What is the Best Pre Workout for Weight Loss?

In the last decade, there has been a massive increase in the amount of pre workouts available to people who workout. This is because the demand for pre workouts has increased as they became more well accepted by the public and with more people understanding the need for resistance exercise.

This increase in demand has created sub categories for pre workout supplements. A short list of the pre workouts includes:

• High stim pre workouts
• Non stim pre workouts
• Pre workouts for men
• Pre workouts for women
• Fat burning pre workouts
• Muscle building pre workouts
• Strength boosting pre workouts
• Nootropic pre workouts

While a supplement company may use one of these categories to target a customer looking for that benefit, the ingredients rarely differ all that much from another product. Also, their dosages may not be at the amount needed to elicit the desired effects. You should always look at the ingredients of a pre workout to understand the potential it has on the goal you hope to achieve.

What is a Pre Workout Supplement?

The definition of a pre workout has changed over the years. In its infancy, a pre workout supplement contained basic amino acids and potentially carbohydrates that were consumed before a workout. Combining ingredients such as creatine, glutamine, and taurine provides the muscle energy and a mild stimulant to the mind. These basic mixtures helped weightlifters train harder, lift more, and build muscle mass.

When supplement companies started including caffeine in their pre workout formulas, the category changed forever. Rather than companies competing to build the best product for workout performance, many fought for the spot with whom could make the strongest stimulant pre workout.

Stimulants can definitely increase the intensity of our training but a more is better to approach is not a good idea in this case. A pre workout should be a combination of ingredients and effects that produce the result you hope for.

What Should a Pre Workout Contain

You might assume that each pre workout category should have a completely different list of ingredients. While there are some ingredients that produce a higher effectiveness for a specific purpose, a pre workout will have similar ingredients throughout the different variations. They may differ in the dosage of each ingredient or they may exclude a few if they believe the customer won’t want a particular ingredient.

When you purchase a standard pre workout drink for any type of resistance exercise, it should include ingredients for:

• Muscular strength & endurance
• Nitric oxide production
• Thermogenic effect
• Concentration

The amounts of each will differ based upon the type of marketing efforts that a company makes. Less and less are you finding companies who promote a pre workout product in the general sense. Nowadays brands are making label claims leading the customer to believe they created it for a very specific purpose.

Why You Should Take a Pre Workout

You do not need a pre workout supplement to workout hard, build muscle, burn fat, or perform well. A Pre workout powder will not do the job for you. If you want to improve your physique, then you will have to do the hard work. There is just no getting around it.

However, Pre workout supplements will assist you in your efforts. You may reach your goal faster with the use of a high quality pre workout product. When a product uses combinations of ingredients with dosages that research suggests to be effective, you have a winning formula.

There is plenty of science to promote the effectiveness of commonly used muscle building, performance enhancing, and thermogenic supplements.

Is a Pre Workout a Fat Burner?

Yes. A caffeine based pre workout is automatically considered a fat burner. They have shown caffeine to increase thermogenesis and promote weight loss. So if your goal is to lose fat, even the standard pre workout with the right dosages will help you burn extra calories. As long as the increased energy expenditure helps you maintain a negative caloric state, you can expect to lose weight.

Other common pre workout ingredients can also help you increase your metabolism. You will find taurine in almost every formula, which is one example of an amino acid that will help you turn on your body’s calorie burning potential.

Common Ingredients in a Pre Workout for Weight Loss

As mentioned, there are brands that make pre workouts specifically for weight loss. These companies will often pull ingredients found in pill fat burners and put them in a powder blend. They can do this because of the significant advances in flavoring and taste masking. In the old days, it would have been impossible to get the herb taste and bite out of the powder. Now, even the most harsh of ingredients are masked to where they can be tolerated.

Here is a list of the top ingredients (excluding already discussed caffeine and taurine) used in a pre workout for weight loss:

1. Carnitine
2. Green Tea Extract
3. CLA
4. Tyrosine

Carnitine for Pre Workout Fat Loss

The most popular pre workout ingredient promoted on social media. Influencers believe carnitine will increase thermogenesis and lead to weight loss. However, research does not suggest this to be true. Carnitine promotes energy which can be beneficial to workout performance, but it does not appear to be a direct fat burner.

However, there may be an indirect fat loss benefit but that would only be due to overall workout performance leading to more total calories burned. The effectiveness may increase because of your high intensity efforts. The individual who is “going through the motions” in the gym most likely won’t experience any added benefit with carnitine supplementation. It takes an intense workout to elicit the potentials of carnitine.

Green Tea for Pre Workout Fat Loss

An ingredient that has been around for years. Green tea extract made its way to store shelves in the 90s as a way to increase fat burning. The research suggests this to be true. However, it is not a miracle pill by any means and is better served along with other ingredients for the same intended purpose.

Taking green tea before a workout that yields 400-500mg EGCG can increase fat oxidation by approximately 17%. This means, if you were to burn 500 calories during a workout, you may burn an extra 75-80 calories. Unfortunately, you will be hard pressed to find a company putting this much green tea extract into their product.

CLA (Conjugated Linoleic Acid) For Pre Workout Fat Loss

Commonly known as the fat that burns fat. The research surrounding the use of CLA as a weight loss supplement is mixed. There is not enough evidence to state that using this ingredient is a sure shot way to burn body fat. However, there may be health benefits that make the use of this supplement worth considering. But if we are making the best fat burning pre workout, this is most likely not included.

What Are the Best Fat Burning Ingredients?

Based upon what you have read in this article you probably understand that is a trick question. The best fat burning ingredients are the ones that are effectively dosed. A pre workout that uses the appropriate dosages of the following ingredients will lead to a significant caloric expenditure. This can be a weight loss advantage if you are keeping your calories in check.

• Caffeine
• Taurine
• Choline

Pre Workout Choline Supplementation

Except for choline, we have already discussed the recommended fat burning ingredients. Choline is an essential nutrient that is neither a vitamin nor a mineral. Although it is not a vitamin, you will commonly find it in b-vitamin complex supplements. The dosages in these formulas are sufficient as an essential nutrient but are not enough for use as a thermogenic pre workout ingredient.

While we need more research for choline and fat loss, the outcome looks promising. They have conducted studies where combining choline with another ingredient such as methionine, carnitine, and caffeine to support fat loss.

Because of the other benefits that choline can offer, such as power output and cognitive function, it makes for a qualified ingredient in a pre workout stack.

Forms of choline include:

• Choline (base)
• Choline citrate
• Citicholine (CDP-choline)
• Alpha glycerylphosphorylcholine (alpha gpc)

Pixie Dust Weight Loss Pre Workouts

Shop store shelves and you will find endless options for weight loss pre workouts. Be forewarned that many of these formulas use excessive amounts of ingredients to make their products look better than the rest. When you are looking for the right weight loss pre workout, you need to be sure you are finding one that is effectively dosed.

Below is a popular list of weight loss ingredients that we have not discussed but you may find in a pre workout supplement and a recommended dose.

1. Raspberry Ketones: 100-200mg
2. Green Coffee Bean Extract: 1200-3000mg (based on 10% extract)
3. Theobroma Cacao (theobromine): 100mg-200mg
4. Coleus forskohlii (10% forskolin): 250mg-500mg
5. Capsaicin (hot pepper extract): 2mg-6mg

If you find a formula with these ingredients, be sure it meets the minimum recommendations for effective weight loss.

Proper Nutrition is the Greatest Fat Burner

With these considerations about which ingredients and formulas make the best pre workout for weight loss, we need to issue a public service announcement.

Exercise supports a proper nutrition strategy that results in fat loss. Supplements can support the exercise that assists the nutrition. This puts supplements to the list of what actions you need to take in order to reduce your body fat levels.

Strenuous workouts and thermogenic ingredient supplementation can not replace a poor diet. You must put nutrition at the top of your list if you hope to reach your weight loss goals.

A Pre Workout That Supports Your Goals

When we created Brains N Brawn we considered both the research and real world evidence of an ingredient’s effectiveness. The formula is a complete strength and performance pre workout that is for those looking to improve strength, increase lean mass, and reduce body fat. We believe Brains N Brawn to be the most complete pre workout supplement on the market.