EMISGOD’s BodyBlog

Starting April 09 of this year, I will be commencing with a cutting program. The week before will be for me to dial down the calories and carbs in the diet for a week, then start adding thermogenics on April 09. April 09 will also see the start of the introduction of cardio and a re-shift of the exercise program.This cut will probably run through the Olympia, which I still harbor hopes of attending.
Training will change. It will be cardio, cardio, lifting, cardio, then Fridays OFF, then lifting, lifting. Each major part will no longer get its own day, excepting Legs. Most likely Chest and Back will share a day and Shoulders/Arms will share a day and those will probably alternate from week to week. Drop sets will make a comeback and the rep range will be pushed higher.
The Cardio itself will be mostly ellipticals and the Air Dyne at first. Once I get things re-arranged, I will probably add in skipping rope and the heavy bag and after the first month or so, I will probably start tacking in the treadmill, unless I feel it possible prior.

Diet-wise, calories will be initially shunted to ~2.5K for the day with 150g or less for the first month from carbs and thereafter go to about 100g a day from carbs. Fats will also be kept decidedly low, initially 75-80g a day or less and then downward after that, depending on how the cut is going. I still intend on holding forth with Orotine for April, until either that or the Black Betas run out. Once they are gone, both will be wiped from the supplement range. I don’t know which thermogenics I will be running yet, but some likely candidates are CEL’s N-Cinerate (since I still have some left from the Log), Biotest Hot Rox Extreme (since I have a bottle of it here), Designer Supplements Melting Point, Omega’s Burn 3-D, both of the last two possibly being stacked with Omega’s Power Jolt, MAN Vaporize + Scorch and a few others currently unknown. I will also continue running Purple Wraath through all workout, cardio or otherwise, though I will probably not be using Body Octane (unless MAN comps me some). For the weekend lifting workouts, I will be using some sort of pre-workout booster, but that will be a rotating cast. I likely will not use any additional boosters for the weekday workout, unless I wind up going back to ISS Satur8 Rush.

April will be the month to try to ease into it and depending on how that goes, I will either immediately jump to full throttle hardcore cutting tactics (possibly before April is out) or I will continue the gradual easement. I need to lose a lot of bodyfat % for many of the shots in the projekt, though I suspect once I drop Orotine and stop holding water, that will come pretty quickly…I am taking a long-range tact when looking at this, though. Ideally, I want to get to 7 or 8% bf and then assess from there. I don’t have specific time frames in mind for the months in that I want to be by x% by ydate or any of that. I will be taking a look at things monthly or so (depending on what I am testing) and then modify diet and cardio accordingly from there. It is worth noting that I have no specific weight goals in mind, though I suspect I should finish somewhere around the 220 range or so…

I have been alluding to this repeatedly in my MAN Body Octane Log, about an projekt I have undertaken which is consuming mass amounts of my free time. That projekt is a full length feature film.

If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to try to do one, you can start by taking a look at how much screen time the credits at the end of a movie take. See all those job titles and all those different people doing them, most of whom do that and just that for a living. Now imagine that same job being done by 1 and a half persons, both of whom are also working full-time jobs concurrently (I am the 1 in that scenario — almost every credit so far is attributed solely to me). I am now in the middle of my 5th consecutive week of 14 - 17 hour days, every day, no days off.

Tonight, for example, in addition to calling more people for equipment, I have to re-write the script because of on location problems, this after spending about 6 hours this last Saturday doing nothing but location scouting, which will probably be repeated this Saturday. This is roughly the 25th re-write because of issues like this. I cleared my desk somewhat yesterday but before that, I had approximately 40 square feet of notes, some of them from Friday, that did not make it into the various contracts, emails and script pages that it was designated for. Additionally, there is still prop procurement and we have to build 2 complete sets from scratch, one of them fairly involved and have all of this done by the time filming starts in 3 weeks.

I don’t mean this to be either a whiny post or a diatribe on movies and how frustrating the details can be without even filming one second, but it obviously is going to impact the bodybuilding (though it has not yet). I clearly cannot reasonably consider competing this year, but I am an artist first, above all other things. Unfortunately, I can’t go into a projekt tentatively, of course, I have to do something of this magnitude. Had I started planning this in October, I would have been considerably better off. However, I didn’t and those 14 - 17 hour days will continue for at least the next two weeks. So, if anyone is thinking I’m not around much (these boards are basically a fun distraction now), that’s why.

Finally, I would not like to discuss the movie in any of my Logs or Review threads, but if anyone has questions or wants to help, please PM me or email my production company at TFGPKW @ gmail.com.

Today, we’re going to talk about a couple of supplements that I have tried, but don’t feel a need for doing a complete review upon. Those are as follows:

MAN CLOUT is the first one. Orotic acid is the one form of creatine I have not gotten to yet, or had not gotten to yet, I guess, when I started this. CLOUT has a lot of additional items in it, such as beta alanine and ALCAR, so I was intrigued, particularly after seeing boyscouT fall in love with it. I had a couple tubs sitting around and decided to try it after I was adjusted to Body Octane. I only lasted a couple days at the full dosage and only 2 weeks at a reduced dosage for a couple reasons. The first was that I in no way want a creatine overdose and all these f*cking PWO drinks seem to want to sprinkle the shit in there everywhere. Second, the taste of this stuff is godawful. There’s just no point in me subjecting myself to this, but I still wanted to try Orotine, so I got some of that instead and sent the CLOUT packing. Very few supplements are so disgusting I can’t bring myself to drink them. This was one.

SAN Bone Boost: Like Osteobolin-C before it, this one contains the new trendy ingredient, cissus. Unlike Osteobolin-C, this one has MSM, glucosamine and condroitin. Like Osteobolin-C, this one had no effect, even through an entire bottle, leading me to conclude that cissus does not do anything. My Left Wrist is still in the same condition, which requires very careful placement on the bar or huge problems. I do not typically have joint problems in general, but noticed absolutely zero difference with the use of this supplement, which makes it an easy one never to bother with again.

IDS Kranker Powder: This is a fairly decent-tasting supplement, mostly caffeine-based, that can provide pre-workout energization. I say "can" because this is easily the most inconsistent supplement I think I’ve ever used. When it works, it works pretty well. When it doesn’t, I may as well have taken nothing at all…or something else, which is what I will be doing in the future.

Today, we’re going to cover a few supplements that I’ve had samples of in the last 2 or 3 months and haven’t commented on here. I probably have discussed them elsewhere on these boards, but I know what a pain it is to search around for various bits of isolated and random wisdom, so I have decided to compile them in these posts. I was "saving" up enough different things to make a post here, which is as follows:

Olympian Labs Osteo-Plex: Despite the fact that the serving size is 4 tablets (and I hate taking pills), I feel this formulation is very, very effective in helping out DOMS. It also introduces none of the slightly nausea that the GNC blend I formerly used sometimes would. For now, I will be keeping this as a PWO staple.

ISS Complete Whey: Vanilla tastes ok, but the chocolate is very good. It is too low in protein for me to consider actively using, but this mixes quite a lot better than the Whey Matrix, for what it’s worth.

FUBAR2: The new formulation works on me nearly identically to the previous incarnation, which is to say, a very slight energy charge and then no dropoff in energy level at all during the actual workout. Since I like to be revved up a lot higher before hitting the gym, this will necessarily have to go in the category of Thermolife Stizm, which is a product that I will likely not find myself ever purchasing, due to ineffectiveness on me.

ISS Re-Satur8: Since I feel this requires the addition of protein in order to be effective, in my opinion, I only used it a couple times. The first time it worked well, the second time, it worked decently, but not at the level of recovery agents at the top of the heap, such as the Designer Supplements Replenish or Xtreme Formulations Relentless + additional protein. This also is a very sweet concoction, which is a bit much for my palate. Finally, it also has the addition of creatine, at around the same level as the Satur8 Rush. Since I have a change in philosophy, which is to avoid pre or post workout products that have heavy levels of creatine, this will not be a suitable alternative for me.

Anabolic Xtreme Stimulant-X: Very moderate energy boost, even at 2 caps. Rather useless, in my opinion and certainly not living up to the hype at all. This had no effect on my workout at all and again is not a product I would or will ever be purchasing.

Applied Nutriceuticals Osteobolin-C: I wound up with a few days worth of the sample, since a great many caps are required to be taken for my bodyweight. This did nothing noticeable in terms of my Left Wrist, but 3 or 4 days is probably not enough time to really tell. I have since started SAN Bone Boost to further test cissus, but so far that product is also a bust.

ISS Satur8 Rush Punch: Works about as well as the Lemonhedz flavor, but tastes much, much worse. I am not a fan of fruit punch as a flavor and will not be entertaining notions of using this flavor of an otherwise fine product ever again.

ANSI Xtreme Shock energy drink: Promising energy you can feel in 15 minutes. 6 and a half hours later, I’m still waiting. Tastes ok, but junk in terms of actual energy.