Heh I'm subscribed, no need to bump, I was crazy sick for the past few days
Maximum amount you should take doesn't really make too much sense to me, I believe you mean the minimum you *need*, you could overshoot past that all you want (although more calories than needed for anabolism/living will be stored as fat). Aiming for 1-1.5g of protein / lbs is the normal rule of thumb, you do NOT want to be going below that so overshooting is a good idea.
Loading on creatine is, in essence, building up the creatine stores in your skeletal muscles to their maximum capacity. You already have creatine in your muscles as a normal person, but when you supplement it you add more, although there is a ceiling. If you were to just take 5g daily upon getting the container, you'd be at your max capacity in a week or two, after which you'd take 5g daily to 'top it off'. However, given how cheap creatine monohydrate powder is, and how impatient we all are, loading is basically a good means to get to that saturation point in like 5 days, not a couple weeks. Loading schedules are about as 'concrete' as pudding, so I'll tell you how I load personally, and that's usually something like 4 doses daily for maybe 5 days to a week, more or less. ((((also note that, insofar as creatine dosing, the time of day is 100%, completely irrelevant as far as 'getting it in your muscles'. People will take it before going to the gym under the misconception that the dose they just took matters - it does not. If you cease using creatine it'll take a good little while, probably weeks, to get back down to normal baseline creatine levels. The daily dose is a top off dose, it's not like if you didn't take creatine yesterday or today you'd be weaker at the gym today.)))))
As far as the 'rest' phase, I have to imagine that's referring to off periods, as in cycling on and off creatine. This used to be recommended pretty much across the board, not so much anymore. I still go off once in a while but will definitley do a year straight w/o thinking twice about it. The schedules, and the accompanying logic, behind 'rest'/'on' periods is insane and, as far as I've ever been aware, completely based on opinion and nothing concrete. I know all labels used to recommend an off period and you don't see that anymore, which is comforting imo, as they're the ones who would get the shit-storm if it turned out cycling on/off were needed.
heh, yeah you're loading right, sorry i'm catching up on threads and was addressing your q's chronologically
. You don't have to do that period off if you don't want to, the arguments for cycling off are absolutely not proven or solid, to be fully honest I can't even play devil's advocate and give you a reason. Best I can do, but I do this on *everything* (including multivitamins, fish oil, etc), is say that I always like to go off anything I use regularly once in a while, but it's more of a peace of mind/psychological thing I think lol.
Good choices on the products btw.
As far as when to take your products, here's some info that may help, sorry for bullet pointing this:
- you don't want to ever be hungry, you should never ever be hungry, I'm pretty much sick to my stomach from too much food 24/7 on a bulk lol.
- after lifting, before bed, and upon waking are some important times to really make sure to get a meal down, and the reasoning is:
- before bed: you're gonna be sleeping, you want food in there
- in the morning: ya just slept all night and didn't eat!
- after a workout: This is an important time where you want to ensure as best a recovery as possible, and the general approach is something like this:
00:00 - lift
00:50 - heavy shake of carbs/protein, typically a 2:1 or 3:1 ratio with #'s around maybe 80g carbs/40g protein for your average sized guy. Note that you want fast everything here, fast digestion times, so you want whey protein, not casein or anything, and you want dextrose/maltodextrin/etc for carbs, not oats.
01:30 - huuuuuge ass meal, typically as soon as you can stomach it after that shake
that's pretty much the breakdown as far as 'timing' of food goes. Another tip I found helped me was the every other hour rule, I'd eat every other hour, usually half shakes half food, to hit my 3500 calorie goal. I'd always have heavier stuff before bed and in the morning, and pretty generic ~400-700 calorie meals through the day (counting shakes as meals, remember it's just powdered food), but the every other hour thing always helped. Another thing that helped me with nausea from the high glycemic weightgainers (which are pretty much buckets of malto and/or dextrose) was to add fiber, I'd typically just take psyllium husk fiber (well, I'd grind it in a coffee grinder for a better texture), and mix that into my shakes. The only problem is it expands, so while it helps the sugar rush feeling it does little for the bloating feeling!!
