Happy New Year Hangover Cures - 8 Cures That Work + Two Dozen Purported "Cures" That Have No Scientific Backup

Happy New Year! In case this guy looks anywhere similar to how you feel after yesterday's party night, today's SuppVersity article is for you!

"Happy New Year", health, love, ... you know the whole litany, so let's get over it and straight to the things that are really important, today. The hangover cures. In the following I have compiled an extensive yet probably by no means complete list of scientifically proven hangover cures that may help better than aspirin and plenty of water (Harvard Health Letter. 2006), alone.

Apropos aspirin, it's actually not too bad to start with 400-800mg of it, if you are having a hangover. It has after been shown to block the increased prostaglandin synthesis in response to alcohol ingestion and thus counter at least the inflammatory aspect of the hangover (George. 1979).

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The latter cannot be said of another common pain killer: Acetaminophen, which failed to inhibit ethanol-induced subjective effects in human volunteers in a 1992 study by Pickworth et al. The same study by George et al. would yet also suggest that aspirin may also prolong the time it takes for the alcohol to leave your system completely... and this may not be your only problem, because the coingestion of aspirin and alcohol has been associated with an increased risk of gastrointestinal haemorrhage (Needham. 1971).

So what do you do if water and aspirin are not enough? Well, here are a couple of suggestions - in a more or less random order, since there are hardly any studies that compare the efficacy of one to another.

• 

  Figure 1: Effects of 200mg tolfenamic acid on hangover symptoms in man (Kaivola. 1983).

  Tolfenamic acid - Tolfenamic acid is a very specific prostaglandin biosynthesis inhibitor that lead to significant reductions in hangover symptoms in a 1983 study by Kaivola, et al. (see Figure 1).
  
  The only problem is: The subjects consumed the 200mg of the anti-migraine drug tolfenamic acid before they started binge drinking. Whether the effects are similarly pronounced if you take it the day after remains to be elucidated.
• Gamma linoleic acid (GLA) - The omega-6 fatty acid from vegetable oils like rapeseed/canola oil and soy beans, walnuts, flax seed (linseed oil), perilla, chia, and hemp seed effectively reduced the hangover symptoms of human volunteers in a study the results of which have unfortunately never been officially published (Moesgaard; based on Pittler. 2005).
  
  In view of the fact that I have only 2nd hand access to the results I cannot tell you how much GLA you would need. Considering the effect that the supplement contained B officinalis aka Borage, which contains 26-36% GLA, if it's not specifically enriched, I would yet assume that 100-300mg should do.

Figure 2: Symptoms and possible contributers of hangover (Swift. 1998).

• Yeast + B-Vitamins: Another trial tested the efficacy of 250 mg dried yeast, 0.5 mg thiamine nitrate, 0.5 mg pyridoxine hydrochloride, and 0.5 mg riboflavin in participants who consumed vodka (40% volume alcohol) amounting to a total of 100 g absolute alcohol (Laas. 1999). The difference in the change for the symptoms discomfort, restlessness, and impatience was statistically significant in favor of the yeast preparation and appear to suggest that the corresponding supplement aka "Morning Fit" works.
  
  Moreover, corresponding research from the Chungnam National University in Korea shows that a preparation of combined glutathione-enriched yeast and rice embryo/soybean extracts constitutes a  "a promising candidate for improvements of alcoholic hangover" (Lee. 2009), as well.
• Oh!K - A hangover cure with green ginger, turmeric, pepper, and green tea extract, along with salt, citric and ascorbic acid and fructose as the carrier worked pretty well in a recent study by Gopi et al. (2014).
• Sprite! Or rather a sprite-like herbal drink - In the media you may have read about Sprite, when in fact the two drinks researchers from the Sun Yat-Sen University in China tested and found to be effective in increasing the production of the enzyme that helps our bodies to get rid of alcohol were xue bi, a fizzy lemon and lime drink of which the researchers did not declare that it was indeed Sprite and hui yi su da shui, probably a type of soda water (Li. 2014).
• After Affect(R): Another commercially available anti-hangover cure "proved" to be effective in a non-randomized non-controlled trial from the Utrecht University (Vester. 2012).
  

  

  Table 1: Rationale for the ingredients included in After-Effect©. 1 - Total dose of 5 capsules. 2 - Only those symptoms that showed a significant improvement during alcohol hangover are listed. GLA: gamma-linolenic acid, EPA: eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), and DHA: docosahexaenoic acid (Verster. 2012).

  If it were not for the reasonable ingredient profile (see Table 1), I probably wouldn't have listed it, but with GLA, magnesium, B-vitamins & co it does contain a bunch of ingredients that may actually help.
• Party Smart (carbonate mix) - Yet another commercial preparation that contains calcium carbonate (615 mg) and vegetable carbon (345 mg) and has - unfortunately - to be consumed while you are drinking.
  
  More specifically, the subjects in the 2004 study by Manu et al. consumed their first serving of two caplets with first drink and two more caplets every 2 to 3 hours (or 5 to 6 drinks).
  

  

  Figure 3: Mean hangover score and mean blood alcohol 10h after drinking (Manu. 2004).

  The data in Figure 3 does yet indicate that this alkalization regimen worked pretty well (I wonder if sodium bicarbonate would to the same ;-) is a pretty effective means to (a) keep the hangover in check and (b) help your body clear the alcohol from your bloodstream.
• Aging! Ok, I know this does not really help you today, but maybe on New Year's Eve 2065! Tolstrup et al. found that hangover following engagement in binge drinking is much more common in the young than in the older age groups (Tolstrup. 2014). For women, similar results were obtained.
  
  As the scientists point out, "[t]his finding could not be explained by the usual amount of alcohol consumption, frequency of binge drinking, or the proportion of alcohol consumed with meals" (Tolstrup. 2014).

List of anti-hangover remedies from the Internet - all w/out scientific evidence that they work (Pittler. 2004).

You still feel like dying? If all these cures didn't help and you feel as if you were about to die, today, you may have inherited a special gene variant from of Aldehyde Dehydrogenase (ALDH2) an Asian ancestor that makes you extra susceptible to more severe hangovers (Wall. 2000).

And if you are totally desperate you may want to give C scolymus aka Artichoke leaves and O ficus-indica extracts a final try. While two randomized controlled trials did not intergroup differences for their main outcome measures (Pittler. 2003; Wiese. 2004), both are often hailed as natural hangover remedies. The same can be said of most of the other remedies you will find if you google anti-hangover cures on the Internet (see table on the right). As Pittler et al. highlight in their 2005 review of the literature, none of them has reliable scientific evidence that would confirm that they are working | Comment on Facebook!

References:

• George, Frank R., and Allan C. Collins. "Prostaglandin synthetase inhibitors antagonize the depressant effects of ethanol." Pharmacology Biochemistry and Behavior 10.6 (1979): 865-869.
• Gopi, Sreeraj, et al. "Studies on the effectiveness, safety and tolerability of two doses of Anti Hangover Drink in Reducing Alcohol Induced Hangover Symptoms in Adult Male Social Drinkers." Int.J.Cur.Res.Aca.Rev. 2.8 (2014): 125-131.
• Harvard Health Letter. How to handle a hangover: drinking fluids may help with the morning-after misery from getting drunk. Harvard Health Letter 31.3(2006):3. 
• Kaivola, S., et al. "Hangover headache and prostaglandins: prophylactic treatment with tolfenamic acid." Cephalalgia 3.1 (1983): 31-36. 
• Laas I. A double-blind placebo-controlled study on the effects of Morning Fit on hangover symptoms after a high level of alcohol consumption in healthy volunteers. J Clin Res 1999;2: 9-15. 
• Lee, Heon-Sik, et al. "Effects of a preparation of combined glutathione-enriched yeast and rice embryo/soybean extracts on ethanol hangover." Journal of medicinal food 12.6 (2009): 1359-1367.
• Li, Sha, et al. "Effects of herbal infusions, tea and carbonated beverages on alcohol dehydrogenase and aldehyde dehydrogenase activity." Food & function 5.1 (2014): 42-49. 
• Manu, M. B., and S. A. Kolhapure. "Evaluation of the Efficacy and Safety of “PartySmart” in the Prevention of Alcohol-induced Hangover: A Prospective, Randomized, Double Blind, Comparative, Phase III Clinical Trial." INDIAN JOURNAL OF CLINICAL PRACTICE 15.7 (2004).
• Moesgaard S, Hansen NV. GLA effectively reduces hangovers. Pharma Nord Research, unpublished report. 
• Needham, C. D., et al. "Aspirin and alcohol in gastrointestinal haemorrhage." Gut 12.10 (1971): 819-821. 
• Pickworth, Wallace B., et al. "Acetaminophen fails to inhibit ethanol-induced subjective effects in human volunteers." Pharmacology Biochemistry and Behavior 41.1 (1992): 189-194.
• Pittler, Max H., et al. "Effectiveness of artichoke extract in preventing alcohol-induced hangovers: a randomized controlled trial." Canadian Medical Association Journal 169.12 (2003): 1269-1273.
• Pittler, Max H., Joris C. Verster, and Edzard Ernst. "Interventions for preventing or treating alcohol hangover: systematic review of randomised controlled trials." Bmj 331.7531 (2005): 1515-1518.
• Swift, Robert, and Dena Davidson. "Alcohol hangover." Alcohol Health Res World 22 (1998): 54-60. 
• Tolstrup, J. S., Stephens, R. and Grønbæk, M. (2014), Does the Severity of Hangovers Decline with Age? Survey of the Incidence of Hangover in Different Age Groups. Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, 38: 466–470. doi: 10.1111/acer.12238.
• Verster, J. C., and O. Berthélemy. "Consumer Satisfaction and Efficacy of the Hangover Cure After-Effect©." Advances in preventive medicine 2012 (2012).
• Wall, Tamara L., et al. "Hangover symptoms in Asian Americans with variations in the aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH2) gene." Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs 61.1 (2000): 13.

Of the 1.8 New Year's Resolutions We Make Every Year, 23% Fail Within Two Weeks: A Humorous Scientific Outlook on the Fallacy of New Year's Resolutions.

Image 1: I don't know about this "smart ass" in particular, but I would assume you have had enough "smart asses" post their knowledgeable tips on their blogs to get along without another "12 useful tips for 2012" from me, right?

I guess at least those of you who have been following this "blog" (I hope that you would agree that the SuppVersity has become more than another "blog") have come to "know" me well enough not to expect me to provide you with the 1001 list of ten, or at it has become fashionable as of late, twelve super-duper congenial tips to achieve your goals in 2012. Change, and this is the one wisdom I want to give you to take along for the next year, change rarely is something that comes over night or is "triggered" by the adherence to any fixed plan. Change is the result of the accumulation of small steps, dx/dt, as we physicists would say, i.e. covering an infinitesimal distance (=dx) within an infinitesimal short timespan (=dt). If we now denote steps that take you further towards your goal as positive and steps by which you depart from your ultimate goal as negative than any year in which the integral over dx/dt would be positive, or in non-physicist terms, where the number of infinitesimal steps you have taken towards your goal was greater than the ones by which you have distanced yourself from what you want to achieve, a successful year! Consider that before you file 2011 as another "lost" year.

Enough smart ass new years advice for 2011!

But hey, didn't I say, I would not give you wise ass advice? I guess we should get back to science then... after all the "-versity" in the name of this site denotes that we are doing serious stuff here, doesn't it? So, take my hand and descend (for the last time in this year) with me into the archives of science. The first thing we hit on is an editorial from the most prestigious medical journal in the world, The Lancet, in which the contemporary editor of the journal has the following well-phrased advice for you (I did not say I would not provide you with wise ass advice from others ;-)

The opening of a new year leads all of us to take some stock of the past and to formulate a certain number of resolutions for the future, and the frame of mind which is thus indicated should be indulged in, but only with moderation. To spend too much time in thinking over what has gone by will interfere with the work that lies under our hand; to make resolutions that are too large and too numerous for our powers is to court disappointment. None the less every thoughtful man will use his past experience to guide him in the future both as to what he will do and as to how he will do it. (The Lancet. 05. January 1907)

Image 2: New Years Eve is for most of us the time, when we simply cannot ignore the necessity to make a change, any longer.

Somehow, this reminds me of some of the "best tips, tweaks, tricks" and, above all, "common pitfalls to avoid in 2012", I have been reading elsewhere around the web over the course of the last days. I mean we all know that the more good intentions we have, the more likely they are to never materialize into significant changes. Being aware of this circumstance, Judith Stoner Halpern who wrote the editorial to January issue of the not just as famous *rofl* International Journal of Trauma Nursing suggests that (Halpern. 2001) "perhaps the best New Year’s resolution that we can make would be to learn how to make a better resolution"

Interestingly, and this is probably the first thing that goes beyond "conventional new year's resolution wisdom", the first reason she invokes is the time of the year!

An easy answer is to blame January 1. For one half of the world, it falls in the middle of winter, and for the other half, the middle of summer. This is not the most opportune time to enact a dramatic change. The middle of a season often causes us to feel a lack of commitment; this may be part of the reason that ancient cultures chose spring or fall as the time to start anew. For some, January 1 may feel like an artificial time for change.

When you come to think about it, this is actually quite a reasonable argument. With the "winter blues" upon us January certainly is not the best time to "blossom". The neo-paleolithic folks many of us recently believe we are, we should better crawl up in our dugouts and set up our plan of attack in order to mimic the "ancient cultures" and start anew in spring.

Does understanding the psychology of change hold the key for success?

The question yet remains, how do we instigate a new-or restart? A possible answer may come from Freeman and Dolan's theoretical model of change that in turn is based on a previous model by DiClemente that has been extensively discussed in the scientific literature on psychotherapy. According to the model, the authors propose in their 2001 paper in Cognitive and Behavior Practice, there are 10 stages. Where the last one, maintenance marks the (temporary) achievement of preferably positive "change".

Figure 1: The psychology of change - an illustration based on the "revisited stages of change model by Freeman and Dolan (Freeman. 2001)

If you take a closer look at my graphical illustration, you will realize that you have (hopefully) already overcome the initial stages of

• noncontemplation, where, in your everyday oblivion, you do not even consider making a change
   
• anticontemplation, where you are trying to convince yourself that you are "just fine the way you are" or that it would be impossible to make a change, anyways
   
• precontemplation, where you are thinking and often dreaming about what would happen if you were able to make a change

Interestingly, for most of us the realization that another year is almost over usually makes us go through these stages (many of you may skip the 2nd one, some may get stuck there), automatically. So even if you are not one of Freeman and Dolan's persons, chances are that you are now, as they put it "directly and actively considering change" and have "reached a point of readiness to engage in the change process." 

Sitting in your neo-paleolithic dugout - or, for those who have not been infected by the paleo-virus in the course of 2011, simply in your cozy home - it is now about time to lay out your plan of attack!

Action planning is the stage of change when the therapist and patient have collaboratively developed a treatment focus and treatment plan. The therapetnic process has begun and the patient is beginning to make plans on how change will occur. The key phrase with this group is, "I plan to change."

Now, I don't know whether you have a therapist, or not (note: this is nothing to be ashamed of - I would even count the people I know that are in psychotherpeutical care among the few relatively sane human beings which populate this planet ;-), are working with a trainer, nutrionist or just a good friend who will help you on your way. In the end, it will always be about your commitment to your plan to change and eventually your success. That you have to determine the latter based on the integral over the steps in the right and steps in the wrong direction is something I have mentioned before. Freeman and Dolans model, however, provides a theoretical framework to understand this sometimes annoying, often frightening and in many cases discouraging back-and-forth even better.

Figure 2: Reported success rates at different timepoints in the new year and at 2 year follow up (data based on Norcross. 1989).

What are typical New Year's Resolutions? I must admit that I was quite disappointed about the lack of scientific data on the real-world outcome of New Year's Resolutions. Similar to the previously discussed issue of holiday weight gain which turned out to be at least less pronounced than everyone would have it (cf. "Santa is Coming to Town"), there is almost no realiable, non-specific, i.e. not related to only one goal (mostly smoking cessation), scientific data that would proof that the majority of new years resolutions fail.

In one of the two peer-reviewed studies I could come up with (both based on the same dataset), Norcross et al. report that their 213 study participants "made an average of 1.8 New Year’s resolutions" (Norcross. 1989). Among those, smoking cessation (30%) and weight loss (38%) together accounted for two-thirds of the resolutions. Other non-idiosyncratic New Year's Resolutions revolved around relationship improvement (5%), reduction in alcohol consumption (2%), and an increase in monetary savings (2%). A cursory glance at figure 2 does yet suffice to see that the difference between the real and the commonly assumed "success"-rates is much less pronounced than in the previously cited case of holiday weight gain. With a 23% chance of failure after no more than 2 weeks and a drop out rate of  57% after three months, chances that the average 16-75 year old citizen of northeastern Pennsylvania is able to realize his resolutions for the new year really isn't very high. A reported (do we believe those guys?) success rate of 19% after 2 years is nevertheless more than what my personal observations would suggest.

Lapses are integral parts of change - accept them work, through them, or fail

Image 3: If your New Year's resultion incorporates letting go of junk food, thinking of Mark Haub, the "Twinkie Diet Professor", probably would not be one of the "behavioral skills" to incorporate in your mental toolbox.

Let's assume you are a carbohydrate-addict and decided to cut back on carbs in the next year. Do I see you tremble in apprehension? Well, this is actually an apprehension of the prelapse phase, a phase that is "characterized by active and often overwhelming cognitions related to the reversal of the changed behavior" the carb-junkie you are, even the thought of having to put down your twinkies and dingdongs (whatever the latter may be) is getting you all psyched up. If it was already January the 1st, this would be the moment, when you are eating your eggs and bacon for breakfast, look at the cereals your brother is shuffling down his throat and think to yourself: "How can I possible endure that for the rest of my life?" Then you remember the words of the mighty paleo guru Robb Wolf to "give it a shot for thirty days" and gag down the last piece of bacon.

Psychotherapists refer to simple tricks like this as "behavioral skills", i.e. (mostly cognitive) techniques by which you can "short-circuit the prelapse before it leads to the old behaviors."

Figure 3: Successful and unsuccessful strategies to stay on track; * indicate statistically significance for success (data based on Norcross. 1989).

Which "behavioral skills" are most helpful? In the aforementioned study, Norcross and Vangarelli also analyzed which methods the participants successfully (figure 3, green) and unsuccessfully (figure 3, red) applied to achieve their aims. As you can see planning ahead (contingency management), managing "dangerous" stimuli, exercise (obviously not the way to distract yourself from the temptations if your new years resolution was to exercise more) and, above all, taking one step after the other, were the most effective strategies in the toolboxes of the 213 study participants, of whom only 18% said that "nothing hindered their resolution". Among the remaining 82%, most invoked their own lack of willpower (34%) as the fundamental obstacle. 16 subjects found that the realization of their resolution was not compatible with their lifestyle and 8 maintained that they had not been serious enough about their resolution.

(Un-?)fortunately, you are human and thusly destined to let reason go and fall back to old, oftentimes bad habits. So, there will come a day, when you will be sitting next to your meanwhile "no longer so loved ones" (after all, they are allowing themselves to eat all those jummy junk right next to you at your table ;-) and stare at the twinkies and dingdongs they are indulging. Suddenly a thought crosses your head: "Wasn't there this funky professor who lost a ton of weight on the twinkie diet?" You reach out and, probably much to the secret delight of your "formerly loved ones" who have been jealous of how fast you have been losing weight in the course of the last weeks, grab one of the twinkies that have been waiting for so long for you to take appropriate care of them... I guess I don't have to tell you the rest of the story, do I?

What is important, though, is that whenever lapses like this happen is that you always remember that no matter how many twinkies you may have eaten, how many training sessions you may have skipped, and/or how many cigarettes you have smoked, it is still your choice:

• You can either return to the anticontemplative phase by persuading yourself that you could shed off the extra points just as well on twinkies and dingdongs - and even if that would not work, why would you have to make a change, in the first place? After all, you feel "fine just the way you are"!
   
• Or you can analyze what triggered your temporary loss of memory and inability to apply one of the various behavioural skills that have prevented you from "lapsing" before.

I guess, it is not difficult to tell that option #2 would be the way to go. You have to go back to the drawing board. Not to start all over again, but to develop new skills and cognitions and to practice old to make sure that your next dt/dx's will be positive again. In that the ability to accept your own fallibility and the insight that a bunch of twinkies won't ruin the admirable success of the previous weeks, may be one of the key elements that will eventually enable you to achieve your contemporary goals, maintain your success and reach for the stars.

Along these lines, I wish all of you, my dear silent and not so silent readers, your families and loved ones, a successful, happy and, above all, healthy year 2012.

Adelfo Cerame - Road to Wheelchair Nationals '12: From Man Boobs to Striated Pecs - Looking Back at 2011

Image 1: Looks like Santa's sweet treats
just ricocheted off Adelfo ;-)

Although we are amidst the "holiday season" (you know the time of the year where the term off-season gets a whole new meaning ;-), there is one fellow who must obviously have read my blogpost about the not so amiable gifts Santa has in stock for some of us (cf. "Santa is Coming to Town")... judged by the pictures Adelfo has attached to the latest installment of his amazing "Road to Wheelchair Nationals 2012" series, Santa's sweet treats must have had a fat-burning, muscle-building effect on him. Well, at least this is what you could think, if you did not know how much hard work and dedication it cost him to get to where he is now. But, I guess I will let him tell you the whole story...

Without the "small" things the bigger one's "lose" all their meaning

It has been 12 months, now, hwen I got my medical release from the doctor... 12 months from the day I was finally able to leave the bed and go back to work... and eventually (!) go back to the gym and train! For almost all of 2010, I was confined to being bed-ridde. With the deep MRSA infected ulcer on my behind, I even had to lie on my belly - unable to sit, unable to move for almost a year.

Image 1-2: Looking back at December 2010 - All the abdominal fat and the man boobs that I accumulated after 12 months of being bed-ridden… I just hope that I will never have to go through that again.

That these memories are coming back now, is probably because New Years Eve is approaching. The last days of a year, where I have made a habit of reflecting on the little things that we usually take for granted. Looking back, none of this things, like being able to go to the grocery store, running errands or doing what I love the most, which obviously is going to the gym, was completely out of reach, back in 2010. Isn't it amazing how we always have to lose something until we appreciate its value?

Think about it, wouldn't  "Live life… cherish every moment of it… and be thankful for even the simplest things that this life has to offer!" be a much better new years resolution than the usual "I want to lose 5 pounds of fat!" or "I want to quit smoking"?

For me this (fortunately) temporary loss of mobility and, ultimately, freedom, marked another turning point in my live. I have ever since been trying my best to live life to the fullest, improve and better myself spiritually, mentally and physically. I have begun to cherish the simple things in life, constantly reminding myself that they could be taken away from me (and you!) at any moment. And for me, training, of all these little things, is the one I cherish the most: waking up in the morning, getting into the wheelchair and off the the gym to do the one thing I love the most is something I never want to lose again.

December 2010 to December 2011 = from man boobs to a striated chest

I don't know if you can empathize with the way I feel, when I look at the pictures from 2010, now. I mean, you know that about 8-6 weeks ago, I decided that I wanted to look "as stage ready as can be" at my 12-week mark (which actually is today) and today, after 12 weeks of intermittent fasting, eating whole "real foods", and training heavy and intense (plus minimal cardio and abdominal exercises) the result are eventually paying off:

Stats/Measurements

• Weight: 141 lb.
• Waist: 29 in
• Arms (flexed): 17 ¼” in
• Chest: 41 in
• BF%: around 8% [at least that’s what my digital calipers read ;-)]

As you can see from the images from last year… I don’t have the best genetics in the world (I’m more on the endomorphic side of the body types), and I obviously let myself go (not of my choosing, but due to illness), but my point is: No matter what genetic barriers you think or feel you may have, or how far off you’ve let your body and health go, it’s not impossible to achieve the physique of your dreams, with just a little bit of hard work, consistency and balance.

I guess, I can say I’m pretty satisfied with what I have achieved so far and I’m definitely looking far better than I was at the my last show in April @ the INBF Natural Buckeye. Fortunately for me, I have 13 more weeks to improve on my physique and push myself even harder with my training and dieting.

3 things I want to try and improve on within the next 13 weeks…

You think you could use some advice on your  training, diet and supplementation regimen from someone who knows what it takes to build muscle and lose fat? Reach out to Adelfo via Facebook.

1. Vascularity… I want people to (figuratively ;-) throw up because they’re so disgusted with how many veins are popping out through my skin. Genetics aside, pushing my body-fat level to the lower limit will be the major factor in achieving that.
    
2. Maintaining muscle mass and maybe even possibly gaining a little bit more… When you are dieting it is already difficult not to lose at least some of the fullness you have in the off-season. Putting on extra mass, on the other hand, is near impossible. Yet, although I have been dieting hard (and with visible results), I have been getting stronger throughout my prep and those strength gains are still coming... and though we all know that there is no 1:1 (or other quantifiable) relation between strength- and size-gains, I would expect to see at least increases in what people call "muscle density" or "maturity", if I can keep upping the weight on all my major lifts.
    
3. Strength… I just don’t want to look the part, but I also want to be strong also. As I already mentioned, this is the first prep I’ve had, where I have not noticed any decline in strength. I partly ascribe this to the combination of intermittent fasting, raw and whole foods eating, and some of the training methods I have used from Rob Regish’s Blueprint, which have really taken the variety of my workout routines to the next level. And I hope that the latest addition of Anadraulic State, Creapure (creatine monohydrate), D-Pol (d-Aspartic acid) and Recycle (a herbal natural test booster) to my supplement regimen will help me with lifting (increasingly) heavy(-ier) lifts throughout the rest of my contest-prep.

For the time being, I am on my pre-planned last week of the year famine/detox. Those of you who have followed the whole series will remember that I have been quite skeptical about whether the theoretically sensible (cf. Famine/Detox Episode), yet for any bodybuilder totally counter-intuitive idea from Robb Regish's blueprint would work, but the results I had back in October were so convincing that I decided to make it a staple within every macro-cycle of my training. And now, after 12 weeks of intense training and dieting, the time seems to be right.

Image 4: Example of a "detox meal"

Recipe of the week: Spartan Detox Food (example meal) - Eat this (or a similar meal) 3x a day to benefit from a simulated "famine".

• cucumbers, 
• a handful of fruits, and 
• a cup of vegetable juice from Trader Joe’s…

During my last detox, going extremely low on both calories as well as protein and fat worked quite well for me, but in general Rob's protocol allows for a  maximum of 1,200kcal (for you bigger guys out there) and <50g of protein, fill up the rest with veggies, fruit and a lot of water and you are good to go ;-)

During the 12 weeks, my body has eventually adapted to my diet and training, and is pretty much in an exhausted state, where gains in size and strength usually stall. In order for me to get my body back into a growth state, I have to shock the whole system by putting my body through a mild state of tissue breakdown with added stress (think of it as triggering the alarm). The mild tissue breakdown and added stress through training during the famine phase will accelerate the entire protein turnover cycle. So basically I want to get my body back into a phase where it feels like I just started lifting weights and training for the very first time in order to be in that growth state again, so that, even at an average calorie intake of roughly 1,400 calories per day, I can still maintain (or hopefully build on) the muscle

Final thoughts... at least for this year ;-)

Image 4:  No clue what "intermittent fasting is all about"? I suggest you start with reading the first installments of the Intermittent Thoughts, then (click here for Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and more)

If there is one thing that I have really come to appreciate during the past weeks, it is yet neither the famine, nor the detox or the different training techniques I have learned. The one thing, I believe has made the biggest difference was intermittent fasting - all I can say is… I love it! The protocol is simple and easy to follow and I was able to tweak it to my liking by applying other methods that have worked for me in the course of the last 4 years of competing. And the results are mind-boggling. I mean, this has by far been the easiest prep I have ever had! Without being distracted with having to prepare meals, I got to focus more on training, school, and fun stuff like social events. Add to that the amazing results I have (and still am) seeing in the mirror and you know why I believe that “IF” is definitely something I can, and will do long-term.

I will leave it to that for today, and even the year 2011 and wish all of you a happy and safe New Year! And just in case you happen to be one of those people who like to make "New Year's Resolutions"… Good Luck! Let me know how that works out for ya in a week or two? Hahaha! Just kiddin'! But seriously… You shouldn’t have to wait till New Years to make resolutions and set goals ;-)