Well looky here men; it's that time of year again!

[Onyx]

Definitely measure out 25 mg using an electronic scale.

I've had a look for exactly what you need at exactly the right price:

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/500g-x-0-1g-DIGI ... 414cc7818b

It has a tare function (meaning you put your empty measuring tool onto the scale, push tare and the scale goes back to 0, so you can now scoop up whatever you're weighing while keeping it in your measuring tool and still get an exactly accurate amount) which is extremely useful too.

Obviously if you're willing to pay more, you can get something a little more heavy duty with more surface area and larger capacity, but for the price, it's a really decent buy.

[=beast=]

haha onyx. life saver

purchased!

[Onyx]

[Onyx]

I feel like I should note that I upped my dosage of DM today to just under 40mg iirc from around 25mg, and it's amazing how much difference such a small amount is making. It's bloody strong and I don't know if I'd like to exceed this amount at all. I actually feel like it might be unsafe for me to drive to the gym so I'm getting a lift instead.

I also feel it should be noted that I'm only taking DM on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. The reason for this is that I can keep the doses low and maintain maximal effects. Also I won't be taking DM for the last few days of my diet because I feel like it would put my body and internals under wayyy too much stress.

I mix DM with 3 of my Thermonex pills (1 serving), about a gram of Beta Alanine, a couple of grams of Acetyle L-Carnitine into a chocolate WPI shake about 45 mins before a session. The effect of this leaves me super amped to get into the gym and have a good work out.

1 serving of Thermonex contains 250mg of caffeine. It is suggested that you have it with caffeine for a better effect. Well I can certainly vouch for that.
If you're not able to get caffeine from a supplement like I am, I recommend using NoDoz which can be bought from chemists.

On an unrelated note, last night's moment of doubt has prompted me to cut my carb intake back to 50g or less per day from now until the end of my diet.

[Onyx]

Today I started to feel some definite effects of what 50g of carbs or less per day can do to you. Apart from having a bad temper, feeling flat, tired and just drained of energy in general, I also felt the effects of mild hypoglycaemia setting in a couple of times (headspins etc). I've been contemplating ending my diet a day early because I'm looking pretty damn lean already, and I don't know if I can manage much more of this. I've finished my first bottle of Thermonex and I don't plan on using my second one. During water and carb loading phases on diet's, it's been suggested not to use any caffiene supps because it hinders muscle glycogen intake or something which I can't remember exactly what it is right now, but anyways...

On top of all that, I'm **** starving, so that's just making everything seem that much worse/annoying.

On a more positive note, I'm hanging around 69-70kg. This is especially good because I feel like I'm a decent way into being glycogen depleted and that means that less water is being stored in the muscles. For those of you unsure what that means and why it's good, it means that when I carb load during the last day and a half, (apart from looking bigger and better)I should maintain a higher weight than last year, and this is good because I've trained pretty bloody hard this year, and it'd be good to see some results on the scales. I can see them physically anyway, but still... it's good because it's easy for something like that to psych you out.

I've taken Beast's advice and added glutamine to my supplement stack. I can't say that I've really noticed anything yet because it's only been a short while, but my back has recovered, and it's got a lot of legitimate science behind it. I think it's the perfect addition to my personal stack and should've been there a long time ago.

Anyways, I've still been doing a **** tonne of reading and there are a couple of other supplements I wanna try out, but that won't be until I've dropped one or two of the ones I'm on now, I'm off my diet and training properly. And by training properly, I mean I'm going to completely overhaul my routine and diet next year... but I'll leave it at that for now.

More to follow.

[=beast=]

always good to read your updates

all sounds pretty familiar to me. My cutting diet from late nov last year to mid jan this year was the same. Near the end you get pretty cranky cos your starving all the time and each meal is NEVER enough

your also mentally exhausted from being focused like 24/7. My sleep was also pretty bad near the end. That probably added to my crankyness. I wont be going to that extreme unless im doing a competition or something.

anyway, im also doing a new diet and exercise routine when i get back from new york end of january. Past 2 months have been pretty unfocused in terms of my diet. Im not bothered though, you need to take a break from doing it all, or else you'll just give up all together

new diet + trainer once a week (pro body builder, just to keep my motivated) + new gym

also getting paid more with my new job...so probs a more dedicated suppliment routine

[Onyx]

Good to hear!

Yeah I definitely agree that a bad sleeping pattern adds to crankyness. The last 2 days have been a real struggle due to lack of sleep (amongst other things of course), and I'm finding that it's playing with me mentally in a big way.

Can't wait to start carbing up.

[aussie]

Yeah I definitely agree that a bad sleeping pattern adds to crankyness.

Do you think the amount of caffeine you take could be part of the problem?

[wayne19540]

A snip of rum and a hot milk before bed or just the milk.

[Onyx]

Yeah I definitely agree that a bad sleeping pattern adds to crankyness.

Do you think the amount of caffeine you take could be part of the problem?

I had thought of that, and it probably is part of the problem... although not because I'm taking too much of it, but because I've stopped taking it and I'm 'coming down' from it so to speak. For the last 20 odd days of my diet, I've been having around 250mg twice a day and I've felt pretty great, and my sleeping pattern has been fine (I've actually been having more solid sleeps and getting out of bed a lot quicker + earlier than usual). It's only Sunday and today that have hammered me really. Gonna catch an early one tonight and see how I feel tomorrow. Hopefully it's a lot more alert and not as lethargic.

A snip of rum and a hot milk before bed or just the milk.

Cheers Wayne. I don't really like milk, but rum on the other hand...

[D-.]

Sif you don't like milk.

[Onyx]

Only a dash of it in the very occasional tea or coffee. Even druing the year I have all my breakfast cereals with water

On a side note, I'm feeling fantastic today after a long nights sleep!

[Onyx]

Week 7: 68.3 (-7.2 kg)

Really, REALLY happy with my progress in the fat loss department.

This week has been a rather interesting one. I suffered that crash on Sunday and Monday, but Tuesday and today, I've bounced back feeling fantastic again so I'm going to complete the diet on Friday as originally planned, I've decided that next year my training style is going to change completely along with my diet, and finally, I got some electronic body fat calipers to measure my body fat percentage!

Training and diet: While I have put on some muscle this year (Most noticeably in my chest, shoulders and back), I don't feel like it was enough for the amount of time effort I put in. Sure I've gotten some decent strength gains this year (4 reps bench press at 100 kg being a highlight), strength gain does not necessarily mean muscle gain.
Next year I plan to superset a lot more at a much lighter weight. This will help me build a lot more lean muscle in a shorter period of time, and more importantly, reduce the amount of injuries I get. Yeah, this will also reduce my strength a bit, and I will miss being able to leave my mark on the wall in a pissing contest, but if I had to choose between that or improving my physique at a much faster pace and smarter way... well I choose the latter.
As for diet, I'm going to a lot cleaner and a lot more. All these body builders are having 5 meals a day compared to my 3, so I'm gonna give that a shot for a while and see if I benefit from it.

Now, the body fat calipers.

After getting that absolutely ridiculous 13% last week, I knew something was wrong. How can you get such a high reading when you're cut and you've got a clearly visible 6 pack? I put it down to 3 things. 1. It was the wrong kind of test (tape measure, not skin fold). 2. The test result was itself wrong. 3. I needed to do a skin fold test using electronic calipers and then calculate the readings for the most accurate result. Well, I did that this morning. According to the 'Jackson/Pollock 3 Caliper Method' found at http://www.linear-software.com/online.html, I'm at 2.29% Now, I know I'm pretty bloody lean, but I didn't know I was THAT lean. Even if it's out by a couple %, I'm still really happy if it's legitimately under 5%. Either way, can't wait to see what I look like on Friday evening once I've completed my carb up and dehydration!

Week 7 = GREAT SUCCESS!

[discobrad]

Only a dash of it in the very occasional tea or coffee. Even druing the year I have all my breakfast cereals with water

On a side note, I'm feeling fantastic today after a long nights sleep!

dude.....milk is awesome
i drink litres of it a week

[=beast=]

Only a dash of it in the very occasional tea or coffee. Even druing the year I have all my breakfast cereals with water

On a side note, I'm feeling fantastic today after a long nights sleep!

dude.....milk is awesome
i drink litres of it a week

mmm bleach and synthetic vit D