My Cutting Cycle Results!!!

[nmk85roll]

Hey everyone, I finished my cutting cycle a little over two weeks ago. I’m in my last week of PCT right now. I promised a few of you that I’d post all my info from my cycle. I’ll break it down into four separate posts, including this summary post. I’ll place them in the order I feel is most important starting with DIET first, followed by TRAINING, and lastly my drugs and supplements. Please feel free to comment on anything or ask any questions. I always appreciate others opinions when it comes to training and such.

My results:
The day I started my cycle, I weighed in at 173lbs. I’m 5’9” by the way. My body fat was probably in the low teens, somewhere between 12-14% according to my calipers. My cycle lasted 10 weeks, with 3 weeks of PCT following. All the stats and pics were done in week 2 of PCT because I wanted to make sure my gains were not disappearing. At the end of the cycle, I was weighing in at 175lbs and down to 8-10% body fat according to my calipers. I thought I might have been a little lower. I’d like to hear everyone’s opinion and best guess on my body fat. We all know calipers aren’t all that accurate. As for my size, I didn’t lose anything. In fact, I put some size on and DEFINITELY added strength. I’ll focus on that in the TRAINING section. Below, hopefully, is a pic of me during my PCT. I’m not that good at posing or any of that stuff so although I might not look symmetric in the picture, I was pretty pleased with my symmetry.

[nmk85roll]

The Diet

THE DIET:

My BMR is around 2800 calories so I wanted to drop mine down to around 2000. I figured I could go fairly low due to the gear I was on. The first two weeks I did a little tweaking, such as adding carbs before my workout, and some other slight adjustments. The diet below is what I pretty much stuck to every day.

Wake up at 6AM and do cardio (see training section)

7:00 AM Meal 1
0.5 cups of oatmeal
Whey Protein
Totals¡K350 cals, 35g protein, 33g carbs, 6g fat

9:30 AM Meal 2
1 can Tuna
1 Tblsp Flax Seed Oil
2 Hard Boiled Eggs
Totals¡K 330 cals, 25g protein, 2g carbs, 22g fat

12:00 PM Meal 3
2 Lean Chicken Breasts
Totals¡K220 cals, 44g protein, 0 carbs, 2g fat

2:30 PM Meal 4
2 Buffalo Burgers
Totals¡K 300 cals, 48g protein, 2g carbs, 10g fat

5:00 PM Meal 5 (Pre Workout)
Whey Protein
0.5 can Fat Free Black Beans
Totals¡K 275 cals, 34g protein, 38g carbs, 0g fat

7:30 PM Meal 6 (Post Workout)
Whey Protein
Dextrose
Salad (Lettuce, radishes, cucumbers, low fat dressing)
Totals¡K 305 cals, 32 g protein, 32g carbs, 6g fat

10:00 PM Meal 7 (Before Bed)
0.5 cup dry curd cottage cheese
1 sugar free jello snack pack ļ
Totals¡K 100 cals, 21g protein, 1 g carb, 0g fat

Daily Totals (roughly): 1900 calories, 240g protein, 110g carbs, 50g fat

On top of this I was drinking 1.5 ¡V 2.0 gallons of water a day.

Things I learned:
I probably could have stepped up my calories just a bit. I was never really tired or weak, but I imagine I could have put on a little more LBM if I had a few more calories. I only cheated once every two weeks. A little advice for everyone about cheat meals¡K If I were to do it again, I¡¦d pick a weekend about 2 weeks into my cycle. I¡¦d go to the store on Saturday morning and buy WHATEVER I was craving. I¡¦m talking sweets, pizza, ice cream whatever you want or think you would want to eat. Then sit your ass at home and BINGE! That¡¦s right BINGE!!! Now before some of the vets jump on me about this, here is my reasoning. I did this about 4 weeks in, a little too late in my opinion. But I basically ate so much shit, and BINGED so much for that day, I made myself sick. I NEVER, EVER had a craving for anything again. Not to mention, my body really couldn¡¦t handle all that food anyway so I just ended up crappin¡¦ most of it out. I don¡¦t really think it hindered my progress. I also drank 4 cups of green tea a day. All though I thought of this more as a supplement, it helped cut down my hunger throughout the day. I would usually have a cup in between meals. It also gave me a great boost of energy for my workout.

[nmk85roll]

THE TRAINING:

I was training 5 days a week. I would do 6 exercises a day, 3 sets per exercise. Set one was 10 reps, set two was 8 reps, and set three was 6 reps. I would increase my weight 10-20lbs for every set. I found this to be a very effective strategy for myself to grow. I wanted also to incorporate two back, chest, and leg days. I felt these are the most important and major muscles so I wanted to train them harder. I divided the back routine into a vertical pulling day and a horizontal pulling day. Chest was divided into a pressing day and then a squeezing day. Legs were divided into quads and hammies. I also through in two days of abs on my leg days. Although I was training the group twice a week, because of the way I split the exercises, I never felt tired or over trained. Not to mention my pumps were incredible. I switched my workout about 6 weeks through and changed the exercises up. I kept one exercise the same for each muscle group so I could still chart my progress. Below is my training split for the 12 weeks. The first column is week 1-6, the second is week 7-12.

MONDAY
T Bar Rows Undergrip Bent Over Rows
Upright Rows Cable Upright Rows
Seated Rows Vbar Seated Rows
Shrugs Shrugs
One Arm DB Rows One Arm DB Rows
Rear Delt Raises Rear Delt Raises

TUESDAY
Bench Bench
Squats Squats
Incline DB Incline Bench
Leg Press Leg Extensions
Decline DB DB Bench
Seated Calf Raises Seated Calf Raises

Saxon Side Bends Saxon Side Bends
Weighted Leg Lifts Weighted Leg Lifts
Cable Crunches Cable Crunches

THURSDAY
Weighted Wide Grip Pull Ups Weighted Chin Ups
Military Press DB Military Press
Straight Arm Pull Downs Straight Arm Pull Downs
DB Front Raises DB Front Raises
Undergrip Lat Pull Downs Lat Pull Downs
Lateral Raises Cable Side Raises

FRIDAY
Cable Bench Flies Cable Bench Flies
Deadlifts Dead Lifts
Slide Push Ups DB Pull Overs
DB Lunges Hyper Extensions
Pec Dec Decline Flies
Leg Curls Leg Curls

Cable Twists Cable Twists
Weighted Leg Lifts Weighted Leg Lifts
Machine Crunches Machine Crunches

SATURDAY
Straight Bar Curls Preacher Curls
Skull Crushers Closed Grip Bench Press
Seated Hammer Curls Seated Hammer Curls
V Bar Press Downs Cable Press Downs
One Arm DB Curls Lying Cable Curls
Dips Dips

I know people like to talk about how their max bench went up 4000lbs or they can now squat a semi truck¡K Well, I really don¡¦t believe that. I¡¦m not gonna change my workout and max out one day just to see if I have the right to brag. BUT, because I said my strength gains were AWESOME, here are a few numbers to show you. Remember, these numbers are of my last set of 6 reps¡K

Bench 285lbs (no bouncing, but not starting from rest on my chest)
Squat 455lbs (just above parallel, I got bad knees)
Deadlift 365lbs (stiff leg)
Barbell Shrugs 455lbs (shoulders to ears)

Chest 42¡¨
Waist 32¡¨ ( I have large love handles! ƒº I need T3 next time!)
Thighs 25¡¨
Arms 16¡¨

As for cardio, I had to do a lot of tweaking. I started off doing sprints 5 times a week Mon-Fri on an empty stomach in the morning. I would run twenty 40 yard dashes with about 15-30 seconds in between. I was also doing 30 minutes on the treadmill after my workout. THIS WAS A BAD IDEA!!! I was so drained and depleted after my workouts. Thus, I cut out the post workout cardio. This made a huge difference. Later on in my cycle I had to cut out sprints because my joints were hurting (damn winny ļ ) so I did 60 minutes of running on an empty stomach instead. I kept my heart rate between 70-75% of my max (about 140-150 for me). There is still a huge debate on whether cardio or sprints burns fat more efficiently. From my personal experience, I honestly felt I was looking better from doing the sprints than the long cardio. I really want to toy around with this during my off months so I can figure out which my body truly reacts better to.

[nmk85roll]

The least important

DRUGS AND SUPPLEMENTS:

50mg Test Prop/ day Weeks 1-10
60mg Fina/ day Weeks 1-8
50mg Winny/ day Weeks 5-10
0.25mg Liquidex/day Weeks 1-10

Clen ¡V I ramped up from 40mcgs to 120 mcgs for two weeks. Then I used an ECA for another two. The first two weeks of clen were week 3 and 4 of my cycle. I did this so week 11, when I was off, I would be on 2 weeks of clen, hoping to get the anti-catabolic affects to help out.

3 Days after my last prop shot I started the usual PCT of clomid and nolva. (Clomid¡K300mg day 1, 100mg day 2-10, 50mg day 11-20 and Nolva at 20mg day 1-10 and 10 mg day 2-21). I ran my winny to the day before I started PCT due to it¡¦s short life. I actually noticed a slight sign of gyno the day of my last shot. Just my luck! So I started nolva a little early at 40mg/day and the lump was gone in 3 days. And let me tell you, liquid nolva tastes like ASS. I¡¦m sure my body got rid of the lump just so I wouldn¡¦t have to swallow more than 20mg a day! ƒº

As for supplements, from my diet I was taking whey protein and glutamine in 3 different meals. I also added 5g of creatine to my post workout shake. I was also taking 3g per day of taurine to help combat the sides of the clen. I also was on 1800mg of glucosamine, 1200 mg of chondroitin, and 1800mg of MSM. It was all in a joint support formula. I took 100mg of ALA with every carb meal as well (300mg per day). I also was on 750mg of milk thistle to help my liver out do to the toxicity of winny and fina ( I know, still a disputable topic¡Kbetter safe than sorry!) To top it off, gotta have my Centrum multi vitamin every morning as well.

I didn¡¦t take any diuretic or try to cut water before I took some pics. I also was still on creatine during the time of the picture. I imagine I could have dropped some water to get that extra bit of definition. But hey, we¡¦ll save that for all the contest vets¡K

[nmk85roll]

Pic

Hopefully this works...

[nmk85roll]

Wow, that came up WAY to big...

[Striated]

Looks good on a 19" monitor, with 1280 x 1024 dimensions!

[nmk85roll]

YA, we just edited the big pic out and shrunk it!

Here is another...

[nmk85roll]

And a back shot...

[flexer01]

wheres your lats??

[nmk85roll]

Shit, I almost forgot to give props to everyone who helped me plan this cycle. Thanks to Rado, Pudgy, Jack Hust, The Bouncer, and Prolangtum for all their input on my cycle. Thanks to YellowJacket especially for the information on diet. That was a HUGE part!!! And thanks as well to crombie for the advice cause he was running a similar cycle. If there is anyone I forgot, I apologize. Go ahead and flame me!

[nmk85roll]

My lat spread picture didn't come out well at all. Something happened with my camera, I'm searching for another one. As well as my legs shot.

[Stupid Biotch]

Great work my friend! Congrats on the results. And I'm sure everyone that reads this appreciates your detailed description of your cycle...diet...and training. That's the kind of stuff that really helps people to learn.
Good work man.

[drillpress]

Nice work buddy! I just started a very similar cycle yesterday (100mg T.P. eod wks 1-8, 50mg Winny ed wks 3-8). It's also kind of wierd how similar our cardio, diet, and workouts are. Hopefully I'll have as good of result as you.

How long before you felt everything kick in? Did you use Nolvadex during your cycle or just at the end?

[cr4sh]

I like everything else, but not your workout schedule and your plan..