ANS Performance’s “Diablo” Pro-Thermogenic Supplement Review

So my wife handed me ANS Performance’s “Diablo” thermogenic, so I’m hoping she was intending me to write another review instead of merely suggesting I’m getting a little… portly. Since I joined team No Legs and abruptly stopped my cardio, my capacity for burning extraneous fat has certainly gone down. What better way to find out if there is a better way to burn the fat off than by try out what will be my first thermogenic supplement?

Cover to Cover

ANS Performance’s product Diablo is billed as a pro-thermogenic supplement, in that it increases your body’s heat expenditure through “means” (will discuss that with this product in detail when talking about ingredients) which presumably increases fat burning potential. Whether or not this is a powerful fat loss tool or just a marketing gimmick, I will state upfront that I do have a sincere belief that the product can be useful for those working out. I’ll explain in more detail as I continue, first let’s take a look at the cover of the product.

ANS Performance has the product name Diablo blazened on the front with “Pro Thermogenic” along the top, denoting it is an “ultimate fat loss system” (which of course is a statement not evaluated by the FDA). In promotional materials online the fat burning properties of this product are heavily advertised. Some materials online suggest the product is to be taken prior to working out, but the bottle’s directions suggest taking up to 3 scoops over the course of a day starting with breakfast daily. This schedule makes sense if trying to assess its fat burning capacity for a long duration but for the purposes of this review I will be assessing it for its pre-workout qualities.

Ingredients – Flavor & Nutrition

The flavor is definitely lime-like in taste, composed of citric acid, sucralose, a kick of Ace K (acesulfame potassium) and food coloring agents yellow #5 & blue #1. I honestly don’t think the product really needs its bright green complexion to be effective I’ve always personally just been fine with it being whatever color it just is, and I definitely dislike food coloring for its own sake. To say I’d prefer less artifice and more actual lime to be in this mix in here is absolutely an understatement, even if that results in the product not being as crayola green as it is. We have some calcium silicate and silicon dioxide again to keep the mixture dry and mixable and it seems to do fine in that respect, no caking and quick to mix was my experience.

Despite my griping I personally have no big issue with the flavor or taste, it’s fine and the lime-like flavor is a nice wake up.

Ingredients – L-Carnitine L-Tartrate, Choline Bitartrate, Green Coffee bean extract, AdiLase (TM)

The LCLT (L-Carnitine L-Tartrate) is the most prominent ingredient at 500mg and is generally regarded at least in my cursory glance at things to be the lead ingredient to promote the fat burning and muscle recovery promised on the bottle. Generally speaking dosages that I’ve noted as being effective are around 1-2g per day, so as the bottle advises 3 doses of this supplement (which would be 1.5g of LCLT total) is sufficient to get all you should need from this product. So very sensible pick.

Choline Bitartate (250mg) is next in line. Generally speaking I’m in favor of biological elements in supplements that have a net positive impact on the body which is what Choline has, and it being delivered by a salt Bitartate is good. If you do consume the doses multiple times per day as advised, you should find that it may have a net impact on neurotransmission rates by being converted into acetylcholine. The liver might also be happy with a little bit of this stuff. Otherwise though, I’m not convinced at this moment by any compelling reason that this is a strong mover. It makes sense to add it this supplement, and I’m all for it, but I’m not sure the end user of this product gets a lot from this honestly. Supplements are supposed to add things you don’t normally get and while choline comes from various sources taken directly it is a decent thing to add. It’s one of those situations where you don’t really get excited but it does make sense to have included.

I heard green coffee bean extract (150mg) was popularized on Dr. Oz in a manner that suggested it was a fat burner on the league of replacing physical exercise. I think it goes without saying to be skeptical of this claim and that it is entirely possible the little extra chlorogenic acid you might get from this mix is not going to have a substantial health benefit, and I do somewhat think prunes or eggplant might be an equally sufficient source. The manufacturer promotes the green bean extract as an inhibitor of an enzyme that allows glucose to be more available, thus causing the body to draw on other sources more readily (like fat). Whether this is the best ingredient for that end, if this inhibition is anything noteworthy to begin with, or whether it is mostly a marketing thing is honestly indiscernable to me at this time. I do not really object to natural ingredients in supplements but with some thought I think a better one could be found for this.

– AdiLase, a flower extract of the Hemerocallis fulva (ditch lillies), at 125mg is kind of an odd ingredient. I’m not too familiar with this ingredient, I think its increase in use in supplements has to do with tests that show in rats at least that it increases lipolysis, which to the layman just means it helps burn the fat good. Its popularity comes from Asia, where like many other herbs and vegetation it is peddled as a curative medicine. ANS says it is for those people who struggle to lose fat with “typical” high stimulant fat burners and that this can help “low responding” fat storage cells. Assuming this is in fact the case just on the face of it, I’m not sure 125mg 3 times a day will have any noticable impact on changing the way the user’s body decides what fat storage to take from as it burns fats during activity.

Again while I had some gripes, these primary ingredients are fine.

Ingredients – DIABLO INFERNO COMPLEX (!!!)

This extremely named mix is only 212mg, so lets go over it. Caffeine Anhydrous, which I assume is around 125-150mg of this mix (personal guesstimate) is the primary stimulant here. I’m going to be honest, since the rest of the list is kind of long and I doubt it even adds up to 100mg of material I’m going to just throw random comments here and there about what I see on it: 1) Hordenine for CNS stimulation, good but likely not in this bottle at the 25mg dose it probably should be (unsure without an exact list but it is last on the list which generally denotes it is the least included ingredient even below the various plant extracts) 2) Lots of plant extracts some for stimulation some for increasing that heat factor, if you are going to throw in extracts of plants this is what I like, a big mix of various things for all sorts of effects 3) B-Phenylethylamine HCI which I think is great for mood and focus and I think this should be regarded as standard for a stimulant mix.

Workout Results

Well the workout in question did happen on a very cold morning, it was probably 25 degrees out and my home gym is poorly insulated so it was probably 40 degrees. It didn’t help that the workout was early and I also sleep in a poorly insulated part of the house, so to say a thermogenic supplement would be welcome here is an understatement.

Now I believe to be fair to a supplement we have to remember nearly all supplements are meant to have a noticable but negligable effect on training. They are the cherry on the top, not the whole sundae. Usually I take my supplement 5 minutes before I head down to start working out, but I focus on having my more focused part of my lifting morning around 20-30 minutes when I usually experience the best part of the feels from the actual preworkout. Just so I could judge this I did take the supplement on its own, which honestly the stimulant factor of the supplement leaves room to stack it with another preworkout if you like, depending on your tolerance of caffeine.

Now I’m really unsure if this is genetic or whatnot, but I sweat like a pig – not like the expression implies but more like real life in that I don’t sweat hardly at all. I have had heavy face drenched workouts but usually this happens only in warm weather where the sheer heat and humidity around me is driving it moreso than my own body’s inclination to sweat. I always kind of chaulked this up to my Native American background although I’m unsure if genetics have much to do with it. However with relatively little warming up, I did start to feel warmer than usual which was incredibly welcome in this workout given how cold it was. After 10 minutes of the workout I felt fully warmed up and ditched the hoodie which is a notable thing to say in a poorly insulated Pittsburgh basement in the middle of winter. I did not have that extra heavy sweat that people do sometimes talk about when taking good thermogenics, but again I am just not predisposed to sweat much while working out.

Now I’m still on the fence about this supplement. I don’t personally see myself taking 3 doses a day as I’m not really inclined usually to take supplements for anything other than preworkout purposes (unless you’re talking about creatine which I’ll take daily so long as true nutrition keeps shipping me some free with various orders). That said I definitely liked Diablo and would recommend people try it to find out for themselves if its good. While I am critical a bit of the product’s full ingredients page, some things might be there to market some things just to hype, I’m happy overall with the supplement and think if you did use it at the recommended dosage you would probably notice some difference in your overall training as far as losing fat. Perhaps not the “ultimate” fat burning capability is promotes but at least a good one.

So would try again and would suggest to others, but I would not invest any time into hyping this product. If using as a preworkout consider stacking it with another stimulant of your preference after you try it once or twice on its own.