Caffeine and L-Theanine taken together as a mini-stack is an extremely popular inclusion in today’s fat burners and diet pills.
The first ingredient, caffeine, is in almost every weight loss product available, in some form or another. In fact, unless the supplement has been specifically designed to be stimulant-free, then it will almost certainly contain caffeine.
Some popular sources of caffeine are: caffeine anhydrous, di-caffeine malate, guarana, cacao, theobromine.
You will also see it included as its full chemical designation: 1,3,7-trimethylxanthine, although this is usually because the manufacturer wants to make it sound impressive.
While it is a common ingredient, caffeine has been extensively proven in controlled scientific studies to provide the fat loss and cognitive benefits it is famous for.
Much of its advantages are dependent on how you use it. We will touch on that later.
L-Theanine
This is an amino acid which is found in tea leaves. It promotes relaxation without the sedating effects of many other ingredients.
As such, Theanine would seem like a paradoxical compound to take alongside caffeine. However, due to the way in which it works, it smoothes out the spike which can come from many stimulants (caffeine included), while improving the cognitive benefits.
The stimulation is not actually reduced so much as flattened and elongated for a more sustainable energy release, ergo, the following ‘crash’ often associated with stimulants is prevented.
The release of alpha-waves in the brain following the ingestion of L-Theanine improves the overall state of mind of the user and thus adds clarity of thought, where caffeine (or another cognitive stimulant) provides the focus!
Why Caffeine and L-Theanine In Diet Pills?
L-Theanine does not have direct fat loss effects, but it improves caffeine’s effects such as helping you remain focused and alert for longer while helping you to stay relaxed.
Some people who are sensitive to caffeine may be able to tolerate it when it is used with L-Theanine, and so they can take advantage of the fat burning mechanism.
In addition, such caffeine-sensitive people may be the most receptive to the fat-burning effects…and that brings us to the important point of how to use it!
How To Get the Most from Caffeine (and L-Theanine)
Caffeine gets some bad press because it is found almost pervasively throughout the weight loss supplement industry.
It may surprise you to learn that the ‘problem’ is invariably the user themselves.
The human body becomes tolerant to many ingredients, caffeine included. Once you have become a habitual coffee drinker (2, 3 or even 4 cups a day) then you most likely land in this category.
You have become physically numb to the thermogenic fat burning benefits of caffeine and it takes more and more to exert the stimulant effects on your system until it reaches a point where increasing the dosage has no effect.
It is much better to cycle stimulants so as not to allow you system to become too accustomed to them.
Caffeine in pills is an ideal example of this. If you use the diet pill for 8 to 12 weeks and then have 2 weeks off before repeating the cycle then you will never become too tolerant of it…much like the sensitive people described in the section above.
If, however, you drink a couple of cups of coffee everyday on top of the pills then it will not have the same effect.
Conclusion and Recommendations
The effectiveness of caffeine is not a question of debate; it has been proven by science again and again to have both thermogenic fat burning and cognitive enhancing properties.
The addition of L-Theanine only serves to improve on caffeine’s benefits.
Using this ingredient stack with a goal in mind – as opposed to habitually drinking multiple cups of coffee on a daily basis – is the most effective method.
There are too many supplements containing the two ingredients to provide an adequate cross section of them all, so we can only recommend what works for us. This recommendation is based on the many many products we test and review.
Muscletronic is by far the most impressive multi-ingredient product we have used for a long time.
You can read our full review by following the link below.
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