Possible? No, I do not intake caffeine regularly.
I can drink a can of Shooter and pass out, no problem.
I’ve had a couple redbulls before and if anything, I simply get jittery and weird heart palpitations but NOT energy. What gives? Something wrong with my liver processing the caffeine?
Anyone else get like this? I am thinking of doing a liver detox: 3 weeks of pure, tart cranberry (4 oz a day) with 2-3x the maintenance dose of a good milk thistle extract. Not sure if that will help.
It’s a tolerance thing. Most of those people who chug cans of red bull have coffee every morning, then go to starbucks on the way home from school/work and get a quintuplegrosscreamyshit (I think that’s the translation to english for chai-latte) with a triple dose of caffeine.
Try a bag of green tea for stimulation. That’s brewed… don’t eat the leaves/powder. Ick. Maybe use two, two gives me headaches and makes me feel sort of faint/overstimulated though.
I have to switch up what I use because I develop tolerance pretty quickly. In college I’d pop some ephedrine tabs with an aspirin and a diet coke a few times a day until eventually I could just take a nap afterwards no problem. These days I’m poppin some MD6’s throughout the day usually with a few cups of coffee -lol. Next month I’ll try something else 
S
Sometimes Spike will hit me just right and I feel like I’m king of the world, but I’d guess 80% of the time it does nothing for me.
I drink 2 cups of java everyday and some green tea every now and then. I’m hardly a caffeine junky, but stimulants just don’t do much for me.
I’m similar to what Stu described. Right now, my morning starts @ 4:30 with 3Hot-Rox, 25mg Yohim. HCL, 50 mg Ephedrine. Mid morning a Spike Shooter, and possibly a coffee or tea. Couple Hot-Rox before afternoon workout.
I have no trouble getting to sleep at night. I usually take a week every 2 months and go cold-turkey, or just drink some tea.
Adaptation is a great attribute, but it sucks sometimes…
I’ve found that my stimulant tolerance has increased despite typically avoiding caffeine. Example, back in college (6 years now) I was taking Stacker 2 (when ephedrine was still legal) and slamming a liter of Mt. Dew before my 9 am economics class, then I’d be back in my room an hour later taking a 2 hour nap. The only side effect, crazy dreams.
Flash forward 6 years. I usually avoid caffeine, no soda, no tea, the occasional red bull on a saturday night and only coffee when I really need to the boost during the work day (once or twice a week, max). I started taking HOT-ROX Extreme about 6 weeks ago and by now I’m completely adjusted to it. Meanwhile I have a buddy who takes one HRX a day in the morning and can barely sleep at night.
Adaptation sucks. I’m cycling off for at least 3 weeks before picking HRX up again.
I would imagine that you are just naturally tolerant to caffeine. It probably has more to do with your CNS than your liver, so the “detox” protocol would be a waste.
I cannot be naturally tolerant if I previously responded to caffeine without any issues.
I don’t believe in natural tolerance of anything. How can you be naturally tolerant of a stimulus you were never exposed to? It’s an oxymoron almost.
[quote]PonceDeLeon wrote:
I cannot be naturally tolerant if I previously responded to caffeine without any issues.
I don’t believe in natural tolerance of anything. How can you be naturally tolerant of a stimulus you were never exposed to? It’s an oxymoron almost.[/quote]
Genetics and enzyme systems.
Some people can rapidly metabolize and excrete compounds faster, and to a greater extent, than others.
You can even eat foods that can change the rate at which you do this (grapefruit, for example.)
This would be my guess Ponce, but you’d have to do some more digging and reading to see if it applies to you.
[quote]PonceDeLeon wrote:
I cannot be naturally tolerant if I previously responded to caffeine without any issues.
I don’t believe in natural tolerance of anything. How can you be naturally tolerant of a stimulus you were never exposed to? It’s an oxymoron almost.[/quote]
Maybe I should have written a naturally higher rate of tolerance to caffeine.
Either way, some people metabolize caffeine much faster, so the effects are less noticeable.
[quote]NewDamage wrote:
Genetics and enzyme systems.
Some people can rapidly metabolize and excrete compounds faster, and to a greater extent, than others.
You can even eat foods that can change the rate at which you do this (grapefruit, for example.)
This would be my guess Ponce, but you’d have to do some more digging and reading to see if it applies to you.[/quote]
You are right. I read somewhere something about the enzymatic process, and distinctly remember “phase 1” being related to caffeine metabolism. I cannot find that literature no matter how hard I try.
My guess that it is an issue with my liver comes from the fact that I had serious liver problems in March of 2006 with my liver. Not sure if there was perm damage but can’t help but think that has something to do with it. Maybe, maybe not.
I’ll try to find the text on the enzymatic processing of caffeine…it was interesting stuff. Thanks for chiming in, NewDamage.
Try drinking a cup of coffee or a Spike Shooter first thing in the morning when you wake up, when you have nothing in your stomach.
If I have food in my belly, caffeine/ stimulants do nothing.
The trick for me is metered moderation.
I make these batches of coffee and green tea. 7 bags of organic Bigelow green tea and a pot size scoop of coffee x 2 so 14 bags of green tea and 2 pots of coffee with enough water for 3 pots. Put it in a ice tea dispenser in the fridge. Lasts a few days for the family.
I drink small 3 ounce cups of this several times throughout the day except pre workout where I’ll drink about 12 - 14 ounces with 25mg of Ephedrine.
The ephedrine is absolutely pre workout only and I train 3 days a week. I have no undue tolerance to either caffeine or ephedrine at all. Same effect every time. I think a lot of people just drink too much caffeine and overdo stimulants generally. That will lead to cns burnout eventually not to mention sometimes extreme tolerance.
Especially with ephedrine. Years ago I was eating the 25mg white crosses like candy, 8 or 10 a day and slept like a baby, no jitters, nothing.