Posts tagged supplements
arfabear
Thank you! Here are shots of my legs for the last three months; while smaller, they’re definitely more defined. I kinda like it :D
The absolute best pre-workout drink I’ve ever tried is Mesomorph by APS. The energy and pump you get from mesomorph is far more intense than any other pre-workout drink. Perhaps because it contains a stimulant similar to meth, and thats why Amazon.com no longer sells it.
If you can’t find Mesomorph, my next favourite stimulant/NO-boosting/pre-workout drink is Jack3D.
If you’re having trouble sleeping or can’t take stimulants (like me), try Hyper Shock by Myogenix. Same skin-tingly pumps and NO-boost without keeping me awake till 4am.
Regarding ethical dilemmas with sports supplements/steroids, I highly recommend watching the documentary Bigger Stronger Faster ($2 rental on Amazon, free on Netflix). The supplement industry in America is not regulated, so we often have fringe products like Mesomorph that contain meth-like substances, pre-anabolic supplements that the liver converts into weak steroids, or (more commonly) products that don’t work at all. There are only a handful of substances that actually have medically-researched results.
Creatine, Whey, some NO-boosters, BCAAs…when taken correctly, these legal supplements improve recovery time, muscle growth, and increase strength. Is it really unethical to use supplements that are available to everyone? Nope.
Steroids are very powerful drugs; they can reverse injuries, cut recovery for burn victims by 90%, aid with muscle growth, and increase white blood cell count for HIV+ folks. Completely unethical in professional sports, but I’d be lying if I wouldn’t want to watch an all-steroid olympics or World’s Strongest Man competition. My personal stance on steroids is that they can be very helpful when used responsibly.
I am not someone who would use steroids responsibly. I’ve spent much of my life romanticising steroids as a way to grow free from my skinny body. I don’t consider myself someone with an addictive personality, but knowing how my BDD works, if I started a cycle I would not stop. Moreover, because of my high blood pressure and cholesterol, I’m exactly the sort of person you would hear about in the news overdosing on steroids and dying of a heart attack.
The temptation is overwhelming, but the health risks for an at-risk person like me will always keep steroids a fantasy.
I’ve had a few folks ask me for an outline of my current training routine, from sleep, supplements, protein, to the workout. This routine is suitable for folks who want to lose fat without sacrificing muscle in their weight loss, or for people that want to simply maintain. This regimen has worked so well for cutting fat while maintaining muscle, that I’m going to try using it when I bulk by adding more calories and a complex carb like quinoa.
This is a pretty rough overview of my daily routine. (Sundays excluded, because thats cheat day). I have only been doing this routine for the last three weeks and can’t fully vet it yet, but initial results have been promising.
The Daily Routine
- 10:00pm - 08:00am: sleep (goal is 8-10hrs)
- 08:00am - 08:30am: breakfast superfood shake, AEG stack
- 11:00am - 11:30am: eat lunch, protein shake, AEG Stack, Animal Pack Daily Vitamin
- 01:00pm - 02:00pm: gym (read about my new workout here)
- 02:00pm - 02:10pm: post workout shake
- 04:30pm - 04:45pm: eat meal, protein shake, AEG Stack
- 08:00pm - 08:45pm: eat dinner, protein shake
- 09:45pm - 10:00pm: bedtime shake, AEG Stack
- 10:00pm - 08:00am: sleep (goal is 8-10hrs)
Diet Guide
My cutting diet is a traditional carb-restrictive diet:
- No simple carbs (breads, corn, fruit, rice, etc)
- No fruit (it’s important to emphasize this, but we can have not-sweet fruits like tomatoes and avocado)
- No milk, soda, or juice. Ever. No exceptions. (Fructose and HFCS cause the body to produce albumin, which binds to testosterone and makes it inert)
- No artificial sweeteners. They’re worse for you than the real thing. (Put down that diet snapple tea, pup)
I follow this carb-restrictive diet Monday through Saturday, where Sunday is cheat day. Cheat day is this glorious day where I am required to eat carbs and junk food till I feel sick. (Photos from previous cheat days here and here). It’s important to do cheat day to prevent your body from going into starvation mode, slowing down your metabolism and making your body cling to fat. Binging on carbs after restricting yourself from them triggers a cascade of hormones; your hypothalamus is happier, your thyroid is happy, you make more testosterone, and your metabolism stays high. (Note that you can’t just binge on carbs all the time, this metabolic response only happens after carb fasting).
I’m also trying to get more probiotic rich foods (like kombucha, kraut, kim chi, etc) into my diet because of the numerous benefits they provide for weight loss, muscle gain, and keeping you happy.
Supplement Legend
Breakfast Shake
The recipe for my superfood breakfast shake can be found here. I’ve started adding a cup of frozen spinach to my breakfast shake as spinach is high in lipoyllysine which has been found to increase GLUT4 transport of nutrients to surface muscle tissue. (This means more of the food you eat becomes muscle instead of being stored as fat).
Normal Protein Shakes
My protein shake is a combination of 70g Optimum Whey Protein, 10g L-Glutamine, 15g Creatine Monohydrate, and 10g BCAA.
Bedtime Shake
Sleep is a fasting period of 8-10 hours, so it’s important to eat a protein that is not so quickly digested. Pup introduced me to Casein Whey and I now use that for my bedtime shakes. It’s disgusting tasting.
Daily Vitamin
I take the Animal Pack Daily Vitamin with a meal each morning. The can says you should take two, but that seems unnecessary.
AEG Stack
Based on Timothy Ferris’ alternative to the Ephedra Stack (PAGG), the AEG Stack is an interesting combination of three supplements:
- 500mg Alpha Lipoic Acid: ALA is pretty amazing, it’s a powerful antioxidant, free-radical hunter, it recycles vitamin C and E, and removes toxic metals from the body (mostly iron and mercury). But for our purposes, the most interesting thing ALA does is it acts as a nutrient partitioning agent, directing glucose preferentially to muscle tissue and away from fat tissue in people who exercise. (Source). In short, ALA diverts nutrients to your muscle tissue while starving your fat cells.
- 400mg EGCg: is the active ingredient in Green Tea that increases your resting metabolism 4-6%. It also decreases GLUT4 transport of nutrients to fat cells and causes fat apoptosis. Fat cells commit suicide when you take EGCg. Reducing the overall number of fat cells (instead of just decreasing their size) will prevent you from rebounding when you go off diet.
- 600mg Garlicin: This 2003 study took two groups on a high carb diet, one was given a high allicin supplement. After 3 weeks, those taking the allicin supplement did not gain weight, compared to those without the supplement that did gain weight. I couldn’t find the method of action for allicin and preventing fat gain, but Timothy Ferris says it worked for him, so I’m taking it too.
spencestar
You want Waxy Maize.
My powerlifter friends turned me onto this supplement when I was just starting out and could get my calories up to meet the cardio I was doing each day. It’s a by-product of corn processing and is practically all carbs and calories.
It’s extremely cheap and very good at putting on weight. Just mix it into your protein shakes or take with juice when you wake up.
Anonymous
There are two families of protein powder:
- Animal based (eg, whey, egg whites, beef)
- Plant based (eg, soy, quinoa, hemp)
This is a big over-simplification, but proteins are made up of amino acids, and depending on the source of your protein, the amino acids will vary. The more amino acids available, the more your body can build with them…either fixing wounds, growing new hair, skin, or big new muscles.
Animal proteins have the most amino acid complete profile.
Plant proteins generally don’t have all the amino acids needed to complete a profile. (This is why vegetarians and vegans have to use food combinations to get a complete amino acid profile and stay healthy). There are two plant proteins I’m familiar with that have mostly complete amino acid profiles: soy and quinoa.
However, men should not supplement too much soy protein because it will aromatase into estrogen and the resulting hormone imbalance will actually make you lose muscle.
There are blends of different types of plant proteins. But the only reason you should consider supplementing with plant protein is if it’s better for your health. Whey is considerably cheaper compared to plant protein blends.
You can also make your own plant-based alternative protein blend for amino acid completeness. Take equal parts brown rice protein, hemp protein, and pea protein. It’s much lighter than whey protein and just as amino acid complete. But it can be more expensive. And usually tastes bad.
Anonymous
I’m not really sure how much I spend on supplements right now, but it’s a lot. Bodybuilding is an expensive hobby.
The supplement industry is rife with misleading marketing and false promises of rapid gains. There are only a few supplements worth investing in:
Whey Protein
My favourite these days is Optimum Nutrition 100% Whey Gold Standard. It has the best Cholesterol/Protein/Carb ratio for it’s price point and mixes very well (super important). Optimum Nutrition also has the most honest labeling. After reading some scary Consumer Reports and an exhaustive test of protein powders on Reddit, I made the switch. Some of the cheaper protein powders don’t actually have as much protein as they’re advertising, or use fillers that have lead in them. Besides being poisonous, lead will make your gains slower.
Creatine Monohydrate
Unlike protein powder, almost all Creatine is the same, so just get the cheapest you can find. Just make sure it’s Creatine Monohydrate, and not one of the many permutations of Creatine. These variants are advertised as working faster or not making you feel bloated (isn’t that the point?), but my personal experience is that they work just as well as the much cheaper Monohydrate version.
Daily Vitamin
This goes without saying, but you must have a daily vitamin in your supplement regimen. The most complete vitamin pack I’ve found is from Animal. The dosing says two packs a day, but one is enough if you’re eating a complete diet.
When I was taking two packs a day, it turned my sweat yellow, and I sweat in my sleep, so after a week there was a yellow outline the size of my body in my white bed sheets.
So embarrassing.
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