Need energy boost advice

[artisan]

For about the past 6 months I have been training consistently, and I will be continuing for quite some time.
Right now, I'm about 5'9 and 1/2 and about 160 lbs. I'm not sure about BF% but i'de imagine it to be somewhere in the 14-19% range. I'de like to get down to something like 150 or so, lose some bf%, then start a clean bulk.
I hate feeling sluggish at the gym, and have tried some stimulants before lifting, and I love the boost they give me, but have been careful not to become dependant on them.
Probably going to order some thermocin, but has anyone had any experience taking this product and going to college fulltime? Does it help? Hinder?
Any info would be appretiated, thanks.

[mickyjune26]

I don't have experience with supplements.

What do your meals consist of, starting from breakfast, all the way up to lifting time?

[jdeity]

For about the past 6 months I have been training consistently, and I will be continuing for quite some time.
Right now, I'm about 5'9 and 1/2 and about 160 lbs. I'm not sure about BF% but i'de imagine it to be somewhere in the 14-19% range. I'de like to get down to something like 150 or so, lose some bf%, then start a clean bulk.
I hate feeling sluggish at the gym, and have tried some stimulants before lifting, and I love the boost they give me, but have been careful not to become dependant on them.
Probably going to order some thermocin, but has anyone had any experience taking this product and going to college fulltime? Does it help? Hinder?
Any info would be appretiated, thanks.

Out of curiousity, what have you done in the past 6 months? Have you been cutting? What was your starting weight?

I know you probably don't want to hear my opinion, but at your stats (~14-19% bodyfat, 5'9.5", and weighing 160), and given that summer's over, but why not just start bulking now?

You love stimulants before lifting, and are careful not to become dependent. Good. But what's your question? It sounds like you already use stimulants and know how they affect you, are you just asking if anyone's specifically taken thermocin while in college? For what it's worth, I found diet pills to be pretty useful while doing full time college / full time work / sports / lifting. Not quite sure I would've been able to handle the loads I did (not weight, the amount of stuff in a day) w/o stimulants.

[artisan]

Diet:
On days when i work:
Wake up- Fruits to get metabolism going
12pm- 30 min break- Usually eat 2 peaces whole wheat bread w/ ham or turkey
Then some baby carrots or fruit
Dinner- Pretty Much whatever my dad cooks- Usually has alot of carbs, veggies, fruits afterwords if i get hungry
Training is usually done before dinner, right after work.
Days when i dont work-
Wake up- Eat some fruits to get me going
Train
Usually eat two peices of whole wheat bread with tuna
OR
Cook 2 poached eggs on and english muffin
Maybe some fruit or baby carrots
Dinner (same as above)

Sometimes I randomly eat late at night because i usually am up late.. too random too even post though
Sometimes I will have a cup of coffee before i train
I always am drinking ALOT of water
Probably drink alcohol right now (usually mixed drinks, i try to make them lo cal) around 3-4 nights a week, will probably be the same or a little less during school.

I know the diet isnt the best, but it has been keeping me satisfied. I'm going to start adding protein to my diet during bulk.

Before i started training i was probably 170 lbs, no muscle.

Jdiety: What stims have you tried? I'm thinking thermocin would probably be alot better for me than nitor at this point.

EDIT: I guess you could call what ive been doing cutting, but pretty much ive just been developing a routine, gaining knowledge, getting proper form, and trying to get as much strength that i can while not putting on any BF

[mickyjune26]

my only suggestion would be to get some complex carbs (bowl of oatmeal or 4 slices of whole wheat bread) in your system 2 - 3 hours before you train. I'm not an expert of loading carbs for morning sessions.

I also sip on a water/dextrose mix during my workout, to replace any blood sugars lost during the lifts.

[cphafner]

your diet needs some major overhauling. Read the stickies in the nutrition section. Drinking 3-4 times a week will hamper gains.

[jdeity]

I also sip on a water/dextrose mix during my workout, to replace any blood sugars lost during the lifts.

I did the same (well, a whey/dextrose/creatine mixture I made) - although I read somewhere that it's not really replacing blood sugar as we think it is - hopefully someone else (cphafner :clap: ) could elaborate a little on that.


your diet needs some major overhauling. Read the stickies in the nutrition section. Drinking 3-4 times a week will hamper gains.

quoted for truth.

Regarding the drinking, you didn't specify quantities - if you're talking about college binge drinking, that type of thing done regularly will seriously hurt your gains, it messes with nutrients, testosterone levels, sleep, etc. Alcohol is just bad all around for gains if abused.

[Sensei]

Diet and sleep will fix this, unless, of course, you have some medical condition... Eat well and sleep well. I'm totally serious...

[jdeity]

Fruits to get metabolism going
Just as an fyi, it's not 'getting your metabolism going'. Your body will metabolize the food you put in it, and metabolism rates will be correlated to total calories ingested.




I know the diet isnt the best, but it has been keeping me satisfied.
Diet is soooo important that it's right up there with your training. It's sad seeing so many people bust ass in the gym, and find little/no results, because when they leave the gym their sleep/food habits suck, or they drink too much booze, etc.



Jdiety: What stims have you tried? I'm thinking thermocin would probably be alot better for me than nitor at this point.
For all intents and purposes, any that you could name, barring some of the exotic stuff that nobody's ever seen in real life, I've tried at least a couple times.

[jdeity]

Diet and sleep will fix this, unless, of course, you have some medical condition... Eat well and sleep well. I'm totally serious...
I dunno, I definitely think he can boost his energy through the means you meant, and I agree he should do so - but it seems his question was more oriented towards actual stimulant products.

[Sensei]

Yeah, clearly... My point was he should start w. diet and sleep, but whatever.

[jdeity]

okay I get it. Definitely sleep/diet need to be in place

your diet needs some major overhauling. Read the stickies in the nutrition section. Drinking 3-4 times a week will hamper gains.


quoted for truth.


I totally agreed with you, I was just trying to answer his question specifically. I'm not trying to downplay the importance of sleep/diet by any means.

[artisan]

Will be fixing diet shortly. Living in an off campus apt. this year coming up. I will be eating 5-6 meals a day the correct way.
I realize drinking will hinder gains. I can live with that in the short term, I will eventually outgrow drinking. In the meantime, I just don't think ide be a happy person if i didnt drink to have some of those kinds of memories while im still young.
Ill prolly just pickup some thermocin for when i go back.
Thanks for the help all

[jdeity]

With booze, (someone please correct me if they know more specific stuff here) drinking a ton and getting trashed is what's really going to hurt you, not having a few drinks. You'll still be able to have fun getting a strong buzz, but my general understanding of booze interfering with bodybuilding is that it's more the level of trashed, than total volume consumed. I guess what I mean is that having 7 drinks on friday night is worse than having 1 drink every night of the week. Having 6 drinks on friday night is MORE than twice as bad than 3 drinks.
(anyone who can better explain the effect binge drinking has on testosterone levels plz plz jump in and explain better than I did :) )

[Trevor M.]

I did the same (well, a whey/dextrose/creatine mixture I made) - although I read somewhere that it's not really replacing blood sugar as we think it is - hopefully someone else (cphafner :clap: ) could elaborate a little on that.


There are quite a large number of studies that show benefit from supplementation with a carbohydrate solution during intense exercise. for example, carbohydrate feeding. The respiratory exchange ratio was unchanged by the glucose feeding. Fatigue was postponed by carbohydrate feeding in 7 of the 10 subjects. This effect appeared to be mediated by prevention of hypoglycemia in only two subjects. The exercise time to fatigue for the 10 subjects averaged 134 +/- 6 min (mean +/- SE) without and 157 +/- 5 min with carbohydrate feeding (P less than 0.01).


You don't "replace" blood sugar. Essentially exogenous supplementation of high GI carbs help maintain blood glucose levels. As well as while doing that helps "preserves" muscle glycogen stores among many other benefits.

Two very important aspect to carbohydrate supplementation. Is never supplement with a high GI carb approximately an hour before exercise. Research shows very large negative impacts on performance likely due to rebound hypoglycemia along with other problems. Secondly, there is no benefit, only negatives, from supplementation while enduring a low intensity or short duration event.

[Trevor M.]

With booze, (someone please correct me if they know more specific stuff here) drinking a ton and getting trashed is what's really going to hurt you, not having a few drinks. You'll still be able to have fun getting a strong buzz, but my general understanding of booze interfering with bodybuilding is that it's more the level of trashed, than total volume consumed. I guess what I mean is that having 7 drinks on friday night is worse than having 1 drink every night of the week. Having 6 drinks on friday night is MORE than twice as bad than 3 drinks.
(anyone who can better explain the effect binge drinking has on testosterone levels plz plz jump in and explain better than I did :) )

I am not quite sure here as I have not done much research into the matter. But, from the little reading I have done it mostly has to do with alcohols affect on sleep patterns. Basically, it disrupts the body's natural sleep rhythm (the way it cycles through sleep stages) which indirectly and negatively impacts testosterone levels the follow day.

Like I said, I have never done much reading into the matter so I can not say for sure that's why.

[jdeity]

I am not quite sure here as I have not done much research into the matter. But, from the little reading I have done it mostly has to do with alcohols affect on sleep patterns. Basically, it disrupts the body's natural sleep rhythm (the way it cycles through sleep stages) which indirectly and negatively impacts testosterone levels the follow day.

Like I said, I have never done much reading into the matter so I can not say for sure that's why.
It's actually days, and the changes are pretty significant (based on what I read). I'm gonna poke around where I think I read that to try and find something more concrete.

[Trevor M.]

It's actually days, and the changes are pretty significant (based on what I read). I'm gonna poke around where I think I read that to try and find something more concrete.

Cool, be sure to post it up when you find it.

[jdeity]

(all measurements are based on raw ethanol consumption)



"In young adult male humans, 1.5mg/kg disrupted the nocturnal rhythm of GH secretion in all subjects, as well as decreasing overall release by 30% ( 28 )"

"1g/kg almost completely inhibited the nocturnal rise in growth hormone levels, while a mere .5mg/kg resulted in levels 1/3 that of control ( 29 ). "

"Ethanol exerts its hypogonadic effects through several direct and indirect mechanisms. The primary mechanism is through direct suppression of leydig cell functions, either through a direct toxic effect (including reduction of LH receptors) ( 47,48 ), free radical activity -- selenium was found to ameliorate ethanol induced testosterone suppression ( 49 ), through reductions of 3beta-HSD (this is the enzyme that converts androstenediol to testosterone as well as DHEA to androstenedione) ( 50 ), 17beta-HSD (converts androstenedione to testosterone) ( 51 ), and 17,20 lysase (converts progesterone to androstenedione) ( 50 ), and through depletion of NADPH generating enzymes -- NADPH is a cofactor utilized in many steps of steroidogenesis ( 52 ), and ethanol administration has been shown to result in a decrease in the enzymes responsible for the generation of NADPH ( 53, 54 ).

Ethanol has also been shown to decrease LH releasing hormone at the hypothalamus ( 55 ), to decrease LH release at the pituitary ( 56 ), as well as to inhibit betaLH mRNA in vitro ( 57 ). This could be mediated by endogenous opiates as they are known to be increased by ethanol, and opiate antagonists have been shown to increase LH release as well as to block ethanol induced testosterone suppression at the testicular level ( 58 ). "



This is from a report written by par deus, I'm not too sure about who he is. Here's a link to the actual (well, a copied version) report/analysis (googling 'par deus' and 'alcohol and you' wasn't giving me much, and I'm not going to link to the bodybuilding.com site, won't do it :smoke: ).

http://www.bluelight.ru/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=173684&r=21

(it's the most comprehensive look at alcohol for bodybuilders I've ever seen. On the link I provided, it's pretty long. I found the entire read good, but if you want the meat and potatoes (the stuff I just copied into this post) that's all in post #3 of that thread. It flows like this:
post 1: introduction to alcohol
post 2: references for post #1
post 3: alcohol's effects on the body (relative to bodybuilders)
post 4: references for post #3)

(I'm not gonna bother posting the references for what I quoted as you'll find them all in post 4 of that link if needed).

[jdeity]

(should note that I only copied small parts, and specifically test/GH related (maybe igf stuff too). There's tons more in there about sleep patterns, calories from ethanol, etc etc etc)

[Trevor M.]

Very nice finds, Jd. Thanks!

[Trevor M.]

BTW, I got your pm however I cannot respond due to there blocked right now. To answer your question though. Yes, I'm a new member. I have had an account here before. Thanks for the compliment, Always nice when someone thinks you know your ****.

[jdeity]

no problem - I think it's a good read for anyone who lifts and drinks, especially those who think it's barely going to affect them.

[jdeity]

BTW, I got your pm however I cannot respond due to there blocked right now. To answer your question though. Yes, I'm a new member. I have had an account here before. Thanks for the compliment, Always nice when someone thinks you know your ****.

Then you're not new!! LOL but yeah it's good to have more people answering questions (seems there's been a heavy influx of people coming to ask questions relative to people coming to answer them).

[Trevor M.]

Then you're not new!! LOL but yeah it's good to have more people answering questions (seems there's been a heavy influx of people coming to ask questions relative to people coming to answer them).

Lmao, I mean't Havn'NT. I have NOT had an account here before...

[jdeity]

aha k!

[mickyjune26]

One note about consuming drinks during the routine:
I used to mix whey and dextrose, sipping during the workout, but something about the protein during the workout made me tired. Maybe it was just me.

Now I sip on my first 30 g of dextrose during the workout. When i'm into my last 15-20 minutes of the workout, I add the remaining dextrose and whey together, adding as my "post-workout" shake.

I do not yet know enough to understand the reasoning behind this. In this case, I am the stupid.

:withstupi

[jdeity]

One note about consuming drinks during the routine:
I used to mix whey and dextrose, sipping during the workout, but something about the protein during the workout made me tired. Maybe it was just me.

Now I sip on my first 30 g of dextrose during the workout. When i'm into my last 15-20 minutes of the workout, I add the remaining dextrose and whey together, adding as my "post-workout" shake.

I do not yet know enough to understand the reasoning behind this. In this case, I am the stupid.

:withstupi
That's pretty similar to what I'd do. I'd mix up strawberry whey with gatorade (disgusting, I know... sometimes I'd even do it with chocolate), not in too large amounts, and I'd start sipping it maybe 10 minutes before the workout, and sip that (and sip water) during the workout. Before the workout would always be a big meal with lots of carbs/protein (low GI carbs) maybe an hour or so beforehand. After the workout, it would either be a bigger gatorade/whey shake, or sometimes just milk/weightgainer (started doing that when I was becoming less convinced of the benefits of high GI postworkout).

[Holto]

One note about consuming drinks during the routine:
I used to mix whey and dextrose, sipping during the workout, but something about the protein during the workout made me tired. Maybe it was just me.

Now I sip on my first 30 g of dextrose during the workout. When i'm into my last 15-20 minutes of the workout, I add the remaining dextrose and whey together, adding as my "post-workout" shake.

I do not yet know enough to understand the reasoning behind this. In this case, I am the stupid.

:withstupi

Adrenaline severely blunts the insulin response. When I do drink some carbs during a session I wait until I've done my first heavy set.

[mickyjune26]

another vote for what Holto said.

[artisan]

One more question..
I've been reading about this stuff non stop lately.
Seems like an EC stack might be something i would want to try.
I know where there are now limits for ephedrine sales in the US, but wheres a good place that i can order this stuff (both?) or a place locally i can go to purchase them(this would probably be easier)

[sharkall2003]

Gas station/convenient store.

[cphafner]

I am not quite sure here as I have not done much research into the matter. But, from the little reading I have done it mostly has to do with alcohols affect on sleep patterns. Basically, it disrupts the body's natural sleep rhythm (the way it cycles through sleep stages) which indirectly and negatively impacts testosterone levels the follow day.

Like I said, I have never done much reading into the matter so I can not say for sure that's why.

It also hampers protein synthesis, lowers test levels, and causes dehydration.

[jdeity]

and hampers gh release, increases cortisol, contributes calories (well, that one seems to be an area of uncertainty whether ethanol calories are counted or not). Check out the link I posted in page 1 of this thread for all your alcohol concerns!