My friend and I are trying to lose weight,. I've been trying for two-three years or so without any further success. Today she told me about Stackers, some pills which makes you feel altert and also trigger your kcal burning / metabolism. She is planning to order a packaga and asked me if she should order one for me too.

I feel really desperate, but I really dont know if I dare to try these pills. I dont want to waste my money on some bogus shit. I am a skeptic, I never believed in these stuff until recently when she told me it actually works. But if this truly works then it might be worth it.

I just need to know if there are any sideeffects, if anyone here has any experience (i dont trust any sites that promote these pills, I want people telling me about their own experiences). Are stackers dangerous?

I found this which made me scared: Danger of Ephedrine and Ephedra Based Fat Burners

Do you recommend any other medicine that can help me lose weight, feel alert and lively (I sleep 15 hrs/night but I still feel tired and depressed), and help me keep my musclemass?

Info that might be useful:
gender: f
weight: 60 kg
desired weight: 50-54kg depending on the musclemass. A few years ago before I gained weight I weighed 50kg, but back then I had no muscles. I rather be 54 with plenty of muscles than a scrawny 50kg girl without any muscles at all.
height: 165 cm
diet: vegetarian
else: i've a scarcity of protein and iron. I dont exercise regularly.

any other info needed, just ask.

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Not likely...
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Change your diet - and start exercising.. weight loss and a good body are not found in a bottle -they're found in alittle bit of hard work...

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Do not let what you cannot do, interfere with what you can do. --John Wooden

:thanks for not helping at all.

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I'm saving you a ton of money and giving you a life of good health - how did that not help?

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Do not let what you cannot do, interfere with what you can do. --John Wooden

I've tried EVERY diet in the BOOK and PILL along with it, and I too have tried these Stackers and HONESTLY, the ONLY thing they did WAS SPEED UP MY HEART RATE like CRAZY, and it did suppress my hunger SOMEWHAT, but also, I DIDN"T lose any weight because they would supress my HUNGER sometimes so much that I WOULDN"T eat at ALL, and THEN to top it off....I WOULD STEP ON THE SCALE to find that I HAD gained WEIGHT!.....GRRRR .....I now take 3x per Day: Fish Oil, Daily Multi-Vitamin, Calcium w/ Vitamin E &D in it, & 2 Hoodia Pills/ 3 cups of Hot green Tea.....NOW THIS...GIVES me GREAT energy...MY HEART BEAT is NORMAL, I CAN still eat, but for some reason, they AS well SUPRESS my HUNGER to a certain extent....also, maybe because I eat "Small" portion of something every two hours.....and in my first 5 weeks I lost 10lbs. (exercise also)...You can do it, SUGA.....ROOTING for YA!

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First off, those things aren't safe. I mean, if someone offered you speed to lose weight, would you take it? It's honestly about the same thing. Watching what you eat and exercising is the best thing you can do for your body... proper nutrition is key. And if you are sleeping 15 hours a day and still feel tired and depressed maybe you should only sleep the recommended amount of 8 hours a day and get yourself out into some fresh air and sunlight. And if you are more active and treating your body properly then your chances of losing weight increase.

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Though I don't think you're a candidate to use such things and you need to examine what you're doing in terms of exercise and diet before taking the lazy man's way out of things.... I think anyone who isn't well-read on the subject of ephedrine/ephedra would be suited reading this:

DrumLib's Health Research Review

There is a time and a place for it's use with caffeine for SOME. Not most though.

And yea, there are dangers associated with it's use. Most are blown way out of proportion and/or over-hyped.... but the drug can be very dangerous for select populations.... like hypertensive individuals.

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SLOW MOTION IS BETTER THAN NO MOTION

No fear, no distractions…. The ability to let that which does not matter truly slide

What a waste of carbon ... Seriously dude, how can you not see I have a death wish? So if you wanna help, stop trying to save my life.

Ahhhhh ignorance is bliss. With all due respect, your comment just made the world more stupid. Are you trying to sound like you have the brain of a five year old or is that just a side effect? Of course I would take it, as long as that someone offered it for free. These stackers shits are expensive.

No seriously ... If someone offers you a glass of champagne at New Year's Eve, would you accept? I am pretty sure the majority would, despite the fact that alcohol, which will hopefully soon be rated an class A drug, is in fact 8 times more harmful than Amphetamine, or speed if you will. I am still amazed by how uninformed and uneducated some who pester me with lectures are. Scary.

I was looking for people with previous experience or people who possess knowledge of the subject. Not someone who jumps to negative assumptions without being slightly informed. People claiming it's dangerous without even trying to backup their statements just sets me off in the opposite direction. Now I want these pills even more.

Recommended? That's individual. Some people need more, some less. My body needs at least 12 hours of sleep. My immune system is fucked up so I need to sleep a lot.

What makes a person a well fit candidate? How can I know if this is for me or not?

just as a thought. I do understand it can be dangerous, just like alcohol and aspirin and any other drug. That's why I was seeking advice here.

Excited to find someone else who have tried these. Sorry to hear it didn't work out well. I do not understand how you can have gained weight if you didn't eat, though. How many kcal and how much exercise? Thanks!


So should I go with Stacker 2 or Stacker 3?

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You have just thrown back good advice from two of the most knowledgeable people on this forum, one of those people being a professional in this field.

You obviously are going to buy these pills regardless of what anyone says. Even when, someone who tried them (Alta818) said they don't work, and had negative side effects (speeding up your heart rate with drugs is so dangerous) you then move onto ask which ones should you buy? Common. I find it interesting that you say you would take speed to lose weight.

Even if these pills do work for you, what do you think will happen when you stop taking them? Yup you will gain the weight back.

I don't think you actually want advice, you just want someone to justify this pill for you. If you wanted advice you would have listened to the advice given, not attacked every effort to help you that is not inline with what you intend to do.

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The above is NOT a normal outcome of use, unless the ingredients are abused or there's an underlying disconnect between what the pills actually do physiologically and your individual body.

Nonetheless, it's a valid post. It's a personal experience.... and one that could happen to anyone using thermogenics.

The fact is the EC stack has been used and studied for 20+ years successfully and it can go a long way for CERTAIN subsets of the population in terms upregulating the sympathetic nervous system, which tends to decline with dieting for certain people thus slowing metabolic rate. It also helps with hunger and there are studies showing it helps the mobilization and oxidation of fatty acids... ya know, that stuff that fills up your fat cells.

I am usually the last one to go around discussing 'goodies' like this as most people DON'T need them. I actually don't recommend the use of such things.

If proper dieting and exercise don't work and you aren't carrying that much fat, there's a chance these could help if you're down with the risks.

THEY CERTAINLY ARE NEVER NEEDED.

To boot, I've yet to see someone come to me that is actually doing things properly. If you aren't losing weight, it's usually not your body. It's what you're doing. Not always. But usually.

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SLOW MOTION IS BETTER THAN NO MOTION

No fear, no distractions…. The ability to let that which does not matter truly slide

To quote you, with all due respect, I did not just make the world more stupid. Maybe my comparison was a bit large and grand scale but I was trying to get the point across. I was hoping that since you were all hyped up about taking these things that you'd be dumb enough to believe anything you heard. And I think I'm a bit more taken aback that you have looked at research about such things and you still think that anyone who is warning you against them is complete bullshit. Did you ever think that maybe ppl here don't want you to jeopardize your health? That maybe we're throwing out ideas that are risk free when diet pills, OTC or prescribed by a doctor, are never risk free? About four years ago I took Hydroxycut with a friend of mine in college and I was honestly ripped on the amount of caffeine and had trouble sleeping. Not a side effect of everyone but some I'm sure. And if your immune system is screwed up and you need at least 12 hours of sleep, I'm afraid that starting to take pills like Stackers is going to affect how much you want to sleep. Also I am very aware that alcohol is more dangerous than most drugs... legal and illegal. But in the end you will do what you want and reading this entire thread you have only been nice to those ppl who are telling you what you want to hear, which is rude. It's a shame when someone honestly tries to help you and you go all postal on them because you disagree to the point of insulting them.

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I took a Nutrition, Exercise and Energy Metabolism course in University. One section talked about all types of weight loss pills. We actually got into the "medical" ingredients, which physiological pathways they are supposed to affect, and looked at some empirical, published studies conducted on the pills vs placebos.

When we got to ephedra, specificall the ECA stack, we looked at the different pathways that each of the components (ephedra, caffine and aspirin) are supposed to work on. Basically the ephedra speeds up your SNS (your "fight and flight", heart-rate increasing system) while caffine and aspirin block the PNS (the "rest and digest", heart-rate decreasing system). End effect, increased heart rate and decreased ability for your body to reset your heart rate to normal. Side effects of increasing SNS, decreased appetite. Why? Evolutionarily it wouldn't have benefitted our ancestors to get really hungry while running from a lion.

After learning the physiological principles of the ECA stack, we looked at case studies that resulted in the ban of ephedra. (Mostly) inactive, over weight people already predisposed to heart disease and hypertension, taking ephedra in various forms to lose weight. Of course, they were having heart attacks, strokes etc. But they were predisposed to those conditions. Looking at a study using ECA and young, healthy 20-30year old males, resting heart rate, on average, increased about 20bpm from an average of 70 to an average of 90. 90, while considered above average, isn't dangerous. But these males had healthy hearts, and no predisposing heart conditions.

Next, we looked at a few weight loss studies involving the stack. On average, people lost more weight than those taking the placebo. Even on a very calorie restricted diet (1000cals +/- 200cals) people were still losing weight. Basically they concluded that ECA does induce weight loss by increasing BMR. We didn't look at anything regarding long term use of the stack (the studies we looked at lasted about 6 weeks), or weight change after termination of the stack.

The science does point to ECA being an effective weight loss aid. But it is dangerous in certain populations.

So, that christmas, I thought why not? I was a fairly healthy person so I wasn't too worried about the side effects some experienced. I ordered ephedra (you can still get it online, disguised as asthma medication) and did the whole stack, while eating not a whole lot. My justification was "nothing else is working". Looking back, BULLSHIT nothing else was working! I was eating too much, not exercising enough. Period. Anyways, the "recommended dose" for the ECA stack is 3x day. So I started. First of all, I couldn't sleep anymore. And I took my last round at about 5 in the evening. Still had me going a mile a minute at 12. I didn't want to eat much, but I was having horrible heart burn that I get when I don't eat enough. I was gittery, all the time. And not the "I have so much energy I can't sit still". I definetly would plunk my butt in front of the TV, but I would sit there and shake. I didn't have an increased desire to work out, or use that extra energy productively. I couldn't focus, literally. I'd try to read emails, and my eyes would go in and out of focus. It was as if, like my hands shaking, my eyes couldn't stay in one spot for long. I could only handle it for 6 days. I lost 3 pounds in those 6 days. Did I change shape? No, so I doubt it was fat loss. Would I have lost weight/fat if I had stuck with it? Probably. Would I have put it back on after I stopped it? Probably. Like I said, I didn't increase my time the the gym, or eat healthy, just less. Nothing to indicate long term, lifestyle changes.

You, if you're healthy to begin with, probably aren't going to have a heart attack while doing a stack. Are you going to feel good while taking it? Who knows. All I know, from personal experience, I felt like shit while taking it for less than a week. I feel 100x better hitting the gym hard, and eating a yummy spinach and shrimp salad after. As Steve (sort of) said, there is a proper use for thermogenics (like ephedra) which some people do. I am far from qualified to make a judgement of what "proper use" is, as I have no experience and don't know of anyone who has encorporated them into a proper routine.

Conclusion: ECA stack isn't necessarily going to cause heart attacks and other adverse, acute health problems in healthy populations. Studies indicated that it will induce weight loss. But, in most cases, it is a lazy cop-out for people not willing to put in hard work into their weight loss. And I would guess, as with most quick fixes and fad diets, once the person stops using the stack, the weight will return.

Sorry this got so long I hope at least some of it was informative.

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First of all, thanks for all the replies! I a