EMISGOD’s BodyBlog

Update first:

I’m back, nearly fully recovered, except for a nagging sort left wrist, which I am able to work around usually. Today, I started on the ISS NO and tomorrow will start on the Satur8 Rush pre-workout, as well as the Universal Animal Nitro. I will probably switch flavors of ON Whey also (2 more to go, then I’m out and onto something that hopefully tastes good). I never get tired of saying that I have yet to find an NO product that works, but I would be very happy to say that the ISS does…we’ll see at the end of next month.
I’m not going to do full reviews on these products and didn’t have all of them tested by the time I did the last post (and forgot some of them), so here goes a few more:

Universal Nutrition Real Gains: I got sample packs of Strawberry, Vanilla and Chocolate. The Chocolate tasted excellent, the Vanilla decent and the Strawberry pretty much awful. Strawberry is a pretty hard flavor to do well, I think.  None of these flavors mixed well in my shaker cup and the Vanilla in particular clumped badly.

GNC Ultra-Mega Gold: I used this for years, both with and without iron and even tried the liquid formula. I had to toss most of the liquid formula, because it kept making me sick. The tablets were better, but even those gave me faint to pronounced nausea at times. They definitely cut down on being sick, though.

GNC Ultra-Mega Green: I tried these, but they made me more sick than the Gold and despite all the goodies in them, I felt Iy performed much less well in the gym on them.

GNC Mega Man: The big ingredient here appears to be Vitamin B. It is just as easy to buy the Ultra-Mega Gold, get all the add-ons and just take additional B-Complex vitamins, which I did and which worked every bit as well. These also require taking more pills, are more expensive and do not last anywhere near as long.

MHP Activite: I really enjoyed these, as they were the first "performance" vitamin in a long while that did not make me feel nauseous. Despite having a chalky appearance, they also were easy to swallow. The downside for me was having to take 4 tabs, the fact that these break apart easily (constantly had broken tabs in the bottle and don’t bite down even slightly on these, EVER) and that they’re slightly expensive.

Higher Power Multi-XS: These are capsules instead of tablets, easy to swallow and so far, seem to be about what I was looking for in a multi. I will come back to these for more commentary at a later date.

Natural Balance Cobra: Never had any sexual problems, but the bottle caught my eye and I decided to see how far over the top into the arena of wild-eyed and sex-crazed I could get. Sadly, this proved to be a complete waste of money as there was no difference in arousal when on the pills and when not on the pills.

Prince of Peace Ginseng shooters: I am not a responder to ginseng in powdered form, at least not that I have ever detected, but I thought I would try it at the behest of my friend, former GNC manager, who felt it would increase my "energy". This tasted disgusting and did nothing for my energy or performance, in the gym or otherwise.

As I mentioned last post, I have a few samples I wanted to clear off my desk and the intervening weeks between creatine products (SizeOn last month, ISS Satur8 Rush next month) seemed like a good time, especially as I’m taking the next week and a half off. So, here then are those promised mini-reviews:

Eightball KE shots. Both the orange and the berry taste pretty good, but in terms of effects, both were undetectable, which is a good word to describe my interaction with Eightball’s entire line, to this point.

FSI Nutrition Clear Creatine. I’m a big fan of effervescent creatine, as I like the fact that it dissolves and if it’s FSI, it tastes pretty good also. I didn’t notice any particular effects one way or another, aside from a slight increase in energy during the workout after I took one of the samples.

Controlled Labs Purple Wraath and Green Magnitude. I addressed both in another thread, but for the record, not a fan of how PW mixes or tastes. GM does both of those things much better. Slight increase in energy during workout, though the combination gave me the runs for the rest of the day. I may wind up trying one or both of these again later.

Fusion Nutrition FUBAR. This is one of the most interesting things I’ve taken. Both times I took it, I felt no direct effect, but the workouts after I took it, I was never wanting for energy, except at the very end of the one with the Controlled Labs products. It is VERY unusual for me to go through an entire workout without feeling gassed at some point or other, but it never happened under FUBAR. I really need to test this more, but it seems to work very subtly, behind the scenes. I like more overt effects personally, but I really like the cessation of energy flagging aspect of this.

Fusion Nutrition Purple-K. My favorite thing about this is the convenience. This is much easier than trying to mix up yet another powder. Again, no direct effect immediately after taking it, but I have noticed a strength increase this week I’ve been taking it and I definitely can detect a more "full" feeling, particularly in my upper body, which was not the case with any of the other creatines. I didn’t weigh myself or take measurements before or after (it’s a ****ing week), but I definitely will be looking into this one further.

I didn’t get to the Nitrobolic or the 2Pumped or Super TEST and probably won’t either until 2007 sometime or possibly not at all.

Honestly, right now, the two supplement companies impressing me most at the moment are MAN Sports and Fusion Nutrition and I am going to be leaning heavily on them next year, after I run through the supplements I have here now. I need to find a better whey than ON and probably will be looking at either Higher Power or Dymatize there. I’m also going to be testing Higher Power’s multi-vitamin next month, but I’ve been very, very happy with MHP’s Activite and depending on how the HP goes, might wind up switching back, even though I really like less pills than the 4 per day for Activite.

I still have a few more here and there I want to test, but I plan on having this finalized by the end of January because come April, I want to be dialed in as far as supps, so I can lock and load and just concentrate all focus on the workouts.

The idea for this week and next week is to clear out some of these samples I was given from this year’s Olympia as well as a few that some of the great reps here have sent me…I have tried out FSI Creatine Edge (good), Eightball Black Betas (undetectable) and Core MRP (not so good, in fact, almost awful) already.

On tap is Eightball’s KE drinks, Fusion’s FUBAR energy and Purple-K creatine pills, FSI’s Clear Creatine, possibly Vyotech’s Nitrobolic, though that one is very back burner, Controlled Labs’s Purple Wraath and Green Magnitude and Beast 2Pumped and Super TEST. I also intend to resume Scorch from Wednesday to Friday of next week.
I am taking the week of the 20th OFF, starting next Friday night, so that leaves 4 workouts from here to there. 2 of them are for Back, which is coming along, but still lagging considerably in comparison. I REALLY have to bring that up or I can’t compete, bottom line. Next month will focus on nothing but bringing Back up.

I also have been re-thinking going back to cutting and the timing thereof. I’m still researching which contest will be my debut, but I have at least another month to decide, so I’m sitting on it for now. I originally planned to start a moderate cut at the start of April, then take a week off to rest the adrenals and go straight into a hardcore cut with 6 weeks on, 2 off, 6 on, but I may start it sooner, depending on how the bulk goes. Originally, I had intended to gain 1 lb. a week for as long as I could, but things have gotten screwy with the cold I acquired 2 weeks ago, so I basically have to resume, almost 3 weeks from now, from a point behind where I expected to be by now. Anyway, I will resume cutting again definitely if I hit 250, but will start taking a harder look at it at 240.

It’s funny, everybody bitches about cutting and how hard it is, but bulking has been and continues to be several thousand times more difficult, probably because I have a hard time eating a lot often. I am too used to much smaller meals. Part of it is also the cold, but the first part of the Mass Build program, aside from the workouts, has been steadily blowing. I am extremely disappointed in my progress at the moment, despite using considerably higher weights. Reload coming in 2.5 weeks and it’s there to which I look forward…

I wrote up a little review for this. Feel free to check it out if interested in the Product Reviews arena.

I updated all my stats today. I will be working through whatever samples I have from the Olympia for the next week and change, taking OFF from 11/17 through probably 11/28, then starting with the ISS Satur8 Rush/NO stack, though I may start that one day earlier…

I will probably comment with my thoughts on the various samples from the Olympia here, if I remember to write down what they are…it is hard for me to form an impression from only a sample or two, unless it is particularly good or bad, which most aren’t. I also got some more Redline RTDs, in case the AMP stops working, but I won’t get to that until after the holiday…