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2002/10/04, 05:23 PM
I have been working out for the last 4,5 months now but 3 weeks ago I was so weakened from all the training, my body could no longer process all the workouts I did, all the calories I had to burn over these 3,5 months, and one day I just caved in. On that particular day I was just too tired to even get out of bed, I had this for 2 days and after that my stomach began acting up, I could no longer contain food and spent the rest of the next 2 weeks on the crapper:( It is clear that I had a total burnout, now I am cured for a whole week again but I have lost alot of strength, all my excersises went down and I can't lift the same weights I used to.
Has anyone gone through the same ordeal once in your training career. I must say in the 3,5 months that it was going sweet I gained 12Kgs, does this insane increase maybe has something to do with it?? I only used Creatine and a protein shake(N-large and Super Heavyweight Gainer).
All comments are appreciated,
regards,
Enkidu
PS I will keep training but this is a serious setback
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2002/10/04, 05:38 PM
Enkidu,
I'm not sure what to say...from the above post it appears to me that you are claiming that you have been doing everything right, and that you have been stricken for some mysterious reason.
You mentioned that the suppliments you've been taking are suspect. Sounds good.
I would venture to guess that you probably are already aware of exactly why you have the issues you have.
What I think you are ailing from might be a general lack of common sense that I know I have suffered from in the past when I set my sights on something, lock in, and let the fangs out.
In almost every case without fail....I go too far, and bad things happen as a result.
Be honest with yourself, ask yourself these questions: (you've been working out long enough to know what you're doing)
#1 Have I been over-training, do I keep an insane schedule? If so? why?
#2 Am I eating real food or am I doing nothing but packing powders, shakes, and powerbars down my maw?....this is not real food...use your head. They are SUPPLEMENTS.
#3 Am I getting enough rest. Am I so caught up, that I will not allow myself to sit still long enough to think straight let alone sleep? If so, why?
There are a ton more of these things to wonder about, but you get the idea. Be kind to yourself, you only do this once, killing yourself trying to look good serves no one, especially yourself.
I may be way off base, but I have seen this in the past quite a bit, and have done this to myself in the past more than once. I hate to see people repeat the same mistakes I've made unnessarily.
Hopefully you'll be wiser than me, and not need to slam your head into the wall 10 or so times to learn like I did.
Good luck,
Bri
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2002/10/04, 07:45 PM
Well noble, I must say point #3 springs to mind, I never have my 8 hours sleep per day, more like 6,5 hours and that on a 1 hour excersise 4 times a week.
I eat normal foods and only use the shake and creatine, no other supplements.
I never thought it would come to this though. I am back to full health again but feel like I lost alot of my hard earned efforts.
Well I am a lesson the wiser now. I just posted this to see if other people have had similar experiences. I indeed suspected it may have had to do with my sleeping habits. Thats the only thing I can pin it on, or may eating 7 times a day have something to do with it, do you put your body on alot of strain when you eat so much???
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2002/10/04, 09:41 PM
I am thinking two things. One is the sleep issue, and the other is overtraining. What you descibed is classic signs of overtraining. But have you also considered the flu or some such illness? I mean there are a number of reasons, but those really stick out to me.
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Life comes by only once....Live it to the fullest!
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2002/10/05, 03:24 PM
Flu is allways associated with fevers and I had none of those, my doctor could not say what was wrong with me either. So I had no signs of obvious ilnesses.
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2002/10/05, 04:32 PM
did you ever think that you had MONO. It basically is in your system for about 2 months before it shows sign and then it just hits you.
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2002/10/05, 06:52 PM
Symptoms of mono are fever, sore throat, headaches, swollen lymph nodes, loss of appetite, headache, aches and pains, weakness, dizziness, jaundice, rash, and swollen tonsils.
I had only weakness as a symptom, so rule out the kissing disease, also it mostly affects kids 15-17 and I'm 26:)
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2002/10/08, 01:40 PM
Enkidu, I experianced a very similar thing about 6 years ago, and could not figure it out, I finaly broke down and went to the doctor. Well my problem was stress and nothing more my symptoms were same as yours, I was 30 and thought my doctor was nuts so I tried another one and was told the same thing. I learned to deal with stress and anxiety and that was it was not really that big of deal. Sleep and time to relax were the key ingrediants to recovery. On average I slept 4 to 5 hours a day had two young children worked 12 + hours a day did not eat right or exercise often enough. Every one is different this may have nothing to do with your problems but sure sounds familiar, all the best
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Never be afraid to try something new. Remember the ark was built by amateurs, The Titanic was built by professionals.
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2002/10/08, 09:48 PM
Enkidu,
Without going into detail, I am going through a similar experience. What this is teaching me is to listen to my body and not be so stubborn. I think this can happen whether you are trying to gain muscle or lose fat. Let your body reach homeostasis. This is a great time to take a break. Perhaps a week or two. Use this time to make new goals without the insanity. :)
Or it could be the kissy disease. LOL Just kidding.
Good luck and let us know how you do.
:) Melissa
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Attitudes are contagious, is yours worth catching?
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2002/10/10, 08:28 PM
Well Mandre, its now 2 weeks since I fully recovered, I have been working out for 11 days now and its as if I am tapping into energy I never had before.
I am back to full strength and can again lift the same weights I used to, my metabolism also seems to have improved. In these 2 weeks of training I have had some nice gains. Just like when I first started training:):)
It seems that taking a 2-3 weeks full rest from time to time is better for your body and it speeds up the muscle building process. I think your body really grows better when going off a routine for a while and then just start up again.
I think this is really the case for me. You indeed have to listen to your body, and the signs were there before I collapsed, I just kept training and only had 6 hours sleep per day:(:(
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2002/10/14, 10:42 AM
I am glad that you are back on track. Feels great!
I took a week off with the calorie reduction and wow what a differece. I too was stronger and full of energy in the gym.
arrrrr and then I got sick again. :( so I had to take a week off from the weights. Ok I could not stay away. I did some cardio.
One of my problems is sleep. The body can only take so much before it crashes. I guess if your body does not get enough sleep and you are training like a madwomen/madman :) it will halt. Both of us could probably handle our training we just need to sleep more so our bodies can rejuvenate properly.
I am glad you are feeling better now go get some sleep. Myself included.
:) Melissa
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Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but rather we have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.
- -- Aristotle
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2002/10/14, 12:33 PM
Enkidu,
Good to hear you are recovering! Though I think the episode you described may have been some kind of intestinal/digestive problem (2 weeks of recovery would prompt me to see a doctor), I certainly CAN confirm that some supps will deal a death-blow to your colon. Since I tend to laugh at the hardships of life, I will share with you an occurrence in my life that will cause all to show trepidation during those trips to GNC.
Back in my college days I was hoping to cut some cost in my supps budget, so I invested in a super-large can of protein powder I found at a local nutrition shop. Forget the fact that I had never heard of the stuff, nor that the label was (if I recall correctly) a very cheap pastel collage of cartoonish amino-acid clusters of some sort. It looked like science to me ( I was a literature major), so I bought it.
After arriving at my home, I decided to immediately bust out a shake and begin my workout. Even as I write this, I tremble at the thought of slurping down those soggy puce lumps of (I am certain) pre-digested tofu curds scraped from the vomitoriums of Venice beach fitness resorts. Never has Vanilla been stricken with so foul an imitator. But still, having never been to prison I figured a few mouthfuls of anything must be worth the eventual rewards…
I assure my gentle readers that it gets worse than just an unpleasant taste. I continued to use this mystery powder for a few days, noticing over time that I was experiencing odd muscular cramps in my abdomen, but because no flatulence followed I figured I must be experiencing a sign of overtraining. No such luck. For on that grim Thursday afternoon, all hell would break loose and unfortunately I mean literally. I was talking to a friend (female, of course, as the powers that be have always laughed at my digestive mishaps in the cruelest of ways), when suddenly I felt as if the finger of Odin had been shoved into my stomach. I began to double over, certain that my appendix had gone off like a frag grenade in an officer’s bunk, then winced as I felt the ominous but unmistakable pilgrimage of cheap protein by-products heading south for the pool. Despite my friend’s exclamations of concern, I managed to hobble like a hunchback (complete with club foot, for I swear to this day half of my body was paralyzed with the effort of keeping the corrupt minions of discount powders packed firmly in place) to the nearest PUBLIC restroom.
But it gets even worse! The following purge of my internals was the LOUDEST bodily function I have ever heard. It sounded like someone was carpet-bombing a porcelain city, complete with the metallic reverberations of the various fixtures in the room. I was stunned (partially from shellshock). Needless to say I alerted most of the people on that floor to my unfortunate intestinal malady, and after the full THIRTY minutes of deafening agony I slipped away before the classes let out.
Oddly enough, my chemistry class did an experiment on amino acids later that month, and part of the study was to determine if cheap protein supplements are safe for consumption. The answer, of course, is “possibly not.” But I didn’t need a chemistry lab to teach me that.
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That which does not kill you, only hurts real bad.
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2002/10/15, 09:39 PM
i (now)take a week off every 6 to 8 weeks off training. i also work 2 jobs. let me be the first to say sleep does not always fit into my day(s). at the same time as an air traffic controler in the navy i handle stress realy well, and the first thing that goes to mind for you is stress but what alot of people dont know (or care to know) is that there is good and bad stress and you have to balance them out if you dont well who knows
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2002/10/16, 02:25 PM
Well volsung, the product I was using was Super Heavyweight Gainer from Champion Nutrition:)
http://www.musclesurf.com/supheavgain.html
So no cheapo product, what I did notice was that this shake is much fuller. I used to take "N large 2" and this product is just great, it really dissolves in milk whereas the SHG makes the milk grow thick.
When I was using it at first I allways took 3 scoops and this was then a half serving(about 600 calories), but I remember before my collapse that I took a few times a full serving for a couple of days, so thats 6 scoops of the product and I mixed that with about 400 Cl of milk.
reading your post I see the same symptoms, my stomach also was feeling like there was an internal combustion system running at full power, I would sit quietly in my chair and all of a sudden I would get major cramps that I had to crawl up to try and prevent the pain and then it wouldn't last more then 1 minute or I had to go to the crapper. Some serious shit I must say.
My doctor could not say what was wrong with me, all I know is I was completely out for 2 full weeks. My colon may indeed have been clogged up with this product, now I never take a full serving anymore and lets hope I won't have to go through that again. Whatever it really was I am much the wiser now.
Cheers,
Enkidu
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2002/10/17, 04:03 PM
Sounds like what I had, but my problem "only" lasted about 3 days, with one day being the worst of them. Actually I had a few bouts of it, always when I was using a protein supp. Eventually I just shelled out the dollars for Met-RX or Myoplex, and I never seemed to have the problems on those. Maybe better quality protein (i.e., not made from animal gristle etc.)?
By the way, I remember reading years ago that some "whey" supps were misleading and contained other protein sources. But I don't remember where I read that. Overall, I use meal replacements for protein supps and I favor the following:
1) Met-Rx, standard type
2) Myoplex, light or standard (not delux, which is too expensive)
3) Beverly International, MassMaker or the other newer product (can't recall the name of it, but it tastes very similar).
See ya,
Volsung
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That which does not kill you, only hurts real bad.
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2002/10/18, 02:58 PM
I will look up these products of yours, still N large is a good product but I might change my mind after reading up on those other supplements.
When working out you are bound to run into a few problems, but thats the way it goes, one lives and learns, from our errors we learn, and believe me I am learning every day:) I'm not the sissy to quit over something as silly as this, some people allready told me I should stop because of the illness I had, but quitting is for losers hehehhehe
Lets hope I get over 80Kg body weight by next summer, now there's a goal to get:) Now I weigh in at 73-74kg!
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2002/10/18, 10:33 PM
Sure sounds like overtraining and perhaps not enough carbs.
Happened to me last winter, I took 2 weeks off and got better. Good luck
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