What went wrong?

OK, I'm looking to see where things may have gone wrong. Show was yesterday, so I'll back up a bit.

Diet was high sodium all the way through.

Leg training was stopped two weeks out and depletion was started on Sunday. At the same time I made sure the water was at 12 liters (3 gallons) minimum.

Carbs were about 70 g for Sunday through to Wednesday inclusive with salt and water intake as I said, very high.

Thursday morning was a full body depletion workout which was followed by two liquid post workout meals (2 hrs apart) consisting of whey protein and dextrose. From that point on, this is what was eaten

Meal 3
2 oz chicken breast
10 rice cakes

Meal 4
2 oz chicken breast
2/3 cup oatmeal
3/4 cherry pie filling

Meal 5
2 oz chicken
10 oz white potatoe

Meal 6
2 oz chicken
10 oz white potatoe

Meal 7
2 oz chicken breast
2/3 cup oatmeal
3/4 cherry pie filling

Meal 8
2 oz extra lean ground beef
10 oz white potatoe
1 oz unsalted cashews

Meal 9
2 oz extra lean ground beef
10 oz white potatoe
1 oz unsalted cashews

No direct sodium on Thursday, but water intake was still over 12 liters.

Friday continued with the following:

Meal 1
3 oz chicken
1/2 cup oatmeal
2/3 cup cherry pie filling

Meal 2
3 oz extra lean ground beef
7 oz sweet potatoe

Meal 3
3 oz chicken
1/2 cup oatmeal
2/3 cup cherry pie filling

Meal 4
3 oz chicken
6 oz sweet potatoe
1 oz unsalted cashews

Meal 5
3 oz chicken
5 oz sweet potatoe
1/4 cup cherry pie filling

Water was very high up to this point. Probaby around 10 liters already and then at about 5:30 pm I cut the water off.

3 hrs later I continued with the following

Meal 6
Prime rib
French fries
cheesecake

Meal 7
3 oz extra lean ground beef
7 oz sweet potatoes

Now, after I cut the water, for the rest of the night, only 2 sips of water were taken. There was no other water consumed.

Saturday morning

Meal 1 @ 7:00am
3 pancakes with butter and syrup
3 white cheddar rice cakes with peanut butter and jam
1 danish
3 reese's peanut butter cups
2 boston cream donuts
NO WATER

Weigh ins were at 9:00 am

Had a little more chocolate, another donut, a while later and then had 2 spoonfuls of jam every 30 minutes up to prejudging.

Now, I think the look was tighter and fuller Friday night. Saturday, by the time the prejudging came around, there was some water showing up and that tight, dry feeling was gone. The fullness was there and the ability to pump up was defintely there, but so was the water.

After prejudging, I had a diet coke, and tightened up considerably.

So, where is the error?

By the way, natural athlete using Taraxatone as the diuretic.

Any opinions are greatly appreciate, especially since there is another show this coming weekend.

Ok this is where I see some flaws, but DP and skip and tn and hum will chime in probably. Do you full body depletions on like mon-wed., you should had added in the taraxatone on tuesday! Run your sodium through wed on thurs drop to 1 gal of distilled and fri 1/2 gal distilled. Drop all sodium on thurs and fri. You were pry filled friday b/c you used chicken (unless it is natural) whicch has a little bit of sodium in it, it is better to use turkey breats. Sine you are natural and not using real diuretics, you cant take in the loads of water that close to show and expect to push it through as you can w/the add of aldacton, lasix, or diazide...as I got back and read this your sodium was way the hell up there on fri and thurs...those liquid shakes are filled w/sodium FYI hope this helps and maybe someone else will chime in

flaws I see:
(my opinion)

** depleted too late to REALLY deplete fully--- it takes days
** still using liquid meals in last week
** started carbing on Thursday---- too early (as witnessed by the condition you WERE in on Friday)
** gotta have SOME water Saturday or body holds it all

contact Skip for more in-depth analysis.
he can get you on-track......

but don't listen to me.... I am a newbie and this is my first post

zilla

Zilla, thanks for the response. And for the record, I've read many of your posts on the final few days on other boards and appreciate your response.

Do you think just 2 liquid meals would make that significant of a difference? I had eliminated all of them but those two post depletion workout drinks.

Would you suggest that I just carb up on Friday, eliminating Day 2 and using my Day 1 on Friday?

I was thinking the same thing regarding water intake Saturday morning. I wanted to drink, but wasn't sure. Maybe the fact that the diet coke tightened things up tells me the water would have been a good idea. Having said that, how much? 8 oz with the first meal and then stop there?

Ill bump For dp, skip and the guys on this one!

BTW welcome to both of you New guys, it good to se you posting!

zilla said:

flaws I see:
(my opinion)

** depleted too late to REALLY deplete fully--- it takes days
** still using liquid meals in last week
** started carbing on Thursday---- too early (as witnessed by the condition you WERE in on Friday)
** gotta have SOME water Saturday or body holds it all

contact Skip for more in-depth analysis.
he can get you on-track......

but don't listen to me.... I am a newbie and this is my first post

zilla

Click to expand...

It is difficult to follow zilla but I will piggy-back off of what he said:

The diet coke thing gives away the fact that you were flat. As soon as you took in some diet coke you tightened up - there is your answer in black and white. You needed more water. You probably weren't holding water as much as you APPEARED to be holding water due to being flat and the skin looked to be 'softer'.

I, myself, like a couple liquid drinks at the very start of the carb loading with slin as I think it is a very quick way to get alot of carbs in there. Not really a 'right vs. wrong' sort of thing but rather personal preference. Other than using them to start your carb load, there should be no liquid drinks in the last week as zilla stated.

I would question whether you were truly depleted, also. If you were, there would be almost no amount of carbs that you could ingest in that time period to smooth you out. It is very difficult, when properly depleted, to over do the carbs in such a short period of time. This last show I went over 2100 GRAMS of carbs from wednesday to saturday and was hard as nails.

Just my opinion.........

Skip

SouthernCruise,

What was your taraxatone intake pattern?...

What was your depletion workout like?...

I agree with what has been said and have some other thoughts, but would like to know a bit more...

-Randy

Started Taraxatone on Monday. The label recommendations are twice a day dosing, but I was doing either 3 or 4 times a day dosing. Friday it was only taken twice per day.

As for not being fully depleted, the carbs hadn't been above 150 g in a few weeks and I had dropped down to about 75. As for depletion workouts, I was doing a little the week prior -- 30 minutes heavy training followed by 30 minutes of fully body depletion (upper body)

On Thursday morning when I did the last depletion workout (2 days out), I again did full uppder body for about 90 minutes. There were 3 cycles. Each one had an exercise per bodypart and I did 15-20 reps per movement, rested 1 minute and moved onto the next exercise. At the end of 1 cycle, I'd rest 2 minutes before going onto the next. In total, 5 cycles were completed and I'm pretty sure I was depleted.

Alright, so the diet coke gives away the fact that the muscles were flat. So, what do I do for this week?

1. Not cut the water so far out? (18hrs this past time)
2. If the water is cut at 18hrs, continue to sip instead of cutting it all off? (how much should be sipped?)
3. Cut it at 18hrs, but have a glass of water the morning of the show with breakfast?
4. Any other water intake possibilities?

As for quantity of carbs, in the 2 days, I took in about 1200 grams not including those in the french fries and cheesecake. I want to follow the same carb up scheme this coming weekend.

Any further help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Oh yeah, and 300 mg of ALA (not r-ALA) before every carb meal in the last two days.

I still dont think naturally you will be able to push those amounts of water effieciently but hey that is my opinion skip and all them know better!

Should I try tapering it? 12 L on Wednesday, 8L on Thursday, and 4L up to the water cut on Friday?

SC,

In addition to what was said, the taraxatone schedule was a bit mixed up. I would have waited until Wed or so to start that, and INCREASED it up to and through show day. By reducing it on Fri. (and none on Sat.?), you reduced the stimulus for diuresis. When you are dehydrated like you were Fri onward, the hormones of water balance are raging to restore hydration, retain sodium, etc. By dropping the taraxatone dose, you MAY have let balance of fluid homeostasis shift toward retnention. Basically you let your foot come off the accelerator (dropped the tarax.) just as you were nearing the finish line (night show)...

Of course this is just 1 factor, but I think an important one.

You can do the water just they way you did, although I would have shot for 14L on Friday, finishing when you did. Also, you can take dandelion (there is some in taraxatone, along with caffeine if I recall), more caffeine (this may have been another reason why the diet coke was effective), uva ursi, Vit. C in ~10+g / day amounts to keep the kidneys working to remove water from the system. If you start to feel like you're holding water, and you're already full (i.e., as you were in the afternoon of the show), you can switch to a pure protein diet (low sodium like turkey or even chicken breast). In fact, the more of this that you eat, especially if your glycogen levels are full, the more urea you will make that must be cleared by the kidneys, which requires water to be removed from the system. The protein in high amounts will also help keep your glycogen levels topped off b/c of the gluconeogenesis that the amino acids can be used for.

Hope this helps, Bro!

-Randy

Thanks very much for that reply.

14L up to the water cut (18 hrs) it is. At this point, many say to keep sipping. But that term seems very arbitrary. Say the water is cut at 5:00pm Friday. Until bed time what would you suggest in terms of water allotment? Sip another 500-750 ml until bed time?

Show day water is also confusing, but I'm thinking that some water is definitely needed in the morning of the show -- maybe 8 ounces?

SC

You're welcome, man.

I would stop the water at 5 and drink nothing until the morning. I have actually measured my urinary output on show day after PJ and matched that, which ends up being about 1L after the PJ up until the night show.

8 oz before PJ would be good. If I were you, I would save most of that for when you're getting pumped up and ready to go on stage. If you're feeling flat, no vasularity and can't get a pump, drink 3-4 oz, if still flat just before you go out, have the other 3-4. Ultrafuel can also help here, but I have always gone on the side of caution to stay super dry.

you will feel like absolute hell (feverish usually), but be dry as a friggin' bone. If you've carbed up properly, you should be able to get a pump, at least to some degree.

Much of this is, as you know, a matter of trial and error. You might need to drink 1L in the morning to have enough fluid to get some vascularity. Of course, thinkgs like wine, niacin and AMP (Sythelator by synthetek) can take care of that.

The vascularity is less visible to the judges than whether or not yo are smooth with water.

Good luck, Bro.

-Randy

Hom, thanks a lot. Solid advice.

I appreciate the time you took to answer.

No Problemo, Mi Amigo!!!

-Randy