Chest and Arms Day

So it's actually an older post. I tried posting using a crappy Android app, but it didn't work.

  Yesterday was chest and arms day. Had an awesome workout. 
  I went light weight Yesterday and very slow and steady movement. I've noticed that this one works better than heavy half reps or even mid-range-weight and fast movement.

  And you might already know that I've switched to the setting where I do Chest and Arm on the same day. This is due to the cosmic fact (LOL) that my arms don't get recovered soon enough to support my chest workout. So no alternate days for Chest and Arms.

  Anyway... today I'm down with some minor cough and cold. Don't want to push hard in the gym. So took the day off for gym. Still for office, I'm working from home. Hope to hit the gym tomorrow.

  Here, some pics of my gym from yesterday. Enjoy.

Bench

Full Stack of Dumbbells 

  

Mango mania... Yooooo

I'm a Bengali

  What does that mean? I mean I'm startimg a blong saying where I come from? Duh....

  Not exactly. I'm telling this becaus Bongs(short of bengali) are, apart from  being travellers, and artists, and people who waste time by talking meaningless stuff, are amazing food specialists.

  Not foodie or something, but sheer lover of food.

  Mango is one such food no Bong can live without. Neither can I.

  So this week's cheat meal is decated Mangoes.

  Somehow manafed to get my hands on some Chausa and Langra (varieties of mango, forget Alpanso. If Alpanso is the God of mangos, then these must be father of Gods).

  Simply bliss.

The one with the stem is Langra and the other is Chausa

Neurocore Pre Workout : Full Usage Review

Back after some time. So much freaking work and then weekend was mostly spent over some of the stuffs that were haunting me for quite some time. Well, finally got over with those.

 Anyway, onto the main stuff. Neurocore from Muscletech.

 This pre workout supplement is the very first one that I ever used. And I've used 4 so far. 5 to be precise. The last one being only Citrulline Malate and no mix or anything.

  So, here's the stuffs:

Neurocore, Blue Raspberry

  I bought it from Snapdeal. But it's available pretty much everywhere. 
  The thing that I noticed about this product is that there is very little review about it. So thought let's start my review blogs with this one.

  Ok, so it's Blue Raspberry, tastes pretty cool and mixes super fast. Only some very little stuffs will be there at the bottom, which you can stir up and drink. No issues there.

  Ingredients, here you go. Very simple formula:

Simple formula of Neurocore

  If you notice, most of the ingredients at 1 scoop dosage are basically under-dozed. Meaning you won't get that much of an effect.

  So what do you get here: You get the regular caffeine for energy and citrulline for pump and circulation. Yohimbe would probably lower the blood pressure and beta-alanine is the regular endurance substance. Creating HCl is the ATP enhancer which works faster than the Monohydrate version. Rhodiola is also in there which reduces fatigue... Ya it does.

  Overall pretty neat. Some other stuffs are there too. But I don't know much about those.

  Anyway. Now, coming to the serving. This little, super concentrated tub says it has 45 serving of this little scoop:

Scoop of Neurocore

  It's the smallest scoop of any pre-workout that I've used so far. 4.2 grams.

  Most important part... How long it takes to kick in and how effective it is.
  I'll tell you my experience and it might vary because pre-workouts effect different people differently.

  I started with 1 scoop. And within the first 10 minutes, I felt that tingling and the buzzing started in 15 minutes.
  Since then, till now, I've never felt not much of beta-alanine tingling. Not sure why.
  
  As I said, I've never used any pre-workout before this one, so to me, the experience was a bit overwhelming. I was like elevated. Full of energy and focus.

  I think I liked the focus part very much because I was not distracted by what all I need to do when I go back to my desk, how many bugs are left, is QA waiting on me. blah blah blah. 

Just lift the damn weight. And I was doing it. AWESOME!

  I think I was doing a bit too much of weights, so initially got a minor headache. More blood flow I think. From the next day, I knew that I had to move up slowly.

  I generally do about 1 to 1.5 hours of workout and the funny feeling was that I was not feeling tired at all at the top of the hour. I was rather feeling bad that I had to drop the weights and go back.

  So, back to desk. Still having awesome energy. A bit too much I guess.
  
  No crash even after 8-10 hours. Yes, the first night I was having a wee bit difficulty getting a proper sleep. I think this is usual.

  Here's the important part. The one scoop effect died down over 4 days. And I had to move on to 1.5 scoops. I think the more important part is the mental effect. Because I was used to the effect, I had to take more to get that extra edge. I topped it till 2.5 scoops. 

  What I mean by this is that it won't last 45 workouts for you if you take it regularly. This is important if you are looking at the cheaper price tag of this product.

  I learnt a way to keep the effect in tap and that is to alternate the dosage anyhow. What I do currently is that I take one serving followed by two half servings and then back to 1 serving. This works for me. I generally keep the 1 serving for Chest and Legs. And half serving for shoulder and back. You can do your math. :)

  Overall, I like this product. And I'm gonna use it later again if it doesn't go out of market, which is pretty obvious given the rate at which new products are getting launched everyday. 

  Hope you liked my review. Keep posting comments and queries below. 

Just Arrived... Shock Therapy

Assault is over :( 

  I like assault. It's like super cool. But my container is over, gone.
  Today morning I took the last bit of it, like some quarter scoop. But guess what, I already placed an order Yesterday night for my new pack. 

  Nope, not assault this time. Trying something new. 

  Ya, I know it's kinda old. But I never tried it. So wanted to give it a shot. 
  And it arrived right now! Here are the pics.

Ya, ordered from Amazon

It's the 10 serving pack

Authentic. That's an issue in India.

How the powder looks

The Scoop Size (20gm)

  So the flavor is Grape Ape. Funny name. Mixes okay sort of. Neurocore and Assault mixes better. Tastes cool. :)

  Will update on results soon. 

Awesome Gym... Awesome Workout

Cool gym we have in office.

  Today was chest and arms day. I kinda changed to this one now, i.e., Chest and Arms on the same day.

  Previously I used to do chest on one day and mostly the following day I would do arms. I noticed that when I would get back to my next chest day (usually a day after arms day), my arms was not fit enough to support the presses. 

  So, I mixed them together now and chest and arm both get about 2 and sometimes 3 days to recover. Works well.

  Here's my gym in the morning. It's my office gym.

Just Arrived... Arla Casein

It just arrived. The FedEx fellow missed it Yesterday. But I called him up today and made sure he delivers.

  I am starting out on Casein. Two targets I've got. 
  1) Suppress food/carb intake after 7 PM 
  2) Stop my precious muscles to break down over night.
  3) Grow some muscle as I sleep.

  Oh ok... That was 3. Anyway, you get the idea.

  Got some good composition this one:
  27.4 gram protein (calcium caseinate)
  Some good portion of BCAA and Glutamine.

   I'll update on the effect after a couple of weeks I guess. 
  

Ya, comes in a pouch

The outer foil

Cheat Meal... Cheese Burst Chicken Lovers...

  Cheat meals are so very important. I never miss it.
  
  Mostly weekends are reserved for cheat meals. Doesn't mean that we go crazy about it. Just a bit relaxed from usual routine.

  

Cheese Burst...

Me and my Lovely Wife...

Told ya... cannot go crazy. Just a regular sized one...

  Go out, have fun and have your cheat meal. Well, it's a fancy word actually. Just have good food. :)

The cardio that I did for the first 4 months... 1 Hour Straight

For the first 4 months, I was loosing weight very rapidly. Well, not that rapid, but fair enough. But for a person like me (read endomorph), loosing fat at a fair rate is tough.

  Diet and workout needs to go hand in hand.

  For the initial months of my training, I did more cardio and less weight, but I still did weight/strength training.

  I started cardio at my gym on the treadmill and still continue on it. No elliptical/cross trainer, no cycle. Just that damn treadmill.

  Trying to do about 10 minutes of cardio for a FAT person is overwhelming, if she/he hasn't done it before. So I started with 5 minutes and it was exhausting.

  But from day 1 I was doing inclined running. 6.5 kmph speed and 5 stop inclination. It's a PRECOR machine if that helps calculate.

  Then I slowly built up my duration from 5 to 10 and from 10 to 20 and then 30 minutes. It took me about 3 weeks to do this.

  But then it kinda became easy for me and not sure why I stopped loosing weight. I mean yea, don't know. Diet was just the same. 

  Read all around the net and watched lots of Youtube GURU videos. :)

  Conclusion... Run more. 

  And boy, this was difficult. 30 minutes was okay. But more???


  But I kept running, with my headphone always plugged in during running. Kinda helps keep the pace. 

  It took me one more month to get to a 1 hour long run. At this point the speed was 7.5kmph and inclination was still at 5.

  The best part... I was back on track with loosing weight.

  I kept on doing this for about 4 months straight, after which I pushed slowly towards strength more and cardio less. 

  Recent pic, about 2 months old ( this is near Ooty, Tamil Nadu, India ):

The Whey that I got started with 20g per 30g scoop

Back from office. About to join a call. Some upgrade is not happening. But ya, it will work out. 

 So anyway. Wanted to start writing about some of the supplements that I used or still do use. It may help you. BTW, as I said in my first blog post, I don't get paid by these brands or anything. :)

  When I thought of using supplements, like whey etc., of course I consulted bodybuilding.com and other sites. And I came to this conclusion, that International brands are costly and Indian brands are not that trustworthy. 

  But had to make a choice. So, I went ahead and bought this Whey protein from an Indian company, Nutrimed. I bought it from Healthkart.com . 

  It's of course not among the ones that come with 80-90% protein composition. But you gotta think of budget, right?
  
   

  So this one had about 20 gram of protein out of a 30 gram scoop. It's kind of a whey blend, meaning isolate, concentrate mixup.

  I honestly don't know how great ON or UN brand Whey are, because so far I haven't tried those. But this one is good.

  Yes, I mean I liked it. I heard people have stomach ache etc. from Whey sometime, I didn't. Ya a bit of gas but I think that's the whey property in general.

  65% Protein might sound less, but I think it's not. Just to compare, check out this link, most of our childhood drinks have on an average 15% protein content. http://www.medimanage.com/my-kids-health/more-articles/complan-or-horlicks-which-is-the-best-health-drink.aspx?page_no=2 

  So 65% is actually HUGE. Ya it's HUGE.

  And mostly when I'm starting out. I'm talking about 8 months back. When you start out with supplements, even 50 gram EXTRA protein per day is good to start with; yes it is, because you're body isn't used to it. And whey is sucked up by the body pretty quick. So I don't think there's any need to go crazy about protein percentage like 80%, 90% and 95%... Well, you can if you don't have budget constraint.

  I used to take it once after I woke up in the morning. And then about 45 minutes after gym. Well, I didn't become superman overnight. But I did develop strength. My reps and sets went up. And I was feeling more energetic. 

  Here's a snapshot of the breakdown:

  So overall good experience. And if you're on budget, this is a good product. You can go for it. 

  But yes, if you are expecting this thing, and for that matter any supplement, to do wonders for you just like that, please stop dreaming. You gotta work your a** off. And then the results show. 

  Remember, pain is only temporary. What comes next, is generally referred to as Success.

How long it took me to hit 20Kg

So, I was getting slowly accustomed to the day... like checking mails, taking my protein shake etc. and it thought I should write the second post sometime... then why not now. So here it is.

 It took me about 6 months to loose 20 Kg. 

 Yep, I started sometime around early October, 2015 and by March, 2016 I was 20Kg off. 

  Please don't read this as 20Kg off with fat. No that's not true. It was fat and muscle and water weight etc. But there was a major chunk of fat and it was kinda visible.

  During these 6 months, the workout regime and the food lineup was pretty strict. Never really consulted any dietitian or doctor. Not that you should not. You better. But I didn't. Looked up youtube, crosschecked info from different legit sites and I was on track.

  See I tried loosing weight since I was a kid, cause I was always obese. But never really succeeded at it. But this time I did. Now that I look back, I realize why I didn't succeed before.

  Workout and nutrition/diet needs to go hand in hand. PERIOD.

  You cannot do one and not the other. For two reasons mainly:
  1) You will soon loose interest in one and the other is not there to back you up.

  2) Cardio, which majority of us think of as the holy grail of loosing weight, is not capable to get you and keep you in shape in the long run. You need to add weight exercise to it to increase muscle mass, so that your overall metabolism goes up (meaning you can eat more and still stay lean). And to support strength exercise, i.e., to gain muscle mass, you need proper nutrition.

  This time around I did both and stuck with it long enough to see the results.
  
  Nothing just happens. :)

Why 20KgDown?

Yeeees! Finally got it together. 

I was thinking of putting together a blog post about health and fitness and it was like dragging and dragging.... damn.

  Good I started at least!

  So first thing first. Why the name 20KgDown? Simple actually, and most likely, you've already figured it out. In case you're still waiting for a confirmation, then yes, you guessed it right. I recently, and for the first time, lost 20 KiloGram of weight. And this loss of weight is the main driver for me to write a blog. Thus the most appropriate name. 

  Now that we've got the name out of the way, let me quickly cover what all I plan to write here (nothing is planned as such, just a rough sketch).

  I think I'll mostly stick to stuffs that I do to keep healthy; my gym regime, diet, what all supplements I take etc. I'll try to do some review of stuffs that I used and methods I've applied and continue to apply. 

  One of the major reasons for me to write this blog (apart from the fact that I was enthralled by the number 20) is to let people know how we can keep fit while maintaining a balanced lifestyle. 

  People meaning folks like me; office goers. So, my day job... it ain't bodybuilding or keeping the best physique all round the year. That's not how I earn my living. I do coding, like C, Java, Ruby etc. I go to office, attend meetings, come home, attend meetings, and then eat and sleep. And then the next day I repeat all these. And while doing all these I need to maintain my diet and workout to keep fit. So I basically want to let people like me know how to do it. And I hope it would help everyone in general.

  So... Ya... that's pretty much it for the first blog post. Let's see what I do next.