BCAA's

Back at the start of the year I wrote about BCAA's, and explained how vital they are to growing and maintaining the lean mass I want. I also wrote about the product I was taking called X-Tend and I have since discontinued it due to the dangerous dyes that are used in the product. It is a very popular product, it tastes great and has some good ingredients, but I am afraid the bad outweigh the good, so I stopped using it.

It took me some time but I found a great product I have been using for a couple months now, you can see it above and it is BCAA 5000 by Nutra-Bio. It has only what I want, BCAA's and nothing else!

I do like a little flavor though, it makes me drink more and I need to drink this during my training, not before and not after. Studies have shown this is important to ingest intra-workout.

I searched high and low and finally found an all natural flavoring that I like!

Below you can see my four containers of Reboost with Erythritol (a natural sweetener) from SeelecT. I do like the Cherry flavor quite a bit, the mango not as much and I will be trying some others soon, I think the lemon lime and the orange!

My flavorings do come with an interesting story as does most of my life, everything is better with  a story isn't it? I called the company and asked about the product, as I found the website a bit confusing and couldn't understand how a sugar free product could also have dextrose in it (sugar!).  After discussion I placed an order for two bottles of flavorings, one mango and one cherry, I was to get the ones sweetened with erythritol, not the one with dextrose. I received my order and was disappointed to see they had dextrose in them and quite a bit more calories than I wanted. They were an excellent post training drink, but that is not what I wanted.


I emailed them that evening and the very next day I got a call from Richard, a very patient fellow at SeelecT. I explained my dilemma and he apologized and said to keep the bottles he would send some new ones out right away, the ones I thought I was getting. He would send them for free due to the mix-up.


I soon received four containers of powder, the ones you see above.


Richard even called me back a short while later to ask what I thought, did I like the product? I do, I do! I told him I would call and let him know and I will after I post this, just so he can see it too.


The directions on the BCAA's say one serving is 5 grams, but Roy has advised that I have 20 grams per serving, this is based on my bodyweight per Charles Poliquin. Here is his  article if you would like to read a bit more about them. 


So I use 20 grams and my flavorings during my training. Often I train twice a day so on the days I am conditioning only (as opposed to weight training) I will use 5 grams only, then later during lifting I use the 20 grams.


I have seen great results in the last couple months, and there may be a few factors that have contributed to my results, but I believe this is one of them.  Exactly what results am I talking about anyway? My weight is fairly high, yet my bodyfat low, I look pretty darn lean for where I am. I believe that I have been able to add lean mass as opposed to just "mass", meaning fat mass. 


If you plan on ordering any flavorings, you may wish to call the good folks at SeelecT, as I still find their site a bit confusing and don't want to get the sweetened version again in error!