I am wondering whether I should take into account the 700 or so calories that I will consume during the loading phase of Cell-Tech? Won't this amount add to fat stores? Should I decrease some of my complex carbs during the day as I do not eat any other form of simple carbs? I am in a mass building phase by the way.

By Pahrumpguru on Sunday, October 10, 1999 - 11:25 pm: Edit

If you are in a mass building stage than why worry about a little extra fat. Even if all of it went to your fat stores you would only gain a pound of fat inyour loading phase. It won't however because some of the carbohydrates are burned off as heat rather than stored as fat and one of your servings should be right after you work out. The high insulin response is just what you want to help increase glycogen replacement and propel your body into an anabolic state. Right after a workout I have used cell tech with 5grams of glutamine followed 30 minutes later by a protein shake and 1 hour and a half after that a solid food meal. After your workout your body will shuttle most calories to muscle rather than fat cells. Know if you were to down a cell tech and than a beer You would probally store most of the carbs as fat since alcohol prevents the body from oxidizing fat and carbs for fuel until it burns off the beer,wine,or other alcohol bevarge. As you can see it would be possible to store these cals as fat but you'd have to meet a lot of critera.

By Ninja Turtle ( - 165.121.38.74) on Saturday, November 04, 2000 - 09:26 am: Edit

What percentage of the wieght gained from creatine do you keep afterward. I always hear "wow, it was hard for me to pack on mass, creatine finally helped" or "its incredible". But if these gains are artificial why even take creatine in the first place?

It could be analogous to when after you work-out your muscles get bigger because of the blood running through but that lasts only an hour or two. Whats the big deal when that happens...nothing!?

I have read so many conflicting posts its hard to discern whether creatine is worth taking or not. For example I read at the MinistryofFitness website that you lose a few pounds but keep most of your gains. It also seems like people dicuss every aspect of creatine except actual lasting gains.

Has anyone stopped taking creatine for a while and ended up with more muscle then they could have had without it. Or do you lose 90% of you gains. If could even keep 5 outta 10 pounds I would be happy:)

By gopher ( - 24.183.103.64) on Saturday, November 04, 2000 - 06:38 pm: Edit

Ninja, I have kept about 90% of the strength and mass that I have gained using creatine. Lately everyone has been focusing on the cell volumization effects of creatine and completely forgoten about creatine's primary function which is to increase levels of ATP in the muscle. By increasing ATP creatine enables you to squeeze out one or two extra reps before failure which leads to greater muscle growth. If you are not working out with maximum intensity creatine, along with most other sups, is a complete waiste of your money. Supplements like creatine will help you achieve maximum results if you apply maximum effort. However, they are not a substitute for hard work. There are no magic pills. If you do not train hard you will not grow!

By aaron ( - 216.127.82.225) on Saturday, November 04, 2000 - 09:26 pm: Edit

ok first of all you have to realize how creatine works and what it does. creatine boosts up the amount of ATP(your bodies form of energy) that is sent throughout your body. so in other words, when taking creatine your strength and energy should go up. the 10lbs that most people are used to gaining is mostly water weight. creatine is NOT a steroid, you will not just gain 10lbs of muscle in 8 weeks. as soon as you go off of it, your weight will go down because it is not there to hold in water, which is a good thing because the water is held in your muscles giving them a fuller look and increases strength. but, because you were hopefully able to lift more weight and push more reps when you were on creatine, you should have built more muscle than if you were off it. so what does this mean? when you go off of creatine, after a couple of days(all the water is gone) any weight that is on you now that was not there before is in the form of lean muscle!
as for you trying creatine, i can not say. everyone is affected differently, some DO gain 5-7 lbs of hard muscle in that 6-8 week cycle, while the unfortunate do not get affected at all. creatine is deffinetely worthy of use, and you should try it and see what it does for you.

-aaron

By ichy (24.69.255.203) on Monday, October 22, 2001 - 07:52 am: Edit

I've been on cre-x-12& my-x-cel for just over a week all is well except that i've been experiencing some minor skin irratations the last two days. They occur pretty much everywhere, and look like flea bites. They seem to come in waves, they are ichy as hell when they swell up then dissapear within a few hours, so I know there not bites. They resemble some kind of rash.????????