I started a "biggest loser" type weight loss contest at work and it begins tomorrow. To prevent myself from losing to kids that just decide to starve themselves and fry off slabs of muscle too, I'm running the show with a digital bodyfat scale to measure only fat loss. While I realize that these things aren't terribly accurate, it should be close enough to make some decent assumptions over the course of 2 months. Seeing that there's a nice chunk of change going to the winner, I'm in it to win it (and just to prove to myself that I can crush my competition in this arena).

Here's my game plan: Go back on my modified low carb/carb cycling approach using every other meal as flax seed oil + whey for convenience. Macros will provide for maintenance cals on training days with ~75 g carbs, and about a 350 cal deficit on non-training days with 25-50 carbs. Carbs will only be pre-workout (maybe PWO on leg day). Fasted AM cardio will be used to speed up the process, as will intervals. I'm going to start out month 1 with hypertrophy style training and then ramp it up month two and swap back to McDougal's crack style training. Training will be 4 days a week, cardio will be 5 days. (I can only do about 4 weeks of the crack training before my system stops adapting)

Supplementation:
SyntheSIZE - throughout. I think the benefits of Synthesize far outweigh any negatives of cutting with Creatine
Anabolic Pump - With carb meals
Dialene 4 - I have a bottle lying around that I'm going to use up in month 1
Acetyl-L-Carnitine - 1.2g 2x/day with Dialene-4 (ALCAR gets me mentally ready to lift...I love it)
DCP - for month 2
Fish Oil - 5g/day
ZMA - bedtime
Now ADAM men's multi
Barlean's Omega Men Flax Seed Oil - 2 servings/day

I also have Waxy Maize Starch, Sesamin, Green Tea Extract, Bulk CEE, Yohimbine Caps, and a few other goodies lying around that I may or may not use depending on progress

Here's some pretty recent starting pics... I probably have about 2 more pounds of fat on me at this time.

25 y/o (not for much longer) 5'11" - 178 lbs.

Oh yeah...If you guys have any suggestions, any help, I'd appreciate it...especially with some scratch$$ on the line!

Pslin is currently on sale at NP for 24 bucks.

I'd get some MPI to go w/the flax instead of whey.Whey is bollocks in comparison to MPI for LBM retention whilst dieting,unless you're drinking it hourly.

I would definitely use Sesamin and GTE from the start as I think they're staples,along with fat loss benefit.

You can use NAC (500mg on an empty stomach 2xED) to eliminate the hindered fat oxidation from the creatine in SyntheSIZE.It is actually included in SyntheSIZE to begin with (mostly for other reasons I believe ) but I like to hedge my bets as its best absorbed on an empty stomach opposed to taking it at a meal w/SyntheSIZE.

Also,dose some Sesamin before the crack head w/o's to liberate FFA for oxidation.

I'd consider replacing flax with fish oil completely due to flax's estrogenic properties and he fact that it takes twice the flax to equal the same bioavailable fish oil. A havoc clone would be useful.

Where are your calories?

I didn't break down calories exactly, but its about 1800 on non WO days and 2100-2200 on training days.

W/O Days
4 meals during the day spaced 3 hrs. apart: P/F/C: 35/15/0-5
Pre Workout: 30-45g carbs via an Apple or a low GI carb source (oats, whole grain cereal, etc.) + SyntheSIZE
Post Workout: 40g whey + 30-45g carbs (the carbs are optional in this one)
Pre Bed: Casein or Cottage Cheese and PB or Flax (35:15:0-5)

non-w/o days I drop the carbs pre-workout and just have a "dinner" meal with 40:5:30

I can break it down further if you'd like. I was going with flax instead of straight fish oil simply because I thought fish oil + sesamin + DCP might be a little too much ppar agonization in one shot. Plus, I'd be at 30+ grams of fish oil a day, and not that it's a terrible thing, but it's a bit high for my tastes.

I agree with you Colin...will run Sesamin throughout, but only at night. It saps my energy during the day and when I'm on reduced cals I'd prefer to have good workout intensity vs. increased fat oxidation. Oh yeah, forgot to mention that I have a full bottle of Rebound XT laying around. Not sure if I'll use that at all. As for a Havoc clone...no go. I'm still not back to baseline after my summer run of that and I'm not willing to mess with "the boys" again.

IIRC you posted that Rebound XT or Activate increased appetite like hell while you were cutting.This quickly turned into a lean-esque bulk b/c you were compelled to eat a shit ton of food in the middle of the night,or something along those lines.

I'm thinking about playing around with the NHA stack but of this is an issue I won't touch it.If it is just one of the two that causes the hunger then I might be game.

Have you used them stand alone to figure this out?

The more I think about it the more I think using 25mg clomid and ropping all test boosters,PH's or AAS is pretty much the way to go.That in conjunction with basics like beta alanine,cit malate,SyntheSIZE,Sesathin,fish oil and NAC would keep test high/nutrient partitioining high while avoiding the price tags of excessive cycles (read:clomid is cheap as balls) as well as hair loss,gyno.

When you wanted to cut weight add quickly add in GPA (with an uncoupler,DNP would be best),while dropping the SyntheSIZE b/c of countereffects.

Salvia mitz is also something I like (apparently should be cycled though,in 2 month spurts) for liver health,anti-fat gain.

Just a few thoughts,this is what i will almost certainly go with after I get rid of my gyno,via either epiostioniol or proviron,o/w I'd be clomid now.

Yeah, I should probably run some clomid to get myself back to normal. My last set of bloodwork showed mild shutdown. And yeah, it was the Activate that was causing me to get ravenously hungry. I had run RXT standalone for a month before that with no issues other than some joint dryness.

hmmm.... RAS manipulation?? Great opportunity.

Jake...please elaborate. I'm not really familiar with this side of things. I would love to get myself back on track WRT hormone profile and then I'm never touching anything hormonal again.

Day 1:
Ate super clean but ended up missing 1 of the daytime meals due to an unscheduled emergency case that I had to cover for work. Had a decent back workout and did 30 mins. of post-workout cardio right at the low-intensity/cardio threshold.

I've now been back on Anabolic Pump for about 3 days and I remember why I loved this stuff in the first place. Pumps like this make workouts fun.
Adding in double dose of Sesamin with pre-bed meal and I'll take it from there. I don't want any lethargy issues arising, so pre-bed only for now.

Didn't get to weigh in for the baseline values/contest start today, but I will for sure tomorrow morning. Weight & BF% as per scale to follow.

EDIT: Weighed in this morning 1/15/08

177.2 lbs
18% BF in the "Normal" mode. I usually use "Athletic" mode and it puts me closer to the 15% mark. Oh well, I'm probably higher than that anyway.

I'm in to watch...I would also sub out the flax for fish oil.

Damn, another naysayer on the flax? How estrogenic is this stuff? Since I dropped $22 bucks on this bottle, I'm going to run it until it's done. After that I will switch to high dose fish oil. It's more convenient anyway since I can just pop a handful of caps in my bag rather than measuring out the oil.

DSade, what's the ETA on that Lipoderm Stick applicator product? I want that for month 2.

Jesus Christ, dude. Are you kidding!? How recent are those pics?

Pics are from the first week in December @ 175, but I'm only +2.5 lbs. from then. Why? You think lower?

I don't think flax is estrogenic. Well, it is, but the theory is that the phytoestrogens in it are weak and bind to receptors, essentially "clogging them up" so that estrogen can't bind to them. BB'ers have used flax in the past to treat gyno (not sure how successful this ever was).

I think you are certainly less than 18 and I also think 15 would be pushing it as well... Unless... Where do you carry your weight? It looks like you carry your's on your lower stomach as do I. But you could be walking about on some tree stumps and I just can't tell.

FLax is a waste IMHO because it tastes awful, it's 1/2 as bioavailable as fish oil and it's meant for the same thing. I think taking large amounts of it would be estrogenic as would soy or any of it's isoflavons. I think these are grossly over looked. I think it's been stated on here that you CAN find soy protein that doesn't have those isoflavans but shouldn't be touched as the current state. For a natural athlete you need all the test you can get. I wouldn't give any up for something easily substituted with almonds or fish oil.

Well then, chalk up another one to the fish over flax team. I get it, I get it. Flax is out, fish is in. Bye bye tiny shred of libido. FWIW I hate soy!

Day 2: 30 mins. fasted AM cardio.

Ate fairly clean but missed another daytime meal due to work demands. Compensated by eating an entire bag of beef jerky immediately after work and then feeling the effects of the preservatives on my system. Blech! Upped carbs to 150-200g on training days so I have something I can cut back on when fat loss stops slowing.

I had an awesome chest/tri/ab workout and called it a night. I also ordered up some P-Slin and more protein from NP. (Sorry for the reqd edit)

The competitors have all weighed in now and I'm fairly certain that my main competition is going to be be the 26 yr. old guy I work with who is 240 lbs. @ 28% BF. He has a solid build and I can see him bulking up and dropping fat quite easily. FWIW he has stated that he's done 2 of these competitions before and crushed everyone. My edge on him will be you guys, supplements, and balls to the wall training and commitment to diet.

don't do fasted cardio. Egg whites or EAAs w/ carnitine thereafter (the cardio). I'd save any thermogenics you have until you stop dropping weight.

I actually happen to like fasted cardio quite a bit. I know both sides of the argument, but I haven't seen muscle loss start becoming an issue until I'm well into the cut. That's when I stop the fasted state action. The thermos are not in the mix for increased thermogenesis...I have them in there for appetite suppression. I am terrible with food control for about the first 2-3 weeks until I get all of the crap food cravings out of my system. Not the ideal way to run things, but again, I know what works for me.

Your input is greatly appreciated though!

With regards to your contest...I find it more accurate to do a 9 site skinfold test + 2 midsection circ's. You can get a general account for VAT loss, and LBM loss/gain this way. Sounds like you already started though.

I just finished one of these contests up, its fun to see the difference between people with no extrinsic motivation vs. the same people with money on the line...it shows you the relationship between capabilities and inconvenience.

People will 'struggle' to drop body fat and blame 19 factors, then I start a contest and dangle some scrilla, and the same person just tripled their fat loss in half the time.

Good luck with this, for yourself that is...you play hard from what I've seen so I'll be looking forward to your progress.

to each is his own. Have you thought about some SEA instead for cravings?

The money involved is certainly more motivating than most other factors for the rest of the crew. I would have done it regardless, but it's always nice to have several people working towards a similar goal. Makes compliance much easier.

I would have liked to have done skin folds as well, but I'm not pinching everybody I work with every 2 weeks for the next 2 months.

And Marc, I did a crack workout yesterday....After I was done and after about 25 mins. of constantly being observed I had a mid-40's guy approach me and ask me if I was still competing. "In what?" I said. He was shocked that I didn't compete in something and told me I needed to take the same intensity I put into my workouts and direct it at something competitive. Just goes to show you that the crack workout is both intimidating and awesome.

Yeah,do this.I defnitely wouldn't just toss the bottle of flax.

Fish oil is the best for body comp by far but the real benefits from epa/dha supplementation don't start to manifest themselves after a bit more than a month.

I second the mention of SEA,however the batch that 1fast currently has in stock has an expiration date of 2/08,last time I looked.

I like this pinolenic acid for its effect on CCK,which is potentiatedvia GTE supplementation:

http://www.vhadc.com/ShoppingCart.asp?ProductCode=SN2034

That's the cheapest I've found it.this site also offers capped salvia:

http://www.vhadc.com/ShoppingCart.asp?ProductCode=SN2034

Fucking sweet.I hate capping salvia mit. because it's so sticky and the smells triggers my gag reflex.
This would also be helpful on a cut,especially with double dose sesamin at your last meal of the day.

Edit:
As far as RAS is concerned,if sesamin makes you lethargic,don't bother with any of this.

Not sure about SEA. IIRC you had a thread about this awhile back, but I will have to look into it again. I guess it doesn't matter much if the batch is about to expire though. As for the Salvia, this is in DCP, so I'll get my dose when I start dosing it McDougal style 1cap 5x/day.

With recent supplement purchases @ +$300 for the month, I think I'm about spent for now.

do a search on micardis or telmisartan. Should come up with a shit load from oswaldo.. Studies at least. RAS is the pathway spook originally came up with to manipulate for body recomp. It raises adipo something or other and down regulates lipogenesis. Keeping you rather anabolic. Micardis plus also includes a light dieuretic to prevent water retention. It's had direct studies done to show it's usefulness and I'm a believer in it's utilization in bbing. Some don't agree. I'd siggest taking a look at the literature and coming up with your own opinion.

I guess you could call it hormonal, but not in the same sense as what is traditionally thought of as hormone manipulation.

Day 3: Ate clean, worked late, ended up doing 30 mins. of moderate intensity cardio on the recumbent bike and calling it a day. Ate some shit in the middle of the night. It seems my cravings have returned. Perhaps high volume hypertrophy workout are playing a role in this behavior as well....

Day 4: Clean living across the board. Intended to do a heavy leg set today but my piriformis was not having it. Dropped down for my first set of squats and I felt it freeze up on me. I continued with a much lighter and less intense leg workout followed by a pretty serious stretching and foam rolling session. Holy crap is my left piriformis sore. I wanted to do some cardio but anything involving moving my legs flares it up bad to the point of having trouble sleeping sometimes. Luckily I have some Neurontin around for those nights.

I have the day off of work tomorrow so I'm going to schedule an ART session and see if I can't squeeze a 1 hr. massage in there too. Then I'm going to buy an iPhone and officially join the yuppie tech nerd set.

Nutraplanet order should be here tomorrow! Can't wait to try me some P-Slin before my shoulder/bi/tri workout.

I am expecting my pslin soon, I have been randomly dosing yellowgold (berberine) whenever I can be bothered to little effect, so I wonder how this compares.

Got my NP order in the mail today. I opened it up and saw something taped to my muscle milk pudding box so I thought "Sweet! Free samples!" Little did I realize how tiny the box for P-Slin is. It's only slightly bigger than a 3-pack of Trojans. Anyway, I popped 1.2g of ALCAR and a P-Slin, waited 15 mins. and then downed a low fat bean and rice burrito and a kashi roll bar (total of about 80g carbs I think?). I felt the nice cerebral rush from the ALCAR that I always do, but when I got to the gym it was pure magic. I wasn't really in the mood to lift, but as soon as I did my first set of pulldowns I thought "holy shit that felt light." Especially considering I had already done a heavy back day on Monday. I kept pounding away at back, hit PR's in nearly everything with excellent form, and felt like I couldn't fatigue myself if I tried. If this was a regular back day I wouldn't have been overly impressed, but I could feel that I was still sore from Monday when I first started. The pumps were good too. Nothing retarded or painful, just nice even pumps that made me feel like I was working hard, which I was. Ok, enough about P-Slin. Suffice it to say that I like it a lot.

I will be checkin this deluge thread. Good to hear that the pslin was good for you, I have some on the way too. Did you try anabolic pump or anything like that in the past?

Yeah, I'm a big fan of AP. I ran through 3 bottles last time NP had a sale, took a little break, and now just stocked up on 3 more with this last sale. Funny, I forgot how much I enjoyed this product. Aside from the assistance with carb usage, I really enjoy the pumps it gives me more so than any NO type product.

Things got a bit out of hand with liberal alcohol consumption this weekend, but I managed to get a hold of things yesterday and do a little cardio in an attempt to salvage what was left of the weekend. I went snowboarding all day today and ate clean. Came home from the mountain and hit up a very unenthusiastic shoulder & chest workout and now I am officially spent. I also have some of the worst windburn I can remember and my face is bright red with raccoon eyes from my goggles. Rad.

My poor eating and drinking habits combined with my DCP usage have led to serious bloat. It always gets worse if I eat worse when on DCP. I also know I went overboard because my abs and obliques are sore as hell. Not the muscle, but the adipose tissue covering them....a common side effect of both DCP and Beza usage with me when I go over the edge with calorie intake.

Day 8:

Great day. Started with some stretching and 45 mins. of fasted cardio. Returned to the gym a few hours later to tear it up with the aid of 1.2g ALCAR, P-Slin, and about 80g carbs. Once again my back was already pretty sore from doing quite a bit of rear delt work yesterday which also happened to hit my traps and rhomboids to an appreciable degree. And once again my focus and intensity were through the roof with the addition of the P-Slin. Great weights, great focus + drive, and great pump.

Day 9: Soreness all around. A horrendous sleepness night led to multiple rounds of eating carbs out of sheer boredom. I think I finally fell asleep at 4 AM only to have to wake up for work at 6 AM. Bogus.

1/2 cup of oats with a scoop of whey for breakfast and then no carbs for the rest of the day and a good back workout followed by 15 mins. cardio

Day 10: My upper body feels like a trainwreck. The past few nights I have been waking up with radiating left neck and shoulder pain with numbness in my left middle through pinkie fingers. This is classic bullshit dealing with my anterior shoulder rotation and heavy back days. Heavy back days combined with traps flare it up to no end, temporarily weaken the scap musculature, and allow for what I think is short-term symptoms of thoracic outlet syndrome. This is my diagnosis after 10 years of dealing with it and researching every aspect of my pain, symptoms, and causality.

My diet was spot on today. I'm still carb-less since yesterday morning and I'm going to deplete until the weekend...maybe even until my weigh-in on Monday. I really think getting back on a regular eating schedule of 5-6 meals a day with some solid macros and lots of protein is helping me to regain strength and some of the size I lost in my post-Havoc days. I'm nearly back to my all time max weights from August.

FWIW, I have dropped the Dialene-4 and stims in favor of DCP and Sesa. I'm feeling better without the stims already.

To much caffeine in everything...

so true... I was probably at about 1500 mg of caffeine per day. Seriously.

I used to consume that much, I have been 2 weeks without, I think I am more stimulated and functional now, I started taking Reset AD, and the last 2 days I have woken up before my alarm clock, but that might be due to the 50% cissus I started taking causing me to pee heaps...

Cissus seems to cause to to shed water really fast... pissing 6 times a day.

Makes sense. Doesn't AP have Cissus in it? Whenever I take AP I get thirsty as hell and then pee like crazy. Sometimes out of my hiney. Haha, damn you Anabolic Dump!

It does. I think those dumps are related to berberine, i used to get them but I don't any longer.

I haven't forgotten...just been busy studying for an exam. Now that it's over, on to the deluge.

Weekend update: Ehhhhh...friends in town...drinking Friday night. Ate a shit ton of carbs. Went mountain biking on Saturday and to the gym for some cardio on Sunday. End of transmission.

Monday: Morning cardio was all I could fit in. Ate fairly clean.
Tuesday: Morning back workout. Ate super clean.

Weigh in numero uno was supposed to be Monday, but I haven't been to the office to hop on the scale. My prelim. guesses are 180 lbs. @ 19% for a +2.8 in weight and a +1% in bodyfat. My diet just has not really been in check and neither has my cardio.... we shall see though.

Here is an updated pic from last Thursday. Measurements to come along with weigh in later today.

Day 17
weighed in today - 179.2 @ 18.0% on the digi scale.

Not quite whAt I was going for but I all take it. My strength is up and size is up. I feel strong again. I think the "Blue Up" is finally taking hold as my facial hair is growing rapidly. I received my HPTA support supps from overseas and I will start them Monday and discontinue the test booster.

Also, I tried Deprenyl yesterday @ 2.5 mg two doses split. Super productivity!

EDIT: had a trainer at the gym measure my BF and came in at 13.7% Sounds a bit more realistic.

Hope your deluge is goin ok JD, bring us an update.

Colin can you talk about this mechanism of NAC eliminating hindered fat oxidation from creatine please?

update: I stopped all non essential supps this weekend except for multiv, fish oil, and AP with carb meals. I started my HPTA recovery plan and I am really hoping to see some good results soon.

Diet: I am logging everything i eat now. I thought yesterday was a good day (read "moderate" cals) and it ended up being about 3300 on paper. I'm a notorious mini-snacker I've realized.

Training: enough with hypertrophy already! I need to drop my size king mentality and focus on getting striated. As such, I have started Crack workouts again! Had #1 yesterday followed by some time on the rec. Bike. I was drenched. And, much to my chagrin I awoke on the middle of the night drenched in sweat. Proof positive that I burn up a storm on Marc's program!

Attached is a detailed food log of my day if anyone is interested. This is far from a perfect day for me, but I made do with being stuck in the OR for several hours on end.

Closing in on the end of week 3 here and I feel pretty good. The Crack workouts boost me both mentally and physically. I have noticed a visible drop in water retention from both workouts and stopping DCP usage. I have also noticed that my body seems to adapt faster and faster to the Crack workouts, so I'm wondering what to do to make it more challenging aside from cutting rest intervals and adding jump rope or other plyos in between. Thoughts on this Marc? Perhaps I'm just starting with a more efficient base, having gone through this scenario 2 or 3 times already, my body was never used to that kind of workout before.

Yesterday I registered for an XTerra Triathlon in August, so I will begin training for that in about another week or two. Can't really overprepare for these things and I'm definitely NOT coming from an endurance based background.

obviously not Marc here, but I ripped off his curcuit style and implimented a "super" version of the Crack workout series. Progression with less rest and more jump rope is till involved, but added 3-4 rounds on the first circuit and 3 rounds on the second. Added power cleans, deadlifts, squats, presses, and medicine ball + ab work to crank up intensity. Obviously this is something I do with everyone. So far I've had one female who could handle it. She's 5'0 tall, 120lbs and can dead 225 for a 5 spot. She can powerclean 95 for a set of 3 and can squat 225 for a set of 5 (easily got heavier if we worked specifically on strength)... any how I digress.... add in the 2 extra rounds with jump rope inbetween each exercise and 1 minute rest inbetween rounds. Still shoot for the 10 reps. If this is still too easy your not going heavy enough.

jakeshorts "Die Like Your On Crack" workout.

Ahaha

Well yesterday was just plain retarded. I had a pretty good day diet wise, was running fairly on track, but I had a "victory dinner" at the Capital Grille (a Morton's type chain) for landing a big contract at work. I had planned on splurging here, but things got out of hand quickly. Cal count for dinner tallied out to ~4000 calories in the span of 3 hours. I would list what I ate, but it's rather disgusting now that I look back on it. Let's just say the 20 oz. courvoisier cream topped dry aged sirloin was fantastic.

As such, I was not even hungry at all today. I woke up and still felt ridiculously full. I slugged some SyntheSIZE just to crush the remnants of any alcohol that was in my system and didn't touch a thing until about 4pm, when I had a whey and muscle milk shake.

I took some of Jake's suggestions to heart and modified my Crack workout tonight. Here's what I did:

Part A x2 with no rest between
Overhead Squat
Incline DB Bench Press
BB Split Squat
Bent over rows
Weighted swiss ball torso rotations (I don't know what the hell these things are called really but I get on a small swiss ball and just have my shoulder blades resting on it with the rest of my body parallel to the floor, keeping the core tight. I hold a 25lb. plate out in front of me overhead and rotate to each side, emphasizing the obliques to bring the weight back up. I like them)

rest/setup weights for Part B (2-4 mins. depending on how busy the gym is)

Part B x2 with no rest between

ATG Smith Squats
Decline BB Bench press
Leg Press (VMO focused)
Floor Wipers ala the Gym Jones 300 workout - floor wipers are ended with an isometric BB hold and I generally stack the bar at about 75% of 1RM on this exercise

20 mins. cardio @ low intensity/cardio threshhold

Shower. Rinse. Repeat.

Just made an awesome little dinner consisting of 5 egg beaters, sante fe style rice, and cuban style black beans mixed up with lots of hot sauce. Kept the carbs around 60g on this and fat is ~5g. Not a bad little PWO jobby, though I really don't need carbs for about another month after my monster mess up yesterday

make sure your getting enough fat JD. You don't want to cut it too low. How'd this new set up workout?

Variables I'd suggest -

more round - only 1 minutes rest between

still include one minute jump rope between exercises

side note i could see how going from one exercise to the next might be more intense but you'll alway be weaker. We want as much weight as you can handle.

- I meant between circuits


- yes.