My cutting cycle, thermogenics review, and results

[ncobb707]

Alright, I am wrapping up my first real cutting cycle. Ever since my junior year in high school, I was carrying a little bit of extra body fat. Laziness and bad diet got me as bad as anyone. So starting in Feb of this year I decided to bite down and give it a go to get in shape. I have some before/after pics that I will post to show visual progress, but heres the number stats.

Initial Weight: 193lbs
Initial BF%: ~23%

Ending Weight: 168lbs
Ending BF%: ~12%

Apprx time of cutting cycle 2 months and continuing

Heres the report:
First off, I busted my ass HARD five days a week in the gym. You just cant slack in this regard
Heres my split
day 1 - chest and abs
day 2 - Shoulders and traps
Day 3 - Back and abs
day 4 - quads hams and calves
day 5 - bis tris and traps
These days werent always consecutive, but there were always pretty much the same. Rest days were usually mixed in at the convienence of my schedule

My supps were the following:
Thermogenics (explained in detail below)
Protein shakes/bars
Liver tabs (beware the gaseous side effect)
Tried creatine for a while but dropped it

The cornerstone of my cutting cycle was the diet, as it chould be for anyone looking to cut weight. I set out to eat 5-6 meals daily, I was mainly worried about upping protein to try and keep any muscle that I could as well as lower carb intake. I figured that fats would find their way into the diet through the meat intake as well as some in protein bars. My usual day looked something like this:

Meal one ( this meal was everyday the rest vary from day to day but not old reliable breakfast ):
-Cup raw oatmeal, straight from the cylinder, not the sugared up packets
-Protein shake (I used optimum for a while then moved to syntrax's i****trix)
-2 eggs

Meal Two -
- Usually a protein bar between classes, used Detour, Labrada, EAS, and ANSI

Meal three -
- A protein meal (chick breast, steak, can of tuna etc)
- Small Carb, maybe one piece of bread or a tortilla

Meal four -
- Usually a more substantial version of meal three usual without the carb subsitiuting a vegetable, green beans are a good choice IMO

Meal Five -
- This one was usually at work, so I would try to make it a chick breast or tuna can, but often got substituted for a shake or bar

Meal six -
- I always took a protein shake before bed, often trying to add some cottage cheese for some caesin.

So thats the basic jist of my meals. The one thing I would say to anyone starting out on a cutting diet is to do their best to not get bored with the foods you eat and stay committed. A lot of times I would find myself unsatisfied with the bland food choices that this kind of diet leave you with, but STAY COMMITTED. Find ways to spice it up. A1 on chick or steak is a good low calorie jolt of flavor. Yellow mustard was my saving grace for canned tuna fish, and get expieremental with the spice rack, youd be amazed what you can do to a chicken breast.


Thermogenics (maybe this post should go to the supps forum?)
I will admit, I looked for as many shortcuts as I could in cutting the BF%. I knew I would have to work hard at my diet, but ****, I gotta get some help somewhere. There may be purists out there who say its cheating, but last time I checked, I didnt care about that.
For my cycle, I went with a variation of thermogenics, mostly out of curiosity, all seemed to work fairly well, with their own plus's and minus's, I list them in the chronological order I used them.
NOTE TO ALL THERMO NOVICES -
IMO it is imparitive that you ramp up your dosages of thermogenics. Give your body some time to adjust to the stimulants. You will avoid lots of the unwanted side effects and you will get the same results. You will NOT burn a significantly larger portion of fat by starting off with a full dosage rather than using 4-5 days for your body to acclimate to the stimulant.

Xenadrine RFA -
the reason I got this one was simply because it was the most publicized. But it does work. I started off taking two pills AM with no PM dosage. Then moved to 2/1 then 2/2 then 3/2. I lost a significant amount of weight using Xenadrine, mainly due to the fact that it was the first one I used, being that my BF was the highest since I just started. But I would rate Xenadrine as a good supp for the price, also good because of the amount that you can vary the dosage.

Week off, no thermogenics

Genapharm NYC -
This was easily the worst supp I used throughout my cycle. I bought it because of the raves that NYC got in the form of Apido, so I spent some time looking for an NYC and this is what I came up with. Now let me clarify, I am not saying NYCs dont work, but I will not use them again for one main reason: it is my contention that NYC had an adverse effect on my immune system. Once again, before flaming, let me explain. About 7 days into taking the NYC I started waking up with a sore throat, nothing real serious, just a irratitation, but it would gradually get worse. So after three days of sore throat, I decided to stop the NYC, not because I thought it was the cause, I just stopped becuase I felt like ****. Two days later, no sore throat at all. So I started back on the NYC, boom, in 3 days same sore throat. At this point I still hadnt made the connection, but I stopped the NYC again, and AGAIN, the sore throat goes away. I start it one more time and in 2 days, same sore throat. So by now I had made the connection, I stopped the NYC for the last time and I have not expierenced any sickness since then. Anyone who has any comments or ideas on this situation, not flames, I would be very interested to hear similar expierences or ideas.

Biotest T2 original -
I only took this one for a week, I had also heard rave reviews about this supp. I just didnt take it very long because of a few things, mainly: it doesnt provide any stimulation, I know its not supposed to, but I like the boost that the other give me, especially on a low carb diet, the energy boost is nice. I got a pretty good deal on it, and now theres just a full bottle of T2 sitting on top of my fridge, I might start it again later, maybe not.

Two Weeks off No thermogenics

VPX Liquid Clenbutrx -
This is most definitly the big daddy of the thermogenics. It works, plain and simple. But under ABSOLUTLEY NO CIRCUMSTANCES WOULD I RECOMMEND IT A PERSON WHO HASNT ALREADY ASSESSED THEIR TOLERANCE TO THERMOGENICS, and by no circumstances, I mean none, zero, zip, nada, comprendo? I was really cautious with ramping my dosages on this one. The recommended dose is 5ml so I ramped in the following manner

day 1 - 2ml AM only
day 2 - 2ml AM / 2ml PM
day 3 - 2ml/2ml
day 4 - 3ml/2ml
day 5 - 3ml/3ml
day 6 - 4ml/4ml
day 7 - 4ml/4ml
day 8 - 5ml/5ml

I managed to avoid a lot of the jitters and any super heavy amp using this ramp schedule. But as I type this right now, I have been on the 5ml 2x for about a week now, and I think I may ramp back down and go off soon, because we are talking about some serious stimulation with this supplement. I got the 240cc bottle and planned to use the whole thing as the last step of my cycle, but I think I may cut it short due to the aformentioned reasons. But I will say this, the stuff works. In the time I have used it, I have lost 4lbs. And the losses are getting harder to come by, but this stuff gets the job done. Personally, if I were to use it again, I would buy the pill form it is available in. The liquid is nice, because you can tailor doses to a T, but some of the liquid stays in the dropper, and clumps, also, some (very little) clumping seems occur in the bottle, so the dropper constantly clogs after a while. I have been forced to take the dose out of the bottle 2ml then 3ml because it always clogs before I can fill the dropper with a full 5ml. So, if you are expierenced in thermogenics enough to be sensible with them, I would recommend this one, lots of people flame VPX, but this one does work, no ifs ands or buts. IMO its superior enough to the other products to validate the higher price.

So thats it. About 25lb and 11-12% bf in a little over 2 months. I am leaner than I have ever been, and I have pretty good vascularity in my arms and abs seem to only be a few weeks away (hooray). I will be honest once again ans say that I have seemed to loose a little strength, but my goal is not to be massive, right now I am worried about getting a lean base. I'm not shooting for the IFBB or anything like that. I probably could have re,edied this with higher protein intake. I tried glutamine, but I didnt seem to get any results.


So there, thats it. I hope this helped anyone looking into these products. Sorry the post is so long, but I thought my review of the porducts would be a lot more helpful coupled with the rest of my log.

[jrai100]

bump

[PBateman2]

Nice work. Cut your BF% in half.

[Nick Helm]

Good job on losing that much fat. Your body will thank you. Did you do any cardio? Of what you posted, there are only a couple of suggestions that I would give. Eat more food in place of some of your protein shakes and bars, and unless you really like to, I would cut down on the ab exercises. If you are lifting heavy, your abs will get plenty of exercise anyway, but working on them too much will cause the muscle to grow, just like any other muscle, making your waist bigger, which I suspect isn't your goal. I didn't train abs for my first show, and had some of the best abs on stage. There just wasn't any fat covering them. Hope this helps. Keep up the good work.

[MikeK46]

Congrats on the weight loss...good job staying dedicated and reaping the results! I'd like to hear that you will continue to stay focused on diet & exercise and continue to improve in both aspects. Did you measure your macros/calories on your cut or did you wing it? If you were on point with staying in a proper caloric deficit, you probably wouldn't have needed any thermogenics, but I've dabbled with them in the past to accelerate weight loss, so I won't be a hypocrite...what I found to be most effective by far was putting together a simple ECY stack (over-the-counter bronchidilator such as Bronkaid/Primatene for the 20mg ephedrine, 200mg caffeine, 25mg yohimbine).

[ohs0fast]

I have tried to avoid Thremogenics for a while too, also SLOWLY cutting weight with a healthier and more strategic diet. I caved yesterday though and got some, "I gotta get some help somewhere" too!

[phal]

I have tried to avoid Thremogenics for a while too, also SLOWLY cutting weight with a healthier and more strategic diet. I caved yesterday though and got some, "I gotta get some help somewhere" too!

Strong first post.

[otterakl]

Strong first post.

No sh*t. Seriously, I just don't understand bumping a thread in which the OP is from 2003.