Bulking with IntrAbolic: my first log!

[SMC_50]

Hey everybody, I'm just starting out a new bulking program as I'm tired of being a light 147 lb guy haha. I also just received my latest shipment from bb.com which included IntrAbolic, a supplement I've been really curious about trying recently as I've heard nothing but good things about it. This log is going to serve two purposes: a) logging my mass gains b) logging my thoughts/results with IntrAbolic. I'm not quite sure how long I'm going to run this log since it's my first log ever and I'm kinda playing this by ear, but I'm going to try my best to keep it as detailed and informative as possible; if I've left out any information you would like to see please let me know and I'll try my best to include it!

A brief history of myself and weight training: For most of my life I was the "fat kid," I was never morbidly obese but at my peak I was sitting at about 220 lbs at 5' 8" in the 11th grade (not good lol). Near the end of grade 12 I was pretty sick and tired of being overweight and decided it was time to change my lifestyle; In about a year I had dropped down to 160 lbs and I was looking much much better and felt really great too. As happy as I was with this, I didn't ever focus on weight training and I suddenly went from the "fat kid" to the average skinny guy. Back in February of 2010 I decided I wanted to start weight training because I had a summer job lined up working construction (just like every good Italian boy) and I thought getting into better physical shape would prevent me from getting my ass kicked out on the construction site. At the recommendation of a friend I started P90x, and this is what got me hooked on weight training, I absolutely loved setting challenges for myself and getting stronger week by week. Fast forward nearly a year and while I'm in the best shape of my life my goals have completely changed; I want to bulk right now and add a lot of muscle and I take my training very seriously. If I gain more than 10 lbs during this bulking phase I'll be happy.

I just got back from school and I have some homework to take care of, so I'll update this log with my workout routine, body stats/measurements, and diet hopefully later on tonight or at the latest tomorrow (depending how the homework goes). In the meantime, here's the supplements I am currently taking just to get this log started:

Pre-workout: Superpump 250
Intra-workout: IntrAbolic (obvs)
Protein: -Optimum 100% Gold Standard Whey
-Same brand, Casein
Creatine: Optimum Nutrition Micronized Creatine Powder

That's all for now!

[adtoro07]

Good job on the weight lost! Was this all from cardio?

[SMC_50]

Some cardio, but I lost most of the weight by pretty much completely cleaning up my eating habits. Never in my life did I eat junk food, but just LOTS of regular home cooking. After I cut out the umpteenth bowl of pasta the pounds just melted away.

[adtoro07]

I see, I was asking because I also lost +100lbs just mainly from cleaning up my eating habits as well + cardio then over time as I lost weight I increased my cardio. I'm at 174 and trying to drop to 160, these last 15lbs are so hard to get rid of

[SMC_50]

Finally have some free time! Anyways, lets get to it.

Diet:

*Aiming for a 40/40/20 split of Protein, Carbs, Fat, but I usually end up with protein slightly higher than that and either fat or carbs falling just shy (still trying to get my diet 100% in place).

*This usually involves over 2,300 calories a day, but I've never gone over 2,500 yet. I may/may not need to adjust this as I go.

*I eat about 7 meals a day, plus a post workout shake, spaced 2-3 hours apart: 1) Breakfast 2) Snack 3) Lunch 4) Snack 5) Post W/O shake 6) Dinner 7) Snack 8) Before bed snack (casein w/milk)

Training:

I'm doing a 4-day split focused mainly on heavy compound movements.

Day 1:
Squats: 4 sets x 5 reps
Hamstring Curls: 3 sets x 8 reps
Rows: 3 sets x 8 reps
Bicep Curls: 2 sets x 10 reps
Trap Shrugs: 3 sets x 10 reps
Abs

Day 2:
Incline Bench Press: 4 x 5
Cable Crossover: 3 x 8
Upright Barbell Row: 3 x 8
Lying Triceps Press Barbell: 3 x 8
Standing Calf Raises: 2 x 15

Day 3:
Barbell Deadlift (lower back): 4 x 5
Pullups: 4 x 10
Leg Press: 3 x 8
Bicep Curls: 2 x 10
Abs

Day 4:
Bench Press: 4 x 5
Cable Crossover: 3 x 8
DB Shoulder Press: 3 x 8
Lying Triceps Press Barbell: 3 x 8
Standing Calf Raises: 2 x 15

*I'll throw in another ab workout on one of my off days, before/after some cardio.

*Having said that: About 2 days a week I do light cardio, 30-40 min on a treadmill with incline at 10 walking at about 3.6 mph.

That's about it for the diet/workout. I'll be starting with IntrAbolic this wednesday which is Day 2 of my workout, I'm looking forward to it! I'll also take some measurements at some point before then so I can really log my progress.

As always, any comments/suggestions to both this log and my workout/diet are greatly appreciated.

[SMC_50]

I see, I was asking because I also lost +100lbs just mainly from cleaning up my eating habits as well + cardio then over time as I lost weight I increased my cardio. I'm at 174 and trying to drop to 160, these last 15lbs are so hard to get rid of

I've been down that road before. Honestly, it all comes down to calories burned vs calories consumed; it's been said to death but if you wanna lose that extra weight you gotta have a caloric deficit. I recommend taking a very close look at your diet and reducing your calories from there and/or adding more cardio. Find what works for you; you'll learn a lot about how your body reacts to things in the process which is always fantastic.

[adtoro07]

I've been down that road before. Honestly, it all comes down to calories burned vs calories consumed; it's been said to death but if you wanna lose that extra weight you gotta have a caloric deficit. I recommend taking a very close look at your diet and reducing your calories from there and/or adding more cardio. Find what works for you; you'll learn a lot about how your body reacts to things in the process which is always fantastic.

yeah i started tracking everything on My Plate, that thing is awesome. My calorie goal is about 1600 which is 1000 calories less than what i need to maintain my current weight and i'm going to add even more cardio.

Anyways, good luck with your log!

[SMC_50]

Just finished eating some lunch after getting back from the gym, so that means its time to tell you how everything went with IntrAbolic! but first, let me give you a breakdown of my day:

*Woke up around 8:30am, no classes on wednesday
*Finished eating breakfast at 9:15 and here's what I ate:
-6 egg whites
-2 X-large eggs
-2 slices of Dempster's Healthy Way bread
-30g of Kraft Natural PB
*Got to the gym at 10:30, had 2 scoops of Superpump 250 before warmup/stretching.

At this point I got my IntrAbolic drink mixed, here are the initial thoughts I had:

Smell:
Totally irrelevant, because in reality the smell doesn't indicate an effective product, but WOW did this smell good! I have the Wild Berry Punch flavor and as soon as I smelt it I knew the taste would be great. More often than not I find that the smell of a supp is pretty much a good way to judge how it's going to taste so i was pretty happy when i smelt this.
Score: 10/10

Mixability/Ease of Use:
I brought a cold bottle of water I stuck in the freezer before going to the gym to make sure I had a nice cold drink ready (I didn't have any ice cubes). I followed the instructions on the box and mixed 2 scoops of IntrAbolic with 20 oz of water and shook it all up in my mixer bottle. After waiting about 5 min it was all fully dissolved with no foam/bubbles at all, just a nice clean pink liquid. Instructions were easy to follow and the drink mixed perfectly.
Score: 10/10

Taste:
I don't need to say much here other than FANTASTIC. I'm a big fan of berry flavors and this was just awesome. It was also a nice contrast from the tart Superpump Blue Raspberry flavor I drank before; this was a much "softer" wild berry flavor but it was much appreciated as it was very easy to drink during my workout. The only fault with the flavor I can find is that 20 oz of water made the flavor slightly too watered down for my tastes, but that's my fault/personal preference and not at all the fault of the taste of the actual supp. When I workout tomorrow I'll try adding 16 oz of water instead of 20 to get a stronger taste. All in all, one of the best tasting supps I've ever tried. Will comment more after reducing to 16 oz tomorrow.
Score (for now): 9/10

Results:

I had one of the best workouts in a long time, and at this point I'm willing to say IntrAbolic played a strong role in this. I was able to raise ALL my lifts by 5lbs and my reps were either the same as last week (+5 lbs of course) or better! I was also really happy to feel a great pump; up until this point I've never gotten a pump from my current routine because I usually need high reps to feel a good pump, but not this time. Again, since adding IntrAbolic to my workout was the only variable that changed since the last time I'm not going to hesitate to say that the pump was because of IntrAbolic. I was very very happy with this, and I was even able to feel a pump in my forearms which has never happened to me before. The only thing I didn't get were the BA tingles that most people report, but maybe that's because I added 20 oz of water. Having said that, I don't really care much for the tingles (having tried Jack3d in the past) because I find it to be a strange sensation in general. There's one last thing that I was very happy about as well: usually when I come home after my workout, about the time I'm finished eating, I get INCREDIBLY lethargic from my workout. Well, that didn't happen today. I'm not bouncing off the walls with energy or anything, but I'm not struggling to keep myself from taking a nap anymore and I just feel normal. Honestly, this alone is enough for me to want to use this product again as I'm usually out of commission for a good 1.5-2 hours after I work out which is such a pain in the ass. Very, very happy with this product so far and I'm looking forward to seeing how it works tomorrow when I work my legs. I will hold off on posting a score for this right now as I've only used it once, and since the "results" category is by far the most important aspect of a review I don't want to post an early score; I will say that if I had to post a score right now based on my initial thoughts it would be a very high score. More to come tomorrow.

In case anybody is interested here's last weeks workout vs. this week with IntrAbolic thrown into the mix:

Last week:
Incline bench: @125 lbs: 5,5,5,5
Cable Crossover: @25 lbs: 8,8,8
Skull Crushers: @65lbs: 6,6,6
Barbell Row: @95lbs: 8,8,8
Standing Calf Raise: @235lbs: 15,15

This week:
Incline: @130lbs: 5,5,5,4 (+5lbs and missed my target rep of 5 by only 1)
Crossover: @27.5lbs: 8,8,8 (+2.5lbs and hit my target each time)
Skull: @75lbs: 6,5,5 (+10 lbs and only missed my target rep of 8 by a bit, but still good considering a 10lb increase!)
Row: @100lbs: 8,8,6 (+5lbs, missed target of 8 by only 2 reps)
Calf: @240: 15,15
*Normally I do abs too after this, but we had alot of snow last night so I figured I'd get a good enough real-life workout from shoveling the driveway when I got home.*
*Post W/O meal was ON Protein shake w/5g of creatine added immediately after my workout followed by some gatorade as a simple carb.
*Lunch when I got home was what I call my "Power Cereal" haha, I love it b/c it covers all 3 macronutrients quite well:
-55g Kashi GoLean
-125g Fat Free/reduced sodium Cottage cheese
-30g natural peanut butter
-Then I ate an apple afterwards b/c they're good for you.


I was very pleased with my results this week and I hope they continue. Again guys, comments/suggestions always welcome. More updates to come.

[SMC_50]

Been a little busy with school, but I'll post an update when I get back from class/Day 4 workout later on today, but things have been great so far. stay tuned.

[SMC_50]

Sorry for being late with updates lately, but I've finally gotten some time to update this log.

First thing I'll say is that after adding 16 oz instead of 20 ox of water the taste of IntrAbolic is MUCH better. While the flavor was still pleasant, it was too watered down for me at 20 oz, but 16 oz seems to be the perfect balance for me and the taste is just GREAT. 10/10.

I can't tell whether or not taking IntrAbolic is causing me to add more weights to my workout or if this is due to me being a relative gym newbie, but what i CAN say for certain after using IntrAbolic for 3 workouts now is that I definitely feel like I have much more energy especially near the end of my workout. As I said before, about 1.5-2 hours after my workout I used to get really really fatigued and could easily take a nap; I no longer experience this at all and I'm sure that IntrAbolic is causing this. VERY happy about this.

Here are my lifting stats for the past 2 workouts, and the previous workout before that last week (to compare without IntrA vs with)

Last week:

1) Deadlift (lower back): @160: 5,5,5,5
2) Pullups: 10,8,5,5
3) Leg Press: @310: 8,8,8
4) Bi Curls: @85: 7,5
*Followed by abs*

This week:

1) @175: 5,5,5,5 (+15 lbs!)
2) 10,10,6,6 (+4 reps)
3) @330: 8,8,8 (+ 20 lbs)
4) @85: 10,7 (+ 5 reps)
*Followed by abs*

Last week:

1) Bench Press: @150: 5,5,4,3
2) Cable Crossovers: @25: 8,7,6
3) Dumbell Press: @40" 7,7,6
4) Skull Crushers: @50: 8,8,6
5) Calf Raises: @240: 15,15

This week:

1) @157.5: 5,5,5,4 (+7.5 lbs)
2) @27.5: 8,8,8 (+2.5 lbs)
3) @45: 7,7,6 (+5 lbs)
4) N/A (my school gym is crappy and somebody was using the only bar, so i couldn't do skull crushers. I did tricep pull-downs instead, but I can't compare them to last weeks workout)
5) Calf: @240: 15,15

I take a 2 day break on the weekends, can't wait to start back up with Day 1 on Monday!!