I am very thankful. I may not be as wealthy or as ripped as I often dream of being, but I am very thankful. After years of being disappointed in how some of the “big things” in life turned out, I have come to be very thankful for all of the “little things”. It’s funny though how through closer inspection how those “little things” really aren’t so little. For instance, consider the roof over my head. It may not cover as much square footage as I often dream about, but it covers my family and I very nicely. Another “little thing” – my health- is something I have been very thankful for. You may have noticed that I have not posted in several weeks. While I am not an everyday log poster, I kept up with a pace of 1-2 posts per week. Well, about 3 weeks ago I came down with what I thought was food poisoning. It tortured me for about 3 days and then seemed to go away. It was not food poisoning however, and it did not go away for long. It turned out to be a particularly brutal stomach virus. Until some well educated medical personnel told me otherwise, I thought I had the beginnings of something far worse. I had not felt my insides twist and contort and be in pain like this since I ate some slightly uncooked Iraqi bread last year.
Needless to say, my diet went the way of the Dodo Bird and I stopped taking all of my supplements. I ate what sounded good and until 3 days ago I was still getting bouts of stomach trouble. Oddly enough, this exercise in gastro-intestinal suffering had some unforeseen consequences. It forced me to cut my workout volume in half both for weights and cardio. I was surprised during this period that I felt very strong when I was able to drag myself to the gym and pitifully go through the motions. It seemed that the rest I was forced into was something that I needed. It also helped me to realize how the Alpha Drive XL and Stimulant X where actually working. I definitely felt stronger when taking the Alpha Drive and Stim X definitely gave me more energy. While I was on the Stim X I did notice some pretty severe tension headaches when I started to take it twice per day. I feel that it did help with appetite suppression – after I stopped taking it and I started to get over the stomach illness I have been constantly hungry. In regards to the Alpha Drive I feel that when they labeled the bottle “Male Hormonal Optimizer” they hit it on the head. It seemed like it set the conditions internally for my body to raise hormone levels and thus charge me up.
Well, at this point I have one day left on Alpha Drive and about a week’s woth of the Stim X left. Since I feel that I have had enough time to make honest assessments of each product I am going to end this log. I realize that I may have disappointed some of you out there by not including insane amounts of detail. I hope that you will forgive me for that but I have to explain my philosophy. It took me years to realize that for any supplement to have effect you must first have hard work, solid goals and plans and a very solid diet. If you don’t have that foundation then no aid out there short of steroids will do much for you. It always cracks me up to see teenagers spend big bucks on Muscle Tech because they saw the 10 page add in Muscle and Fiction. They talk about all that they’re on – Nitro Tech, Pump Tech, Can’t Get a Date Tech – and how jacked they’ve gotten on it. Then they talk about how hard they worked on leg extensions and how the could see their biceps peak when they use the cable crossover machine to do standing “look in the mirror curls”. When I ask them how much they squat they typically don’t say much, because they don’t squat. When I ask them how many pull-ups they can do they talk about how they feel a better stretch from the Nautilus Super Row machine and one arm diagonal pull downs or something as equally ridiculous. The point of all this is that I don’t invest details in determining how this or that supplement works. I invest my details in my program and the work involved in it. If I logged my details it wouldn’t offer much to you because we have different goals, needs and methods. Based on that foundation of hard work and smart training I will notice whether supplements affect me or not. In this case, I feel that both of these products, Alpha Drive and Stim X, lived up to at least some of their claims. I would buy both products and will do so in the future. I really liked both of them and would recommend them to any serious trainee. I wouldn’t recommend Stim X to someone who has not done other stimulant type supplements before. You can’t beat the price on either of these supplements.
I want to thank the Board, Mods, Sponsors and everyone involved in this contest. I enjoyed the log and just wish that I didn’t get stomach sick so that I could have posted at least a couple more entries. Everyone has been real positive and the other posters are real sportsmen. Today’s workout is a squat heavy day. Call me old fashioned but you just can’t beat some heavy squats followed by Good Mornings for strength and power. If I leave any bits of wisdom let it be this – simplify your approach to things. Make up for a lack of complexity by never half assing anything. And don’t do curls in the squat rack.
