All posts by Saro

The New Supplement Stack Is In!

Reviews and Rants, Supplements

I got home today from work and was greeted by a big Bodybuilding.com box. Finally! The supplements I had ordered last week arrived in safely. I opened the box and quickly scanned through the items to make sure everything was there… and surely enough it was all there (BB.com hasn’t screwed up an order yet). The contents of the box were: Controlled Labs Green Bulge, Controlled Labs White Blood, Controlled Labs GlycerGrow, NOW! Flax Seed Oil, Syntrax Apple Ecstasy, Optimum Nutrition’s Whey Gold Standard (cookies ‘n cream flavor), a Syntrax protein shaker bottle and a Bodybuilding.com gym bag (which was a free gift). Everything was nicely sealed and ready to be used (see the picture!). Since I was about to hit the gym in 3 hours, I had a nice steak dinner and then proceeded to take the appropriate supplements an hour after eating.

Here is my supplementation schedule for those who are curious.

Training Days

White Blood: 60 minutes pre-workout / before bed
Green Bulge: 60 minutes pre-workout / pre-cardio
GlycerGrow: 30-60 minutes pre-workout
Purple Wraath: 10-30 minutes pre-workout / pre-cardio
Whey Protein: Morning, lunch and before bed
Flax oil: Everyday, 3 soft gels 2-3 times a day with meals

Non-Training Days

White Blood: Before bed
Green Bulge: Same time as gym / pre-cardio
GlycerGrow: Optional
Purple Wraath: Optional / pre-cardio
Whey Protein: Morning, lunch and before bed
Flax oil: Everyday, 3 soft gels 2-3 times a day with meals

For the past six months, I have been training only with protein shakes (ON Whey) and an EAA/BCAA blend (Purple Wraath). I took a break for Creatine and Nitric Oxide (Arginine) supplementation to see the difference they would make on my body. Surely enough, after my first batch of supplements tonight, I noticed a small spike in energy while doing squats. Perhaps it’s a placebo effect at work, but I really had a great workout and can’t wait till some of these products kick in at full gear. I’ll be writing a log once again of my progress and take a few before and after pictures for everyone to see.

New Supplements on the Horizon

Supplements, Training

It’s been a while since I was taking supplements for my strength training routine. I took a break from them as I wanted to see the difference with and without them. After 6 months of keeping it “natural”, I have decided to cycle creatine and nitric oxide again, along with some new additions to the stack: Controlled Labs’ GlycerGrow and some flax seed oil by NOW. I kind of went overboard last night with the supplements order on Bodybuilding.com’s store I must admit, totaling just about 200$ CDN including shipping costs. The order also includes Optimum Nutrition’s 100% Whey Protein (Cookies ‘n Cream flavour) along with a new protein blend I really liked (tried it at Seb’s house a few times) called Syntrax Nectar (Apple Ecstasy flavour). The latter tasted really, really good in cold water. I’m going to be consuming it exclusively at work since it mixes well with cold water (resulting in less of a mess since we have no sink here to wash cups and such…). I’ll be keeping some logs of my supplement usage in the upcoming weeks yet again!

Mazda Tribute 2008 Review

Reviews and Rants

I just picked this car up last Thursday and decided to write a few things about it. It’s the second car I’ve owned as of now, previous one being a Toyota Camry 1997 CE V6 3.0L. I needed a car that was big enough to transport company computers and my subwoofers, not to mention offer a smooth ride that handled well on the road. After careful consideration from a dozen available SUVs, I hit up my local Mazda dealership and took it for a test drive to see how well it performed.

Switching to this new ride was a bit scary I must admit, as I didn’t want to lose out on the road handling ability that regular cars have and certain other minor features, such as a sub-standard audio system (ugh… I hate stock stereos… I’m used to my JBL setup in the Camry). Regardless, I visited my dealership (Mazda des Sources) and spoke with Patrick, who was a pretty friendly guy. We went over the cars details, and he showcased me two trims they had in stock: the GX-V6 (a demo car) and a GS-V6. I knew right there and then that the demo model would be much cheaper (cost is important ya know!). The numbers were calculated for a 48 month lease and the demo came out to 375$/month with 0$ down. Ding! I took it for a test drive and liked it; it handled great. The steering, braking and general feel of the vehicle felt like a regular car and not like a truck or full-blown SUV. They call these automobiles “crossover SUVs” and this label seems to fit the style well.

So, after pondering about purchasing this vehicle over the weekend, I called in Monday and told Patrick that I’d be coming over the following morning to sign the lease papers and pay the deposit. Everything went smoothly until the credit application came. Since I was a co-signer (alongside the company) there was a bit of trouble processing my side of the deal as I don’t really have any credit. 🙂 Anyway, the woman handling the credit application managed to do something about it after calling BMW Financial (whom my company has credit with) to see if we’re in good-standing in the credit department. Of course, everything went by well and before you know it, I was driving the Tribute by Thursday afternoon. The car is what I had expected. It has power-everything, fold-able seats, cruise control, storage space, cargo-cover and tinted windows.

I just have to say it again: the stock stereo system sucks big time. I am now in the process of moving my JBL setup from the Camry into the Tribute. All I need to do now is find the proper routes for the wires (where’s the damn firewall?!) and make sure I don’t make any unnecessary holes or break something in the car while doing the installation. It’s a leased car for 4 years, which I find is worth to do a custom audio installation. I think I’ll be posting a step-by-step guide on how to do an installation for the Tribute, as no guides exist for it yet…

I Missed the Best City in the World: Montreal

Reviews and Rants, Travel

I got back from my vacation last Sunday (August 19th) and wasn’t happier to be home. I seriously missed my friends and the city of Montreal.

Small review of the trip: it was awesome. I visited Denmark, Sweden and Norway in 18 days. Not a lot of time, but any more would have killed me, as I get homesick within 2 weeks. I saw quite possibly the most beautiful places on earth… the mountains of Norway are breathtaking, no lie. Stockholm in Sweden was such a nice, clean city; I found it equivalent to Montreal but more “European” and well-maintained. Definitely a place I would consider moving to, as their living conditions are superb. All I need to do now is pick up Swedish and I’m set. 🙂

Speaking of languages, I have decided to learn German at Concordia. During the trip, I spoke with the tour guide (whom I’ll never forget) that inspired me to learn. She knows six (6) languages! How crazy is that? English, French, German, Swedish, Norwegian and Danish. Hopefully I’ll stick around Concordia for more than six weeks this semester.

My tour group was overall pretty fun to hang out with. Everyone was always in a good mood and respectful towards others. The hotels were decent, except two of them were crap. One didn’t have A/C (it is common in Scandinavian countries, as they don’t usually get continuous hot weather) and the other hotel was a bit ghetto overall (broken hair dryer, missing sink knobs, awkward room design, etc.). The food outside and inside the hotels were terrific, but extremely expensive. A can of Coke was equivalent to 10$ CDN. The Scandinavian countries’ minimum wages are much higher than North Americans I believe, hence the high prices. I got to check out some cool tech and gadgets though; the Sony Ericsson W880i phone was one of ’em. If it was quad-band, I would have bought it in a heartbeat (and quite possibly have buyer’s remorse right after, since I already have a perfectly working phone!).

One thing I found particularly cool was that a lot of people in Copenhagen use bicycles as a means of everyday travel. They have dedicated bike paths alongside cars; that’s how popular the transportation is. Of course, you still have your buses, trains and metro systems which work very well. The bicycles really keep everyone fit there… you sure as hell don’t see obese people around… which brings me to say the girls in Europe are HOT. 🙂

I Haven’t Forgotten About You My Dear, Dear Blog

Ramblings, Travel

Long time since I did an update, mostly because I had nothing important to say. I should write down a few things today so I can look back once the future rolls out to see what I did at the time back then.

First off, I’m hitting up Denmark, Sweden and Norway for 18 days this month. I’m leaving tomorrow at about 7:00 PM on a KLM flight with my parents and brother. The last time I flew with KLM was when I went to Turkey for a whole 2 months to visit my grandmother. I recall the flying experience with KLM to be pretty damn good (I’d say second best airline, after Swiss in my opinion). The only downside to this flight is that there will be a transfer in Amsterdam for a second flight to Norway (I much rather a direct flight). Hopefully everything goes by smoothly and no delays occur.

One thing I would like to mention is that this travel is a tour organized by Globus. Last time I toured with them (in the United Kingdom) I swore to never use their services again for the sheer fact that your liberty to explore the cities/countries at your own pace is strictly limited. Don’t get me wrong; the whole tour was fantastic but I felt like we were rushing at times and that most of the traveling was done on a bus going around the city with few stops. Why am I going back with Globus again, you may ask? Well, I don’t really want to miss out on this golden opportunity to visit these countries as I may not be able to travel to Europe again for a while (rising prices are discouraging my parents to fly out East…) so I should really enjoy it while I can. Anyway, the food and luxurious hotels really do kick ass. 🙂

I am going to miss my friends, however, for the 18 days that I will be gone. I’m heading out for some sushi tonight with the boys before I disappear from Montreal. Another thing I would like to mention is that I wish I didn’t miss out on the camping trip organized by ACYOC Toronto. If they had stuck to the same schedule like they did for the past 4 years of my participation, I wouldn’t be missing out on a wonderful experience (especially since more of my friends are going this year). I even told my mother not to book our trip at the end of August for the sole fact that I can go camping again this year. Damn shame…

The past two months have been pretty slow, both at work and at home. I need to push SPOS on our existing clients and seek new business opportunities. I’d like to have more time to myself to do projects of my own. My strength training workouts stopped last week when I sprained my ankle (first time ever!). Bleh.

The invitation website that I’m working on with Seb and Dave is slowly coming together. There’s still a lot of stuff to code, but Dave and I have an overall plan on what to do first to get the ball rolling. If I have any spare time on my trip, I should be able to code a large portion of the site (I’m thinking those long bus rides between cities might be a good time to do some programming).

Wow, a lot of topics covered in this post. Time to get some sleep for tomorrow’s adventure.