Do you get good results using diuretics in bodybuilding?

I’m not quite sure why you feel best first thing in the morning. Being dehydrated is usually not a condition that results in people feeling well. Perhaps you are simply a morning person, or there’s something in your daily routine that results in you not feeling as well throughout the day? You might want to start evaluating what you do throughout the day and how you feel… perhaps try keeping a log of your daily activities and how you feel?

Diuretics, when prescribed by a physician, are also known as water pills by many people who take them. Some foods can also have a diuretic effect, coffee is my favorite. Diuretics force the body to eliminate water, salt, and sometimes potassium as well, through urine and are used primarily to treat people with high blood pressure, congestive heart failure, and swelling (edema) in tissues. If you lower the volume of water in your body, fluid is less likely to end up in tissues and cause swelling. Since your blood consists of water, lowering the volume of water in your body results in your blood volume decreasing, this, in turn, decreases blood pressure.

I would be very leery about taking a diuretic pill if not prescribed by, and under the supervision of a physician to treat a medical condition. Because diuretics cause you to excrete sodium and potassium, it can result in muscle cramping (remember, both sodium and potassium are involved in muscle contraction), other symptoms such as headaches, dizziness, headaches, increased blood sugar levels, and probably, most disconcerting, heart arrhythmias from an imbalance of potassium and magnesium that could result in cardiac arrest.

Many people look their best first thing in the morning. Something to do with water shifting away from the subcutaneous (under the skin) area and towards the muscle and other organs. Also during the night the body feeds off stored fat and carbs (due to a lack of calorie intake), so by morning, this can make a small but perceptible difference. The other factor is that the fast during sleep may reduce any low-level inflammation that can occur from some food types (but this probably depends upon the person and their diet as to how much of an effect it has).

Anyhow, the first thing that I would say is that you can get very lean without diuretics or drugs. But it is true that many bodybuilders use diuretics before shows and that some fitness models use them before photo shoots also. However, these are potentially dangerous drugs and bodybuilders have died from abusing them.

As far as vascularity, ingredients such as arginine, citrulline, glycerol, red wine, grape extract, pine bark extract, dark chocolate (this one is very good but get the 80% or higher cocoa content version), and various sprays and creams made for bodybuilders can work quite well. Some pre-workout supplements use many of these ingredients but watch out for the ones with 1,3 dimethylamylamine and geranium, as they may have the opposite effect.

Also a good carb depletion followed by a "carb up" or "carb load" really gets the veins out and makes you look fuller and more muscular - see the Fitness Inventor photoshoot - http://blog.fitnessinventor.com/2011/03/13/the-fitnessinventor-com-photoshoot/ - we used these techniques and didn't have to use any drugs to get pretty darn lean (and I'm 43 years old in that picture)!