Why you aren't a pro

Quoted message said:

not enough oxygen:
http://www.sportsoxyshot.com/

the link to this ad was second to top on cyclingnews.com,
it's the ultimate in snake oil, and I used to work at
at a vitamin store, we carried something called Liquid O (yes the O was
for Oxygen) and it was the only thing I would refuse
to sell, if someone grabbed it and bought it - fine, but
if they asked me about it, I'd steer them to some
Cytomax or something that at least gave you some sugar for your
money...eventually it got pulled off the market by the FDA after an
expose in the NYTimes. Before throwing it all away, I drank a whole
bottle, it was salt water. Man some people are smart/crooked, selling
salt water for $60 a bottle.
Some other favorites

Quoted message said:

- Vitamin B-15, we sold it, it's not really a vitamin - it's nothing
really, but I noticed that african and euro runners LOVED this stuff
and swore by it, I learned later that it was because when they got
injections as youngsters, and they would ask the coach or doctor "what
is this?" and they would be told it was vitamin B-15, a special vitamin
from Russia that made you twice as fast.
funny stuff.

http://www.althealth.co.uk/services/info/supplements/vitamin_b15_1.php

Strange stuff.

See Durk Pearson and Sandy Shaw, and Fred Hatfield and even Joel Friel for
additional 'ergogenic' aids.

If you experiment around, some of this stuff actually seems to work, while
other 'vitamins' and supplements are either not in sufficient quantity, or
when assayed, are not the advertized quantity.

Eopinions.com has a section on health food stuff. I have some more links if
anyone is interested.

http://www.epinions.com/well-Nutrition-Sport_Foods-All/ViewAll_~1/Grp_~5471

jj

we sold DMG and B-15, we also sold lithium, but we kept that "mineral"
in the back,
there are many little companies in the USA making all kinds of strange
stuff
not legal by FDA.
Our most lucrative business - Detoxify Ready Clean - cleans liver
metabolites before
drug tests, it works, many many happy repeat customers, so when you ask
how a
top athlete passes drug test after drug test - this stuff cost $20 a
bottle and worked
for just about everything, imagine what you can buy for more?
I had a cool relationship with the Polish national marathon champ, i'd
give
him %40 off everything, he'd buy about 1k worth of stuff, then he'd go
home to Poland and bring me cystal vases, euro leather shoes, watches,
all kinds of polish gear, he didn't speak much english and I'd have no
idea what
he was going to bring me back, but I guess the whole barter thing is
big in
Poland.
Also sold these huge canisters of Inositol powder to drug dealers for
$150 a bottle,
they would cut cocaine with it, my boss told me these were the "good
drug
dealers" because inositol was harmless, and actually good for
cokeheads,
while no-doz, backing soda, ether, and all the other nasty stuff used
to
cut coke could kill you. They would pull the $150 out these gigantic
rolls of money.
drug dealers and addicts pretty much kept the vitamin store in
business,
kinda ironic really.

You guys ought to be VERY careful of what you're taking. Right now I'm
recovering from some really funny stuff caused in some manner but the
"vitamins" I was taking. All of the stuff was over the counter from
GNC. I started having what can only be turned as some sort of
hallucinations while riding on the bike. At first I thought it was from
getting too little sleep. Then it started happening whenever I didn't
have my mind focused on something. Pretty scarey stuff. It would only
last a second to two, and I could remember afterwards what exactly it
was, but it was like having the hell scared out of you somehow - I'd be
shaking and scared it was going to happen again.

I cut off all of the vatamins and other [censored] I was taking and after two
days I can tell things are straightening out.

Watch this stuff, it might kill you. I had one of these siezures while
riding next to heavy traffic and luckily managed to maintain enough
control not to swerve into traffic.

Tom Kunich said:

You guys ought to be VERY careful of what you're taking. Right now I'm
recovering from some really funny stuff caused in some manner but the
"vitamins" I was taking. All of the stuff was over the counter from
GNC. I started having what can only be turned as some sort of
hallucinations while riding on the bike. At first I thought it was from
getting too little sleep. Then it started happening whenever I didn't
have my mind focused on something. Pretty scarey stuff. It would only
last a second to two, and I could remember afterwards what exactly it
was, but it was like having the hell scared out of you somehow - I'd be
shaking and scared it was going to happen again.

I cut off all of the vatamins and other [censored] I was taking and after two
days I can tell things are straightening out.

Watch this stuff, it might kill you. I had one of these siezures while
riding next to heavy traffic and luckily managed to maintain enough
control not to swerve into traffic.

Sorry to hear it. Care to list what you were taking? One good vit book
cautions either ramping up or suddenly cutting off vitamins all at once,
though I've done it.

I was planning on adding siberian ginseng and medium-chain trigl. after
some more research...

Glad you got thru it ok then and now improving...

jj

On 22 Aug 2005 07:20:20 -0700, "Tom Kunich" <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

You guys ought to be VERY careful of what you're taking. Right now I'm
recovering from some really funny stuff caused in some manner but the
"vitamins" I was taking. All of the stuff was over the counter from
GNC. I started having what can only be turned as some sort of
hallucinations while riding on the bike. At first I thought it was from
getting too little sleep. Then it started happening whenever I didn't
have my mind focused on something. Pretty scarey stuff. It would only
last a second to two, and I could remember afterwards what exactly it
was, but it was like having the hell scared out of you somehow - I'd be
shaking and scared it was going to happen again.

I cut off all of the vatamins and other [censored] I was taking and after two
days I can tell things are straightening out.

Watch this stuff, it might kill you. I had one of these siezures while
riding next to heavy traffic and luckily managed to maintain enough
control not to swerve into traffic.

I knew there was something going on.

;-)

But don't accidentally kill yourself.

D. Ferguson wrote (about Kunich):

Quoted message said:

But don't accidentally kill yourself.

smooth one

--
My bike blog:
http://diabloscott.blogspot.com/

Diablo Scott said:

D. Ferguson wrote (about Kunich):

Quoted message said:

But don't accidentally kill yourself.

smooth one

the one time I wasn't really trying to be funny...

On Mon, 22 Aug 2005 13:51:04 -0400, D. Ferguson <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

Diablo Scott said:

D. Ferguson wrote (about Kunich):

Quoted message said:

But don't accidentally kill yourself.

smooth one

the one time I wasn't really trying to be funny...

Good advice nonetheless.

Ron

Tom Kunich said:

You guys ought to be VERY careful of what you're taking. Right now I'm

Watch this stuff, it might kill you. I had one of these siezures while
riding next to heavy traffic and luckily managed to maintain enough
control not to swerve into traffic.

Tom,
GNC vitamins suck, you are much better off going to your
local Wild Oats/Trader Joes type place and buying some higher
price, higher quality vitamins and minerals from a company like
Source Naturals or really antyhing other than GNC,
they are just a marketing company - they outsource and buy the cheapest
vitamins possible and slap a label on it, "manufactured for ...x"
is usually a bad sign.
I'm not sure what you took, but I bet it was a "special formulation for
men" with small amounts of funky herbs in it, you don't need that [censored],

and you were probably allergic to some of it,
do you drink coffee and other stimulants? because they also add
guarana and other caffeine derivatives that can really make some people
sick. green tea, gotu cola, guarana, it's all caffeine, and it's strong
and concentrated.
Buy a seperate C, B-complex, multi-mineral, and maybe some E.
Buy them seperate with no [censored] in there, no herbs, nothing.
well, thats what I would do at least.

I was taking a regular multivitamin, extra C, D in the winter (which
really works btw), saw palmetto to [censored] like a kid (well at least
someone 10 years younger) and then the questionable stuff:

1) Ginko Biloba (high on my list of possible problems since it's
suppose to pass the blood/brain barrier.)
2) Alpha Lipoic Acid. - supposed to be good for your skin and I noted
that the creases starting on my face mostly went away.
3) Chromium picolate - supposed to aid carbo burning not that I noticed
anything and chromium is a poison.....
4) DMEA or whatever that stuff is that's supposed to be a super
anti-oxydant.
5) Lycopene - extract from tomatoes and I've eaten extremely large
amounts of tomatoes with no effects other than a satisfied look on my
face and spagetti sauce all over my shirt.

Aside from the ALA I won't take any more of those others. And I'll
allow a couple of weeks before I start taking anything at all other
than the saw palmetto again and monitor myself. In retrospect I can
tell that something was wrong because of a sort of "circular" thinking
that was going on when I wasn't focused on something else.

Tom Kunich said:

I was taking a regular multivitamin, extra C, D in the winter (which
really works btw), saw palmetto to [censored] like a kid (well at least
someone 10 years younger) and then the questionable stuff:

1) Ginko Biloba (high on my list of possible problems since it's
suppose to pass the blood/brain barrier.)

Some new uses of this stuff in Europe suggest it has anti-aging properties
as a skin creme preparation!

http://www.pponline.co.uk/encyc/0116.htm

Quoted message said:

2) Alpha Lipoic Acid. - supposed to be good for your skin and I noted
that the creases starting on my face mostly went away.

If it did that for you then cool. If you search the mfw newsgroup for that
stuff I bet you'd find it's been declared bogus too. I believe most if not
all the controlled studies showed effect on 'rats', not humans.

I wouldn't extremely discouraged, but good to get both sides. I've used
things that I swear gave me a noticeable boost, but it may have been from
other than what I suspected to be the acting property.

That and alpha-carnitine were both hot suppliments 10 years ago. Probably a
waste of money.

http://www.pponline.co.uk/encyc/alpha-lipoic-acid.html

Quoted message said:

3) Chromium picolate - supposed to aid carbo burning not that I noticed
anything and chromium is a poison.....

I though Chromium picolinate had gone out of vogue also. I'd research the
mfw archives on that too. Studies vary. But I found a pretty great article
on it here:

http://www.pponline.co.uk/encyc/0066b.htm

Quoted message said:

4) DMEA or whatever that stuff is that's supposed to be a super
anti-oxydant.

?

Quoted message said:

5) Lycopene - extract from tomatoes and I've eaten extremely large
amounts of tomatoes with no effects other than a satisfied look on my
face and spagetti sauce all over my shirt.

Lycopenes are one of the fairly hot suppliments these days.

Here's a cool article, same site which mentions them:
http://www.pponline.co.uk/encyc/0116.htm

Quoted message said:

Aside from the ALA I won't take any more of those others. And I'll
allow a couple of weeks before I start taking anything at all other
than the saw palmetto again and monitor myself. In retrospect I can
tell that something was wrong because of a sort of "circular" thinking
that was going on when I wasn't focused on something else.

The thing about using several of these 'possibly effective' things together
is as you said problematic. Would it not be difficult to known which did
what effect? If you got an effect on the ALA, would you have controlled the
self-experiment enough so that it couldn't be due to something else? Less
sun exposure, yada, yada?

How old are you again? If in your late 40s you might have a series of lab
tests and get your T. tested too.

Thanks for sharing. Hope I didn't post links you've read before, and hope
you read the mfw archives on these things. It's often an eye-opener. Please
note that the site links are not totally from a site that's agenda free.
Always be skeptical.

Having said that I'm considering adding Siberian ginseng for a while. All
I'm doing now is Endurox, which is also a bit iffy, and I'd planned on
checking out Friel's recommendations on MFT.

jj

"Jet" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

How old are you again? If in your late 40s you might have a series of lab
tests and get your T. tested too.

I'm about to turn 61. In my 40's I couldn't detect any difference from
vitamins. In the last two years I've been able to detect mild actions from
them. The ALA for instance seems to have definitely had an effect and the
Vitamin D absolutely had an effect in the winter when my usual practice was
to start feeling pretty weak by late winter. Taking D I never got that weak
feeling, just dimenished endurance.

Note: Not DMEA but DHEA. This is supposed to be pretty powerful so it might
have been part of what was effecting me and I'll discontinue it's use. I
really don't have any reason to use anything that might be bothering me. It
isn't as if any of it isn't replaceable with natural food.

Note: Not DMEA but DHEA. This is supposed to be pretty powerful so it
might
have been part of what was effecting me and I'll discontinue it's use.
I
really don't have any reason to use anything that might be bothering
me. It
isn't as if any of it isn't replaceable with natural food.
------------------------

DHEA is a testosterone precurser, it can help sluggish T production,
which
could be good at your age, you sound like you really know what you are
taking,
and why, which is good, your list actually sounds pretty good to me,
nothing
on there sounds too bad, I'd skip the Gingko, it's harmelss but can
give people headaches (my sister
had a really bad headache dizzy reaction to it) and other
stuff, so like you said, it might be what caused the dizzyness you
felt.
I don't think the DHEA did it, and you can't replace DHEA with food,
it's produced
in the body and it declines with age, and it can really help after 50.

sounds like a good program to me. chromium is good for stabilizing
blood sugar levels and
increasing insulin resistence, good stuff. Lycopene and E and all those
antioxidants
is almost impossible to get in large dosages from food.
I think cyclists need more, all the oxygen processing and although it's
healthy
and endurance training has been showen to reduce test production in 21
year old men.

On Wed, 24 Aug 2005 03:52:42 GMT, "Tom Kunich" <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

"Jet" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

How old are you again? If in your late 40s you might have a series of lab
tests and get your T. tested too.

I'm about to turn 61. In my 40's I couldn't detect any difference from
vitamins. In the last two years I've been able to detect mild actions from
them. The ALA for instance seems to have definitely had an effect and the
Vitamin D absolutely had an effect in the winter when my usual practice was
to start feeling pretty weak by late winter. Taking D I never got that weak
feeling, just dimenished endurance.

Note: Not DMEA but DHEA. This is supposed to be pretty powerful so it might
have been part of what was effecting me and I'll discontinue it's use. I
really don't have any reason to use anything that might be bothering me. It
isn't as if any of it isn't replaceable with natural food.

This is supposed to be a precursor to testosterone. If you're having some
problems with endurance why not get a T. level done. Doesn't mean you have
to treat it, but if it's in the mid 200s then it could be worth HRT. Are
you still racing?

jj

"Jet" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Are you still racing?

No, I don't think it's fair to get out on a course and get in other people's
way who are seriously trying to compete. At my peak I was never any better
than a good Cat 4. Mind you, I thought that pretty good though. And I felt
REALLY good. I believe that had I started riding bicycles seriously when I
was a teenager instead of motorcycles, that I could have been pretty good.
But you can't ever do it again.