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A few months ago I was running low on whey protein (actually I still have 3 tubs of that yucky MuscleTech Phase8) so I decided to get some bulk protein.

I picked up a 25 lb box of vanilla flavored whey protein concentrate from CanadaProtein.com.

Previously I purchased a 25 lb box of vanilla flavored whey protein isolate + concentrate mix from them last year, but decided to go with the WPC mainly because it was cheaper, and in the long run, in my opinion, there’s probably not going to be much difference between ingesting WPC vs a WPC + WPI mix (or whey protein isolate, whey protein hydrolysate or any other variation or combination) except on my wallet.

I posted this status on Facebook shortly after purchasing (on June 13, 2013):

facebook-canadaprotein

 

My PR’s at the time for the 3 lifts are:

So, according to my “math” and Facebook status, I should be at these numbers by the time I’m done ingesting all this powder:

  • Squat: 530 lb
  • Bench Press: 395 lb
  • Deadlift: 572.2 lb

As of September 26, 2013 (which is over a month ago prior to today's post), my PRs are:

I still have about 5 lb of the whey protein concentrate remaining, and I have already added 32 lb to my squat, 15 lb to my bench press, and 7.8 lb to my deadlift.

Overall, I have added 54.8 lb to my big 3 lifts using less than 25 lb of vanilla flavored whey protein concentrate.

Therefore...

Whey protein concentrate works!

For every pound of vanilla flavored whey protein concentrate ingested, 2-2.5 pounds will be added to your total. Not a bad deal if you ask me, especially for this cheaper form of whey protein.

So, if you want to add > 50 lb to your overall total in the squat, bench press and deadlift, pick up some whey protein concentrate and experience the gains like I did:

JUST KIDDING.

Seriously though, the gains cannot be solely attributed to only WPC.

To be honest, I'm not much of a supplements guy. I tend to think most of the supplements on the market today are not as effective as they claim to be, if they are effective at all, and in general are fueled by marketing dollars in an attempt to take money out of the pockets of those looking for a quick way to get strong/jacked/slim/toned/cut/fit/healthy/etc.

I also think that those who spend a lot of time and money on supplements don't really track their own results to determine if whatever they're taking really produces any measurable results and rely on marketing hype and/or the reasoning of:

"These studies and/or before-and-after pictures indicate it should work, therefore, it's working for me!"

Aside from whey protein (which has a double function for me, not only as a source of protein but as a coffee creamer), a cheap multivitamin, fish oil, caffeine and ephedrine, I don't really take anything else. I'm currently testing out adding coconut oil to my coffee. It makes my lips oily and makes my coffee tastes a bit better, but I don't think I would notice any changes if I suddenly stopped ingesting it.

I used to take creatine, one of the most effective supplements supported by many studies, but since I ran out and stopped taking it, I haven't noticed any negative changes. I was expecting to get weaker and/or not have the stamina to complete my workout, but this wasn't the case.

Much of my progress (and I would bet, most of everyone else's progress) comes from solid consistent training, eating good enough, eating enough, sleeping enough, hard/smart work, persistence, and all those things that marketed as some sort of magic bullet to instant gains.

If I alter any of these things, I'm pretty damn sure they would have a big impact on my progress.

In the end, I'll probably pick up some creatine down the road once there's a sale, just to try it out again. Also, I'll likely continue taking some form of whey protein (likely WPC, because it's cheap) because it's an easy way to ingest and store protein, and it makes instant coffee tastes a million times better.

But, the road to a 600 lb squat, 405+ lb bench press and 600 lb deadlift for me is going to be fueled by consistent hard work, a lot of food, a lot of sleep, and...you know, all that non-sexy stuff that can't be sold in a bottle.

Let's see how my training went this past week:

Squat

Decided to add a couple of sets of low bar squat to Monday's already high volume squat workout, and it was quite challenging. Maybe it's my lack of conditioning, but I had to lie down on a bench with my feet elevated during the later sets. I have never done this before.

I did 2 sets of 5 after 5x3 of low bar squats. My low back muscles felt extremely pumped after the sets of 5, and may have made the high bar squats more difficult than it should have been. I think I'll try adding the 2x5 low bar squats after 5x5 high bar squat to see how it feels.

Surprisingly, I did not experience much DOMS in my legs or lower back the next day, and I could walk up and down the stairs just fine.

Maybe, because my body proportion is similar to that of Wolverine, I have similar healing powers too! I definitely do not have the body hair though.

OHP

For overhead presses, I missed again (twice!) at 260 lb even though I didn't bench as much on Monday (3x5 instead of the usual 5x5), allowing my triceps to be "more fresh" on OHP day.

Maybe it has to do with my grip width, and how it affects my upper body position. I find that with a wider grip, I can stand more erect, but with a narrower grip, I need to lean back a little so that the bar is over the center of my body. I used a narrow grip, and I'm pretty sure I was standing more erect than leaning back, because the bar felt a little too forward as I tried to press the weight up.

Or maybe, I'm just not strong enough to OHP 260 lb. Yet.

I did get a body weight (200 lb) 7 rep max, and I'm hoping for 225 x 5 for the next session.

Bench Press

Out of all the lifts that I do with a barbell, I think I'm making the most progress with my bench press.

I hit a new 3RM at 330 lb. Previous my 3 rep personal best was 320 lb a little over a month ago. +10 lb increase is not too bad!

I think this weight would be a good opener for the bench press in a powerlifting competition.

Also, I think I finally (and accidentally) figured out how to utilize my lats to drive the bar up during the bench. I'll need to experiment more though.

Anyway, check out some of the articles I wrote this past week:

  1. What I Eat And What Supplements I Take
  2. How To Get That Last Bit Of Whey Protein Powder Out Of The Container

And take a look these:

  1. Dude, So and So Got SO Fucking Jacked For That Movie: Hugh Jackman by Jamie Lewis
  2. Maximal Leg Development by Mike Robertson
  3. How to Lose 40 lb of Fat in 63 days by Marty Gallagher

So PZillaFX asked me on Youtube the other day to write a blog post detailing what I eat and what supplements I take.

what-i-eat

Actually, he asks “how” but I’m going to assume he meant “what” because I’m sure he’s not interested in what type of utensils I use or how I chew my food etc.

And this seems to be a somewhat common question I get from a variety of places from time to time, so I might as well write a blog post about it.

Before I get started, there’s a few things I want to mention when it comes to my approach to eating and supplements.

1. First, if you didn’t know already, I’m 5’4” tall (or 163 cm) and fluctuate between roughly 200-205 lb (or 90.9-93.2 Kg).

I have gained a few pounds or so since eating like this (around late spring/early summer 2012), and right now my body weight is holding steady.

When I started taking barbell training seriously around late November of 2010, I was about 183 lb. I did not take any supplements except fish oil and a multivitamin.

I was living in Bangkok, Thailand until July 2011, and up until then, I only ate real food. Because food was cheap I ate out a lot.

This includes sushi buffet, pizza buffet, breakfast buffet (unlimited eggs and bacon!), Sizzler, KFC (ordered a family size bucket and ate this with rice), McDonalds, Outback Steakhouse, mango and sweet glutinous rice with coconut milk, Thai stewed pork leg with 5 spices and rice, Korean pork with rice, and a bunch of other stuff that I can't remember.

Trying to recall what and where I ate is making my mouth water as I write this.

I also had a slow cooker and rice cooker that was used on a regular basis. And I ate many bags of chips and drank a lot of pop (usually Coke Zero or Sprite Zero).

Man, I miss Thailand!

Back then, I also ate food before working out. Eating a big bowl of rice/meat/veggies before heading out to squat with a belt on was not comfortable.

When I came back from Thailand to Canada in July 2011, what I ate was more of the same (rice,meat,veggies). I just didn't eat out as often as I did before.

And this may come as a surprise to some people, but I only started taking whey protein around early January 2012 (I found an old receipt in my email to verify this), and creatine sometime early-April of 2012.

2. I don’t count calories or figure out what my “macros” are.

It just seems like a pain in the ass counting calories and trying to accurately figure out something that is at best, an approximation.

By the way, “macros” is a relatively new term for me. Previously I have known this word to be meant as something big (ex. macroeconomics, or macrophillia), something to do with programming, as in a macro in Excel, or something to do with photography.

Somehow, it has been adopted by the internet fitness world as a short form for “macronutrient”.

I like the long form of macronutrient better.

I mean, you wouldn’t call macroeconomics and microeconomics “macro 101” or “micro 101” right? Or maybe people do. I don’t know.

3. I am jaded by taking crappy supplements in the past that did nothing but burn a hole in my wallet and/or give me an upset stomach in the past.

I’m skeptical of marketing claims made by supplement companies and generally “stick to the basics” so I don’t take a whole lot of supplements. I prefer things that make a big impact, rather than some substance that claims a certain effect if you take it, but in reality, couldn’t really tell the difference between the “supplement” from a placebo.

I do take a multivitamin and fish oil, just in case. But that’s about it.

Anyway, I describe below what a normal day is when it comes to eating and supplements. I started eating this way around late spring or early summer of 2012.

The timestamps are approximations, so they vary from day to day.

6:30 AM - Morning Coffee With Whey Protein

I start my day off with some instant coffee and whey protein. I’ll add heaping teaspoon of instant coffee, and either half a scoop of whey protein if I’m using 1 flavor, or 2x 1/4 scoop if I’m using 2. I eyeball the quantity in the scoop so it’s not exact. I wrote an article describing exactly how I add whey protein to coffee here.

what-I-eat (1)

During this time I’m catching up on email, looking through my Facebook feed and RSS reader. Once that’s out of the way and the caffeine starts kicking in, I’ll try to do something productive.

I’ll go through 3 cups of coffee and total of about 1.5 scoops of whey protein.

9:30 AM – Make My Shake & Take Some Pills

Now, I make my pre-peri-post workout protein energy drink. I’ll add caffeine and sometimes ephedrine HCL into a shaker cup, mixed it up with water, followed by approximately 5g of creatine and 2 scoops of whey protein. Full details about how I make my protein energy drink is covered here.

I recently struck a deal with some nearly-expired Ultimate Nutrition Whey Sensation 81 whey protein for $9.99 for 2 lb. The flavors are cookies and cream, and chocolate truffle. So I’m mixing in 1 scoop of cookies and cream, and another scoop of chocolate truffle. Tastes ok, but the cookies and cream has actual cookie bits in there.

Also, at this time I’ll take a multivitamin and fish oil. I take these so that I’m not deficient in any vitamins and minerals, and I don’t eat fish at home and unfortunately I cannot eat sushi buffet everyday.

what-I-eat (2)

This is the cheapest multivitamin I could find. I even accidentally got the “adults over 50” version! It makes my urine neon yellow like the color of the Nike Romaleos 2 Volt shoes. Should be fine.

I don’t believe in taking super expensive, supposedly high quality multivitamins, simply because I’ve never found that it made any significant impact on my health. But it can make an impact on my wallet.

I like the Now Ultra Omega-3 because it’s in a pill format (drinking liquid fish oil seems a bit gross), and contains the most EPA/DHA per pill that I know of. Decent price too.

10:00 AM

Now I brush my teeth, and try to do something productive for a couple of hours!

During this time, I take sips from that protein shake I made, simply because I am feeling hungry.

Once I my stomach starts grumbling and I can’t take it anymore, that’s what I begin preparing for my training session of the day.

Sometimes, I’ll take my favorite pre-workout supplement, ibuprofen (generic name for popular brands such as Advil, Motrin, Nuprin or Nurofen):

Pre-Workout Supplement

12:00 PM – Start Training

During my workout, I’ll sip on the DIY protein energy drink I made earlier. Occasionally I’ll add extra water after a few gulps so I have enough to drink throughout my workout.

Every now and then, I’ll even go back upstairs and add another scoop of protein and water into the shaker cup. It really depends on how I feel based on the duration and how tough the workout is.

3:00 PM – Finish Training & Post-Workout

Usually by this time I’m done with my protein drink.

At this point, I’ll make a post-workout sandwich. Today, it’s a triple-decker peanut butter and bee vomit honey sandwich.

P1211381

After eating this, I’ll take my post-workout shower.

3:30-4:00 PM – Meal 1

Time for real food meal #1. Which is generally a huge bowl of rice, some sort of meat and vegetables.

I eat rice everyday. I’m sure members of the Chinese Olympic weightlifting team eats rice everyday. I’m kinda strong, and they’re really strong. Coincidence? Winking smile

Rooster Rice

As you can see by the picture below, I’m running out of cooked meat. I made this last week.

P1211383

Time to defrost something from the freezer…

what-I-eat (4)

I throw in some baby spinach whenever possible.

I’m not into this “organic” food craze that’s been popular lately. I’ve tried organic baby spinach, and it tasted gross! Also, it was more expensive for less amount of spinach. I’ve been eating this non-organic spinach for a long time. It’s good enough.

I'll also toss in an egg, sprinkle some cashews if I have them, and pour on some Sriracha hot sauce.

P1211385

7:00 PM – Meal 2

Same thing as my first meal, but without the egg.

7:30-8:00 PM – Snack time!

P1221391

Occasionally I’ll eat potato chips, fruits, cereal, chocolate, cookies or whatever else that’s available.

As you can probably tell, my “diet” loosely follows the Carb Back-Loading protocol (as in, I eat my carbs after my workout). I find that it works pretty well. I feel comfortable when I train, can see the outline of my abs under the correct lighting sometimes, and I’ve continued to get stronger since eating this way.

Over the course of the day, I drink water. It’s tap water, filtered by a Brita filter that’s stored in my refrigerator.

Occasionally I drink juice if it’s in the fridge, and only have milk when it’s in my cereal.

And that’s basically it.

Hope that answers anybody’s question about what I eat and what supplements I take!

I have less than 10lbs of protein left from the 25lbs bag I got from Canada Protein a few months ago.

I needed to buy some protein soon, and luckily I stumbled upon a free shipping coupon from BodyBuilding.com.

They reached 1 million Facebook likes on their page last Monday, and to celebrate, they had a free shipping promotion for all orders.

The hilarious coupon code was (Note: it’s expired now):

1MILFB

Laughing out loud

Free shipping is especially great for international orders because even though there are good deals on supplements at Bodybuilding.com, the shipping and duty fees added on top of the sub-total often kills the deal.

I don’t recall Bodybuilding.com ever offering free shipping, and since the coupon expired in less than 24 hours, I jumped on the opportunity right away.

Anyways, this is what arrived on my doorsteps yesterday:

IMG_9037

Optimum Gold Standard 100% Whey

Can’t go wrong with this brand. I never tried double rich chocolate before. I’m sure it will taste good with coffee, but I hope it tastes fine with water Fingers crossed

  • Double Rich Chocolate, 10 Lbs.
  • Overall rating of 9.1/10, based on 5924 reviews

Price: $99.97

Dymatize Elite Whey Protein Isolate

Dymatize Elite Whey Protein Isolate is low cost for 10lbs, and has some good reviews. Trying it out. I was surprised that it came in a box, rather than a bag.

  • Gourmet Vanilla, 10 Lbs
  • Overall rating of 8.7/10, based on 601 reviews

Price: $86.99

NOW Ultra Omega-3 (3 bottles)

Fish oil, taken once a day. ‘nuff said.

  • 180 x 3 Softgels

Price: $37.98

Harbinger Red Line Knee Wraps

Curious about how squatting with knee wraps feels like.

  • Black & Red, 78 Inches

Price: $22.49

OrbiTape

My MyoTape body tape measure broke, so the OrbiTape is taking it’s place.

Price: $4.99

Quest Nutrition Quest Bars

These were free samples on the Bodybuilding.com’s little-know free sample page.

  • Chocolate Peanut Butter, 1 All Natural Bar – Sample
  • Cinnamon Roll, 1 All Natural Bar – Sample

Price: Free

SmartShake V2 27 Oz

For the free gift, I choose the SmartShake V2 27 Oz shaker because it was one of the highest priced “Free” items, and it looks like a quality shaker with good reviews.

Price: Free


Total Damage

Subtotal:     $273.41
Promo for 1M FB Followers:     - $59.99
Shipping:     $0.00

TOTAL:     $273.41

Saved $59.99…Not a bad deal!

Unfortunately the free shipping deal is over, but you can still use the coupon code (5off100) to get $5 off your order. There is a minimum purchase of $100 however.

Still, better than nothing!

I've had pretty good experience ordering training gear and supplements from Bodybuilding.com. I live in Canada and shipping from the USA is fast and reasonably priced (and no brokerage fees or duty fees!)

I made an order on Monday April 2, 2012 and it shipped the same day. DHL delivered the package on Wednesday April 11, 2012. It probably would have arrived here sooner if it wasn’t for the Easter long weekend.

Here's what I got delivered to my door yesterday from BodyBuilding.com:

BodyBuilding.com Order

Optimum Nutrition Whey Protein 5lbs - Mocha Cappuccino

I add whey protein to my coffee. So far I’ve tried chocolate, vanilla, and unflavored whey protein. Vanilla tastes best for me, but I wanted to try out a different flavor. I went with mocha cappuccino simply because it had the highest taste rating on BodyBuilding.com’s website.

Price: $54.99

Optimum Nutrition Creatine Powder 2000g

I decided to try out creatine again (I took it a LONG time ago in the late 90’s while I was in high school). It’s well researched and one of the few supplements proven to work. We’ll see how it works for me this time around.

I decided on ON Micronized Creatine Powder because Optimum Nutrition is a reputable brand, has a lot of good reviews and they’re using something called “CreaPure”, which is supposedly the purest creatine monohyrdate available.

Price: $37.99

Now Ultra Omega-3 180 Softgels (2)

This is the fish oil that I take. Mainly for “general health” purposes. I don’t feel anything, but I take it anyways for “general health”, and just in case.

Price: $41.98 for 2.

Harbringer Neoprene Padded Ankle Cuffs (2)

I’m doing reverse hyperextensions by stacking one bench on top of another (pictured here). So far it’s been working fine, but I wanted a way to add some resistance to the movement. I figured I could add weights doing reverse hypers by using a pair of these ankle cuffs, weaving a chain into the plates, and connecting the chain to the ankle cuffs with a carabiner. I’ll write about how this works out in an upcoming post.

Price: $17.98 for 2.

Sequoia/Bodybuilding.com Defender Body Fat Caliper

Since my order was over $150, I got the option to choose a free gift (free gifts start at orders totaling $75 and up. Here’s what else is available as a free gift).

I decided on these body fat calipers because I did not have any tools to measure my body fat. I did a quick measurements, and according to these calipers, I’m about 16.5% body fat. Not bad!

Price: Free!

Lastly, I tried to order a couple of bottles of the SportPharma Multi-V multivitamins, but I got this error during the checkout process:

BodyBuilding.com-error

Strange, because I have ordered these multivitamins before. I'm not sure why it can't be shipped to Canada now.


Total damage:

Subtotal: $152.94

Shipping: $33.99

TOTAL: $186.93

Kicking myself in the butt because I just found out I could have used a coupon code (5off100) to get $5 off my order.

Bah, next time.