Legal Stimulants, Antidepressants and Appetite Suppressants

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What have you tried that worked?

What have you read or been told works?

I have used inostol someties it is too week for me.

I have tried ephedra/mahuang it makes me irritable and gives me headaches and chills.

Well, as far as specific experience, I've got little, but a bit of knowledge. So far the only adaptogens I've used are Korean Ginseng and Rhodiola Rosea, and Rhodiola seems the best. Rhodiola I managed to spend 12 hours cleaning my room. It was sweet. And it's not stimmy like caffeine, very "clean." I took it as root powder with strong tea in a crockpot for 12+ hours, cheapest, but most annoying way to take herbs, buy the herbs and make a slow brew tea in a crockpot with them. Pills are a lot more convenient.

But, a class of herbs you should look into is adaptogens. They're things like ginseng and the like. Basically allow your body to adapt to stress, either physical or mental, some are more "stimmy" than others, lots of different mechanisms of action. Rhodiola Rosea, Cordyceps, etc, are some ones to look at, and ginseng is stupid easy to get ahold of, too, I especially wanna try Siberian ginseng, as it supposedly doesn't raise blood pressure like Korean.

Other drugs, and these are actual drugs, are nootropics. Piracetam would be one to start with. They seem to be as close as possible to an actual cure for mental problems as it comes. In Russia, they're used a lot to improve mental function for recovering alcoholics. They're real drugs, approved in most of the world, just not in America for the most part. The closest thing we're getting here is Modifinil, which is legal to buy OTC here as Adrifinil, and there's been a ton of news stories on this drug, it's used by fighter pilots and the like. The brand name here is Provigil.

For legal stims, I've tried synephrine and got a bad headache, so that's out. One thing you could possibly try is methylhexeamine (sp? maybe google DMAA) it's more or less quasi legal, FDA's forced some people to stop selling products containing it‚ but the chemical itself is not banned. The stuff is pretty powerful though.

Some nutritional strategies you may wanna try. Up vitamin C intake, I'd start 3g a day, your body needs it to make adrenaline. B vitamins, especially b5 help, too. I've not noticed much from taking Vitamin D, but I do notice I feel bettter after being in the sun. Magnesium is SUPER important, and most of us are running deficient, unfortunately good magnesium supplements cost a bit, but I felt awesome taking one of my dad's more expensive ones. Sometimes introducing a bit of sat fats/cholesterol in the diet helps, too, as your body needs cholesterol to make hormones. Obviously general nutritional rules apply, lots of veggies and fruit are good, too.

That's kinda all for now, besides nutrition, most of those things are sorta stopgaps. You usually either need to balance/change things in your life, or you may have an underlying illness you don't know about. For me, I had an infection, and didn't know it until recently, I was having all kinds of crazy food cravings, and feeling tired all the time, finally went and got it checked out, and yeah... BUT, until you can diagnose/fix the issues, yeah... And sometimes herbs fix stuff, but most of the time with any medicine, or problem for that matter, you gotta know what you're fighting. Then you can apply solutions, and many times herbs are a viable solution. But, you're not exactly meant to need stimulants and the like to function, you know? So that's the one caveat.

I got more info on some prohormone herbs/supps if you're interested, but my phone sucks so I can't make as long of a post as I'd have wanted.

Wow lots of info. Thank you. I guess when I do take vitamin C I do feel a bit better. Rhodiola seems good to try.

Regarding nootropics and depression, be careful. It's often suggested to take the 'racetams with a choline supplement, but choline supplements can sometimes cause or worsen depression. And it's possible that the 'racetams themselves could cause or worsen depression.

Sometimes, "better" in one sense (cognitive functioning) does not mean "better" in another (mood). I.e. Elavil (old antidepressant, but a very effective one (but lots of side effects)) actually improves mood while at the same time impairing cognitive functioning.

Inostol didn't have an affect on me but it's possible my dosage was too low; some who say it helps take 12+ grams a day. I tried 5htp & St.John's Wort & they made me more emotionally sensitive; I felt like crying sometimes. I had that affect on antidepressants too thou; my depression didn't get better till I quit taking them so maybe my brain chemistry is more abnormal than most. I also tried Skullcap in the liquid form where you mix a few drops with water & it didn't have much of any affect on me till I had taken a lot of drops in a short amount of time & then it had a paradoxical affect of making me hyper.

I don't want to derail this thread too much but I zone out sometimes & have problems focusing & paying attention that may be a little worse because of the medication I'm on; I'm taking Buspar for anxiety, Neurontin for OCD, & Advodart for male pattern baldness. I also feel tired some & would like to lose some weight but I'm not very concerned about my weight; I'm more concerned about my hair loss. I'm currently taking C, fishoil, Evening Primrose oil. & 2 different multis; one's a Men's formula & the other is a Green veggie type. Does anyone have any suggestions

Well, neurontin has side effects of fatigue and weight gain. So, you may wanna look into getting off it or getting a lower dose, again, up to your doctor and you and all that, but yeah. But you could try getting off it for a bit just to eliminate a variable in the equation, so to speak. I do know it has to be tapered off, so you can't just not take it for a week and see what happens.

EDIT: A quick Google search said hair loss is a side effect of Buspar. Not common, but it happens.

So... there you go.

Thanx 1000Knives but I was overweight & fatigued some before I started it. It's possible it could be contributing/making it worse thou. Neurontin is the only med I tried that's helped my OCD without mental affects of being a lot more tired or feeling out of it so I think the benefit of Neurontin outweighs those possible side-effects at this dose but I'm going to consider increasing it anytime soon. I'd rather find other ways to deal with those things like being more active, getting more sleep for example which I have been trying some but need to be more focused on it. Do you have any ideas about vitamins or supplements or something else

Well, huh, I've *read* a lot. Right now I'm my own human gueana pig. Fighting some infections currently, I think due to my house being infested with fleas.

Well, how's your diet? Do you cook what you eat yourself, for the most part? If not, gotta do that. As far as that goes, there's lots of sorta trend diets around, but I think the key is balance. You can tweak things in certain directions with diet mods, but going for extremes on the diet scale (ie, vegan, paleo nazi, ketogenic, raw food , super low carb) doesn't really work too well. I think it's best to look at more traditional ethnic diets and work from there. I noticed me and wheat, I'm not allergic, but it's not a good carb source for me, I feel tired after eating a lot of it. I find my best carb source brown rice, I especially love making California rolls. I'm a bit heavier than I want to be (by like 10-15lbs) but my metabolism is pretty good. One thing I suffer from is I'm very caffeine dependent, so I'm trying now to cut down, I cut from energy drinks to coffee, now I'm trying to get down to tea. Excessive caffeine use really screws you up.

As far as supps, basically all I can recommend is what I said above. For other herbs, I like Astragalus and Goji Berries.

As far as exercise goes, I've said this on here, but it's very hard to just exercise for the sake of exercising. You gotta find something you like doing, usually a sport. And then, if you like doing it enough, you'll be sad when you miss doing it, rather than looking at it as a chore. That, and once you pick your activity, you can shape your fitness goals around it, rather than just having vague goals. The only caveat is, you still have to remember to keep being healthy in the balance (one thing I feel I've erred in.) IE, extreme examples of unhealthy devotion to their activities are like, 300+lb bodybuilders and powerlifters. Cool, but unhealthy. Lastly, as far as a "jump" to get you started exercising, you can easily get some with excess caffeine intake, but... don't. Stick to adaptogenic herbs for that, your body won't really get addicted to them.

Sleep is an issue for me, I feel it's mostly my surroundings. My mother and sister don't go to bed until 5-7am, and don't wake up until the afternoon. But, when I'm alone, suddenly my sleep is quite normal, hell, when I didn't have my phone (no reception in Vermont, so thus nobody calling) I'd be asleep at like 8PM.

Caffeine used to speed up my heart rate, but not anymore.
I drank some coffee once a few weeks ago, and got so high I lost a pants size overnight.
I also thought I was going to die, but I digress....

Strattera (ADD med) seemed to make me store way fewer calories, but it didn't help me lose weight after it had been gained.
Phentermine (weight loss med) made me lose 100+ lbs about a year ago.

I'm vegan, personally (but that's an ethical philosophy, not a diet) and also avoid carbs as much as possible. I do count calories, but I mainly just avoid carbs like the plague, and that's been very helpful.

Too bad fen-phen isn't legal anymore. Yeah, some had heart troubles on it, but many lost alot of weight.

I've used a ton of supplements and I don't remember every ingredient but here is a selection:

Hot-Rox Extreme from Biotest
Feels almost like a legal form of speed, after taking 2 pills you get a warm feeling in your whole body and your are really hyper (provided you aren't highly tolerant of stimulants). It contains Yohimbine which works as a Alpha 2 receptor antagonist which helps with getting rid of stubborn fat deposits. It also contains raspberry extracts that supposedly aid fat loss.

Ripped Freak by Pharmafreak.
Feels like a less potent version of Hot-Rox, but without the massive crash. I'm still not convinced this works at all, despite losing 20 lbs while on it, because of also running a Carb-nite diet protocol. Contains rapsberry extracts, and a host of other supposedly natural fat loss extracts.

Nanox Androx Q-12.
Contains among others fenugreek, black pepper extracts and other testosterone boosting ingredients. I have noticed an increase in lean mass since I started taking it, combined with that I now need to shave twice a day, get more acne, body hair and my libido is off the charts.

Bupropion. Helped tremendously with depression and ADHD.