Ringing in the New Year with X-Factor Advanced (unsponsored)

sapentia

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I'm running a 50 day cycle of X-Factor Advanced at 4 pills per day. This will not be a daily training log but I will update on occasion and give an overall assessment with final stats once I am finished.

Beginning Stats
(Friday morning in the fasted state)

Age
33

Height
5'-10"

BW
170.4 lbs.

Bodyfat
3 pt. caliper (avg. of 3) 10.0%
Electronic Impedance (avg. of 3) 11.3%


Goals:
Increase lean body mass, increase strength, reduce bodyfat.

Additional Supps.
Creatine
Beta-Alanine
Various proteins (whey, Pepto-Pro, casein)
BCAA's
Astral Fruit NF (see note below)


Supplements/foods that I have eliminated for the duration of this cycle

All of the below have been removed due to varying levels of COX inhibition. Frankly, I was shocked how many supplements that I regularly take which suppress the COX-2 pathway at one point or another.

Blueberries
Green Tea
Wolfberry (Goji)
Rosemary
Turmeric (Curcumin)
Resveratrol
Olive Oil
Cinnamon
Cayenne Pepper (Capsaicin)
Oregano
Rhodiola Rosea
Cat's Claw
Reduce levels of EPA/DHA
Toco-8 (Vitamin E) - I am reducing my levels to that found in my diet and my multivitamin so I am still getting plenty of Vitamin E

Training

5:3:1 bodybuilding routine, 3 days per week

Day 1 - Shoulder Press + assistance lifts
Day 2 - Deadlifts + assistance lifts
Day 3 - Bench Press + assistance lifts
Day 4 - Squats + assistance lifts

Just began the 3rd mesocycle on Friday, will hits deads on Monday. The following week will be a deload and then I will begin another 5:3:1 cycle. The XFA will finish up just before my deload begins during the next cycle which should be perfect.

Diet

I will be varying my caloric intake based upon the scheduling of my training. During the first three mesocycles I will eat roughly 500-800 kcal over maintenance. During my deload phase I will reduce my calories to maintenance. Roughly 20% of my XFA cycle will be given to fat loss specifically with the other 80% focusing on gaining mass and strength. My hope is that I will see lean body mass increase without a rise in bodyfat. We shall see.

Note on Astral Fruit NF

This supplement is a product which is purported to be a telomerase activator. It has nothing to do with muscle gain whatsoever. Its intent is to possibly protect and extend the length of telomeres. Telomeres are repeating chains of DNA fragments. These encode ( 'TTAGGG in vertebrates such as humans) at the end of each of our chromosomes. When your cells divides, telomeres of one of the daughter cells is shortened. Once a telomere reaches a critically short length, the cell enters a stage called 'ative senescence', which it can no longer divide. from Revgenetics website.

Many of the supplements above are also telomerase inhibitors meaning they would counteract the actions of this supplement. That is why I have chosen to also use this cycle to try the Astral Fruit NF product, sort of killing two birds with one stone.
 
sapentia

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Update: Day #8

I've got my first full week in running X-Factor Advanced at 4 caps/day and thought I would go ahead and give impressions and results to date.

BW:
170.8 lbs. (morning weight fasted)

Strength
No strength gains at this point seen in any of the major lifts.

Effects/Sides
I haven't noticed any effects, positive or negative at this point.

Discussion
I didn't really have any expectations for this early in the cycle given that it has only been one week. There is a slight body weight increase but given the variability of BW in relation to a host of factors I wouldn't consider it statistically significant. I chose not to do body fat measurements at only one week in given the high margin of error present. This upcoming week is my deload mesocycle on 5:3:1 and I am choosing to decrease my calories and increase my cardio with the intent of dropping bodyfat while hopefully not losing any muscle mass via the XFA. I will update again next weekend likely at which point I expect BW to have dropped at least a pound or two. At that point I will begin bulking for the final 5 weeks of the XFA cycle.
 
sapentia

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How is training going man?
This week I'm on my deload which means I'm only using 40%, 50%, and 60% of my 0.9 1 RPM. It's sort of frustrating to use such low weight but it does work to increase strength.

Given the deload I'm taking the opportunity to do a little short term cutting. I've actually dropped my caloric intake to about 1900 kcal and have upped my cardio to daily.

Still no sides to speak of. Any positive effects wouldn't show up this week in terms of strength or gaining lean mass; hopefully I will drop a couple pounds of fat. I will report back the beginning of next week when I weigh; I'll probably take some bodyfat measurements too considering the cut. After that I'm eating more and going to try to pack on some muscle. Cutting calories sucks! I am very interested going into this next cycle of 5:3:1 in terms of any strength gains due to the X-Factor. I have all my numbers/reps from the last cycle so it will be very easy to see if I've gained strength or not as opposed to a subjective assessment. I'd be freaking thrilled if my bench shoots up 20 lbs. like I've seen reported in some of these reviews.
 
LJ57

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Subscribed! I'll also be logging this soon. Good luck!
 
SwolenONE

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subbed, let me know if you have any Qs OP.
 
sapentia

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Update: Day 18 (32 days left)

Today will be my last day of the one week cut portion of this cycle so I figured I would go ahead and take my numbers this morning.

BW
168.4 lbs. (-2.4 lbs. from peak)

Bodyfat
3 pt. caliper (avg. of 3) 9.3% (-0.7%)
Impedance (avg. of 3) 11.4% (+0.1%)

Strength
Not applicable this past week since it has been my deload on 5:3:1 and I have had nothing to gauge strength by unless you want me to say 60% on bench and deads was easy :think: It would have been interesting given the 500+ calorie deficit to see if the XFA counteracted this and maintained strength though.

Side Effects
Still don't think I have experienced any side effects thus far. I have noticed one thing but can't attribute it to the XFA necessarily. I have noticed my feet being cold alot over the past week or two; that is something I have never had an issue with before, so that has been sort of strange.

Discussion
As for the past 7-8 days, my numbers support what I had in mind would happen. Of the 2.4 lb. drop in BW approximately half of it was likely fluid while the other half should have been be fat. That would work out to around a 4300 kcal deficit over the last week. At a 500+ kcal deficit/day over the last week starting on Sunday (8 days) that works out to an estimated +/- 4000 kcal's, so the number line up. XFA's role was hopefully to preserve and protect muscle mass while encouraging adipose elimination but given that my numbers were on I can't definitively attribute this to XFA.

Regarding the actual bodyfat measurements, impedance sucks and has a huge variability due to fluid variance in the body. It is without question my muscles are holding less fluid due to the decreased caloric intake which is why the impedance number actually went up IMO. As for the accuracy of the 3 pt. caliper, I think I read lower with calipers than I really am based on visual assessment. This isn't necessarily a bad thing as long as I am consistent in my measurements since I am only looking for a relative change rather than expecting a measure of complete accuracy. Unfortunately, my genetics are such that for a fully visible six-pack I need to be closer to 8% bodyfat (at least as far as caliper measurments go).

The remainder of my cycle (just under 5 wks.) will be devoted to lean mass gain and strength increase. My next cycle of 5:3:1 begins this Wednesday with standing shoulder press + assistance lifts. I am anxious to see my strength numbers in comparison to the last cycle's numbers, however, I am a bit worried that this weeks numbers could suffer due to cutting over the last week. I'm hoping this is an area where XFA could come in and produce a nice effect.

Diet, I am not certain exactly how much I am going to eat. Part of me is thinking 200-300 over maintenance to encourage steady lean gains with minimal to no fat gain and possibly even some loss. But there is also part of me that is thinking the hell with that, let's eat 800-1000 over maintenance and really jack up my strength and size more. I am reluctant to do this last one because losing fat isn't the easiest for me. My guess is that I will cycle with my workout days having 500-800 over maintenance and my off days coming in around 200-300 over maintenance. At the end of this cycle I am planning to go into a gradual (not extreme) cut using the DCP/Heat Stack/Smolder combo which should be fun :firedevil:

Until next time ........ :dance:
 
SwolenONE

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excellent level of detail!
 

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