Looking for SU advice

[Jorta]

Well, after the interesting thread below on the UA/NY Times story, I thought I would check my facts and plan one *more* time.

I have a bottle of SU, 100mg. I'm doing a ketogenic diet. I wieigh 295 pounds right now with about 270-275lbs of LBM. My current calorie intake is 3700-4000/day with 300g protein/day and the rest being primarily fats that puts me between 12-13 cal/pound for calories. Gettting lots of flax and olive oil on a daily basis.

I just started taking the SU today after a few weeks on the diet. I'm taking 100mg r-ala and 175mg 80% standardized milk thistle with each tab along with extra vit C. I'm drinking at least 3 gallons of water a day and 1g of magnesium at bed.

For reasons only to fit in with the workout/refeed cycle of the keto diet, I was going to take the SU on tues, wed, thurs, fri and then off sat, sun, mon. I"m flexible in that regard though, just didn't want to hammer to much of it at once.


For my size, I think the dose is minimal, but I've heard that potential damages are not does dependent and another thread stating that using SU on a low carbohydrate diet is a bad idea.


Any advice? Thanks for any input!

Jorta

 

[WYD02]

Yeah 100mg is a pretty low dosage but I definitely recommend starting out there to assess your tolerance and decide if you want to work your way up. The whole idea with keto and uncouplers is just that the body needs to work through your ingested fat before stored fat. Since UA/SU works to inhibit the conversion of glucose to ATP, it would make sense to incorporate more carbs and less fat... example 40-30-30. Does this make sense?

 

[scotty2]

Yeah 100mg is a pretty low dosage but I definitely recommend starting out there to assess your tolerance and decide if you want to work your way up. The whole idea with keto and uncouplers is just that the body needs to work through your ingested fat before stored fat. Since UA/SU works to inhibit the conversion of glucose to ATP, it would make sense to incorporate more carbs and less fat... example 40-30-30. Does this make sense?

WYD, what I understand then, is that UA and keto not a good marriage?

 

[WYD02]

Well, In my opinion an uncoupler would be more effective when used with a diet that incorporates more carbs (40-30-30) rather than a ketogenic where the majority if ingested food is fat. This is not to say that UA/SU would not work on a ketogenic diet. I have personally had good success doing this and have reports of others as well. However, just based on the mechanisms by which UA and other uncouplers work, if the body is forced to use more fatty acids to sustain ATP, why would one choose to consume a large amount of ingested fat and have to wait till the body is through processing it before hitting stored fat. I say, take advantage of the fact that the body does not use as much glucose and force the body to hit up the stored fat.

 

[Jorta]

Thanks for the feedback WYD.

I spaced and forgot to say I'm having 100mg 3x/day - mid-morning, early evening, and before bed.

I'm dieting for a show in 10 1/2 weeks and for my purposes, the keto diet is the main cutting agent - the SU is just a "finisher" that I'm adding to drop those couple of extra pounds for the extra leaness. So while it may be more effective to have some carbs, as long as I can use the SU safely and it does have effect - I'll be interested in it.

Milk thistle and r-ala are pretty cheap compared to a liver transplant. Any recommendations on how much of those should be taken for good effectiveness?

Thanks again, you help put my mind at ease!

Jorta

 

[DreamWeaver]

Jorta what I'm doing is going Keto untill about 8 weeks out then switching ro a regular precontest by the time I start the SU I wll be off keto.

 

[Jorta]

Thanks for the input Dreamweaver. I'm interested in your reasoning for the switch from keto to normal for the last 8 weeks.

I'm interested only because I was thinking about doing the same thing. One of the things that is bothering me about the keto diet is that while I'm dropping fat, I don't feel that I'm working out enough!

By not enough I mean that you only get a real good workout on Monday, Tuesday, I'm already feeling a bit drained. This week I hit ketosis by Monday afternoon. I workout as heavy as I can on Monday, but I can't get the whole body in that workout. Using a normal diet, even though it is low carb, at least I feel that I would be able to maintain some more muscle having 3-4 decent, targeted workouts a week.

Thanks again for the input.

Jorta

 

[DreamWeaver]

Well first of all I trust my precontest to take me the last mile it has been tried and tested. I also feel that there will be a period during the swictch that you'll be in fat burning mode so when you go lower fat it will burn the fat on your body, when you concert. Now this will be a little tricky but my precontest is mostly fibrous carbs and my protien is very high so I should be ok.

When you dieting for a long time it's good to change your diet also.

 

[DreamWeaver]

Oh and something just occurred to me your under 10% body fat so you should be dong 2 refeeds a week no wonder your tired.

 

[wyatt]

What using UA during refeeds only be beneficial? I'm wondering as this is the time in a keto diet that you are high in carbs and low in fat. Or does this undermine the reason for having refeeds?

I have been considering using ua fri, sat, and possible sun evenings and off for the rest of the week in conjunction with a Fri/sat refeed.

 

[Jorta]

Oh and something just occurred to me your under 10% body fat so you should be dong 2 refeeds a week no wonder your tired.

You are definitly making me think Dreamweaver. I have only done this process once before so your experience is valuable to me. When you say two refeeds are you saying a Sat/Wed refeed, or just two days on Sat/Sun for the refeed?

If it is Sat/Wed type of refeeding, what type of calories are you shooting for? Right now I'm doing a 24 hour refeed to drop those first few pounds fast. I'm eating about 7000 calories of primarily carbs/275g protien in my 24 hour refeed. At about 8 weeks out I was planning to go to two day refeeds but your plan of going to straight low-carb standard diet is making me wonder about that plan too.

If you have the inclination, I would be very interested to see your pre-contest planning. I'm sure I coudl learn something from it.

Thanks again for the input. I'm finding it very interesting.

Jorta

 

[DreamWeaver]

Well I am not a keto expert but I have done quite a bit of reading and Sat/Wed would be perfect for you. Don't raise your cals jut split them different. On keto you do 50 45 5 protein/fat/carbs I would do 30/10/60 instead start early in the day with higher glycemic carbs like fruit end it with the more starchy types like rice and yams. Sounds like this plan is tailor made for you.

Do you have a good diet organizer if not try Fitday

www.fitday.com

 

[Jorta]

Thanks again Dreamweaver. You've launched me on another round of research and study. Not sure which direction I'm going to go since as the weeks pass I have less time to experiment - but I've got a bunch to think about this week for sure!

Also, thanks for the link!

Jorta

 

[DreamWeaver]

NP

 

[jweave23]

Originally posted by Jorta
I wieigh 295 pounds right now with about 270-275lbs of LBM.

Ok, this caught my attention, that weight in lean mass is a staggering accomplishment, and one that most people absolutely never reach unless they are Pro's or about 7' tall or so. How tall are you, how long have you been BB'ing? You're saying that you are 270 or so completely lean? That's beastly!

 

[WYD02]

God weave, I didn't even notice that.... 270lbm is definitely pro caliber. ****, many of the pros don't even weigh that much. Are you sure this wasn't a mistake or do we have a pro with us?

WYD

 

[Jorta]

Definitly not a pro, just a big guy.

The weight sounds pretty cool, but I'm also 6'5" tall. Also, the 270-275 is my best guess using calipers with my current weight of 293.

I hit my first natural/amature show at 250 pounds on the stage. I was without a doubt the biggest person around - for that small NE show. So I'm big - but nothing you would ever confuse with a pro - though I have had several people come up to me in airports asking if I were a BB so I'll take that. I posted a link to some pictures in an intro thread a ways back.

Since that time last year I did a bulk like I have not done for years and years. Just before I started cutting, I was 315 pounds - after 4 months of 6000+ cal a day and a six week cycle of t-1/4-ad. I used to powerlift so the gaining of the weight (back) was hard, but not that hard.

As for the SU, I have dropped the SU experiment. It seems to give me every bad side effect that YJ's sticky noted - massive headaches, fatigue, dry mouth, and nasuea. Furthermore, after about a week of it, I didn't really notice much of a change beyond what the normal keto diet would do for me anyway. I might try it again a bit later on when I've added some more carbs to my diet before the next show, but for now it looks like diet is what I'm going to need to drop those pounds.

Thanks again for the input folks. Still learning alot!

Jorta

 

[WYD02]

Good lord... Link us to those pics... Gotta see this

 

[Jorta]

Good lord... Link us to those pics... Gotta see this

Pics here . I'm the bald guy all the way to the right in the first pic on the page. Comments welcome. Since those pics, I have been really concentrating on the delts/upper chest area. Legs are a bit bigger too, but I can't help that. They just like to grow. Need to come in leaner/bigger this next time, but who dosn't want to do that?

Jorta

 

[WYD02]

Good stuff bro! Lookin ripped!

 

[DreamWeaver]

getting even that lean for a big guy is an accomplishment. Jorta those are pro numbers. What do you think your next comp weight will be I would guess as high as 275. Pretty freakin amazing.

 

[Jorta]

getting even that lean for a big guy is an accomplishment. Jorta those are pro numbers. What do you think your next comp weight will be I would guess as high as 275. Pretty freakin amazing.

Thanks DreamWeaver for the encouragement. I'm not very experienced at this, but using some extrapolation, I'm thinking that if I hit the stage at 275, that would be about 4.3% BF with about 263 lbs of lean mass. Assuming I was about the same BF for the last show then that would be a pretty considerable increase in mass over last October. So if I compete at 270-275, I'll consider that a personal victory. Thus, I'm really keen on keeping the muscle mass that I have gained - any tips (beyond the great advice in other threads) you have are greatly appreciated!

Jorta

 

[DreamWeaver]

Just don't be too quick to drop calories, I prefer to add cardio than to drop calories. Keep your protein nice and high. For you that could mean around 550 grams a day. As far as keeping gains that are made using prohormones and other substances I can't claim any knowledge as I was not using htem till recently.

Are you doing sodium loading I am definitely going to try that this, year. Feels funny giving advice to someone who would in a likelihood kick my ass on stage lol. I'm old though and I will look pretty good this year so who knows.

 

[Jorta]

I'm doing 300gm/day protien right now. I was doing about 450 when I was bulking. Based on your earlier discussion, the diet may be changing some. I'm concerned about to much protien keeping me out of ketosis though.

I just dropped my calories another 500/day. I did some math and saw that I need to drop about 1.95 pounds/week to hit my target for the show, so that is about 7,000 calories/week deficit.

Anything I can do to drop water, I'm all ears this time around. I wasn't retaining a lot that show, but I could tell it was more than I wanted to, especially around my mid-section. I didn't sodium load the week of the show, but I did eat lots of beef jerky! That may be something I give a more concentrated effort to this time too.

Thanks again for the advice. I'm still learning most of this. It is much different than the constant bulk cycle I did for powerlifting. My kids think the show itself is silly, but I like the focus and challenge of preparing for it!

Jorta

 

[scotty2]

Keep your protein nice and high. For you that could mean around 550 grams a day.

Holy ****. I hope you weigh 350lbs and are on AAS bro. That's the only time protein should be that high. On Keto, his protein should be just about what his body weight is, like he has it. And, it's better for lean mass preservation to drop cals a little at a time first before adding cardio.

 

[Biggs]

bump, dont want to overdo protein, especially on keto... 550 is ridiculous unless you're a 340 lb pro on all kinds of AAS, and your name is Gunter Schlierkamp

 

[DreamWeaver]

I do 400 garms precontest (not on keto) and my lean mass was 188 or so at the time. I say for regular precontest 2 x your tareget weight. This is for 100 percent natural. I did not lose any muscle. Keto is different my mistake on that one.

My precontest diet is tried and true so what I'm going to do is diet on keto untill about 10 to 12 weeks out then go to the regular precontest.

Thats why I am nervous about finishing on keto not enough protein in a Keto diet to preserve mass not when you get that low. It may work for some but not for me or my partner. Natural guys shouldn't be losing a lot of muscle when they cut.

Oh and I did a bad job managing water last time so I'm still looking for answers on that one. It seems better for me when I deplete water starting 24 hrs before the contest.