full during a cut because of the volume, and — let’s be honest — it just tastes amazing.

So my question is: as long as my total daily sugar intake doesn’t go over 50–60g, would it be a problem if I ate a lot of fruit?
For example, if I included one serving of fruit in each meal, would that negatively impact my diet as long as I’m staying within my calorie limits?

Thanks again for everything 🙏

[Cagatay Keles]

Im with J here and I would defo diet down to a nice lean state and then build up slowly.

Initially I would sit at 2200kcal – Add in 25 minutes cardio on wake steady state daily and take steps to 11k and just see what the look and scale does and then work on dropping fat from here. Your food is pretty low as is so I would favour driving output up further before pulling food down as much as I could.

John Jewett stuff is pretty good and if your enjoying it then I would stick with it and not look to mix and match stuff personally

First of all, thank you for your help! I just have a few more small questions I wanted to ask.

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1) I might struggle to fit cardio into my schedule consistently. The reason I bring this up is that I’ve heard doing cardio right after training can negatively affect both muscle gain potential and overall performance.
Because of my busy school and work schedule, I can’t really do fasted cardio in the mornings. The only time I can manage is post-workout.

Do you think doing cardio after my training sessions could have any negative effects? I’ve been seeing people mention this a lot lately.
I’m already on low calories, and I don’t have that much muscle mass to begin with — I’d hate to lose the little muscle I have (even if it’s just a few grams) from doing post-workout cardio.

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2) While following my diet, I’ve been using the diet planner tool from the forum. Based on that, I eat around 2200 kcal with low fat on training days, and about 1950 kcal with low carbs on rest days.

Is this approach okay, or would it be better to just keep my calories fixed at 2200 every day?

Yesterday, for example, I followed the low-carb 1950 kcal plan for the first time, and I woke up weighing 69.8 kg.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on whether I should keep cycling my intake like this, or go with a consistent daily calorie target instead.

[Cagatay Keles]

Great work buddy

I would diet down and get lean to where you had your abs through and then try so hard to really patiently progress lifts and creep body weight back up after that

Thank you so much for your comment, Jordan — I really appreciate it. I’ll follow your advice.
It does seem that building muscle at this body fat percentage would be tough.

I have a question at this point:
If my maintenance is around 2200 calories, should I keep my intake closer to 2000 to lose fat while minimizing muscle loss? Or should I go more aggressive — something like 1800 calories?

Also, how many days a week should I do cardio during this phase?
I consistently hit my daily step goal of 10,000 steps, but I work a desk job as an engineer, so my overall activity outside of that is pretty low. I’m not sure how to adjust my cardio accordingly.

As for my training program, I’m currently following the X Frame program by John Jewett — it’s a 6-day PPLR routine. I chose it because it’s structured and doesn’t require much extra planning.
However, I’ve been thinking of splitting it over two weeks and adding Upper/Lower days on the off-days — something like: PPL – Rest – UL – Rest.