I exercise in the morning on an empty stomach six days a week. I'm
5'11", 180 LB and my goal is to lose weight and tone lean muscle, but
not to gain big mass. Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday are weight
lifting days. I lift fairly intensely for 40 minutes (plus 10-15
minutes for a short cardio warm up and stretching). I do 12 supersets,
working antagonistic muscle groups, so it's actually 24 sets. On
Wednesday and Saturday I do 40 minutes of cardio and a few ab
workouts. After every workout, I take a recommended dosage of Endurox
R4 as a recovery aid. I'm beginning to wonder whether this is actually
to any benefit, or if I'm just needlessly adding a liquid meal of
carbohydrates. I guess my question is: Is a 40-60 minute workout in
the morning long enough to warrant taking this relatively expensive
and high-calorie supplement? Or is
the product more beneficial for endurance exercise - like intense
biking or sprinting?

Dear friend,
Allow me to comment...
In my opinion, you would be better off eating well balanced natural
snacks that are fresh and wholesome and carefully proportioned, than
processed supplements. Some of those supplements contain artificial
sweetners like Aspartame, NutraSweet, Equal, Splenda and others. If
you do a search of these on Internet, you can turn up a LOT of
information that suggests these can damage your physiology, even as
you are trying to get fit. Many of the references are "anecdotal" (ie,
first hand stories from people writing in), but there are also some
well written professionals who have written about negative effects.
You should definitely check the ingrediants lable, and if it contains
Artificial Sweetners, you should do research on it, before accepting
it as OK.
   Also, allow me to suggest a good Fitness book I bought some years
ago... The U.S. Army Total Fitness Program     It's kind of a
Readers-Digest-Condensed-version of what US ARMY thought about total
fitness around 1986.  They have a really good diet plan in there thats
healthy and safe and lets you eat a wide variety of healthy safe
wholesome foods. They also have a good 8-week shapeup plan that lays a
framework for how you can really mix up your workout to include full
spectrum of exercises......

You want to lose weight and are taking a carbohydrate supplement?

For you  - and me -  a one hour workout may seem like a big effort,
but for someone doing physical work all day, the energy expended by
you is no big thing, and not for your body that was designed for
physical work.  You are just giving it a concentrated dose of a
fraction of what it is designed for.

Experiment.  Do your typical weight lifting exercise, followed by
Endurox.  Note how your body feels the next day.  Wait until fully
recovered, then do a typical weight lifting exercies but don't use
Endurox.  The next day, note how your body feels and compare it to how
it felt when you used Endurox.  Repeat for your other typical
workouts.  If you're not seeing any difference in recovery, then you
don't need the suppliment.

I've been using Endurox R4 since I saw the article in Outside in May
2001 http://outside.away.com/magazine/200105/200105body4.html  I do my
sport to the point of exhaustion, and the effect Endurox has on me the
next is dramatic.