Unorthodox

Unorthodox

Tuesday 11 February 2014

Product Review - Biotest Indigo 3G

Hey Guys,

Today I want to talk about Biotests Indigo 3G.



As many of you will know, I have been trialling this product for a while to see what all of the hype was about.

Rather than going through my complete experience with the product, I will post links below to previous posts so that you can get a good idea of what I did, then post a conclusion below.
Here is what Biotest have to say about Indigo 3G,

Indigo 3G is Biotests latest creation with regards to selective nutrient repartitioning agent, what this means is that it helps your body absorb nutrients effectively and to ensure that your muscles are receiving an adequate amount of nutrients to keep up with their workload.
In simple terms the Indigo 3G helps to turn all of the food you eat into muscle instead of fat. This product features a self-micro emulsifying delivery system, this is meant to greatly increase the following:
  • Potency.
  • Bioavailability.
  • Stability.
The main benefit of this product is that it will deliver greater levels of C3G in your blood. This is the ingredient which is needed and the levels required to achieve maximum results for muscle enhancement and performance.

Sounds great right?

So is it snake oil or is it all it claims to be?

Now on the old blog I talked quite a bit on my experiences with the product. As I can't link that directly I will put all of the content below high lighted in blue.

I know that it is a bit of read, so go ahead and skip to the summery if you aren't interested in my ramblings :)

Blog 1

Hey Guys,

On Friday I told you about how I was now going to be testing the controversial supplement Indigo 3G by Biotest. 

Indigo 3G is advertised to the cure for pretty much all physique problems one would experience when on the quest to be a leaner, stronger, faster you. Indigo claims to do the following,
  • Shuttles nutrients to muscle cells instead of fat cells.
  • Decreases the size of fat cells
  • Improves your insulin sensitivity
  • Helps ‘fix’ fat cells making them less likely to grow in the presence of insulin. 
Article on Biotests site can be found HERE

This basically means (if true) that you can ingest more calories and carbs than you are now and you will get leaner and more muscular. As a grappler you can imagine how much this interests me. 
Now let me state right now that I am totally sceptical of this. Yes the studies have been done, but on mice. This shows promise but that doesn’t mean that it will still have a good carry over to the human body. There are lots of reviews on line stating that this is the next wonder supplement but plenty saying that this is total snake oil.

However what I won’t do is right anything off in nutrition without giving it a go. I’m willing to try it for the potential pay off. I always find it strange how you see these massive long posts and reviews saying how this doesn’t work or that is a con, but when you ask them if they have actually tried it, they haven’t! Surely the best way to have an educated opinion on something is to do the research, try the plan/product and then formulate an opinion on how it works for YOU.

On Friday I started with the dosing protocol of 6 caps first thing on a morning then another 6 caps 40 mins before my workout nutrition at night. So far I haven’t noticed much apart from feeling a little more ‘on’ during a training session but this could easily be a placebo and isn’t quantifiable at all. Some of the things that I will be monitoring throughout this are,
  • Weight
  • Measurements
  • Strength levels
  • Blood sugar.
 For the first 7 days I won’t make any changes at all to my nutrition apart from using the Indigo 3G. I want to keepings the same to see if this has any affect directly.

After the first week (providing there hasn’t been any big changes) I will start adding carbs in, in 50g increments.  Will start this post workout and go from there. Even though this advertises itself as a wonder supplement I am still going to be very conservative based on my past history with a high carb diet.

As per the carb guide on the Biotest site I am going to add carbs through rice based products. I can’t really see how this will have much of an effect apart from maybe digestion and absorption issues, however I am going to follow things to a ‘T’ for the purpose of this review.
If you have any comments or thoughts, please let me know!

Stay healthy,


Mike

Blog 2

Hey Guys,

How’s everything going?

Hope everyone is making great steps towards their goals and living the life you want!

Todays post is going to be about the product I’m currently testing, Biotests Indigo 3G.

I’m going to talk about how I plan to increase carbs and calories plus what I think about the product over all.

At this point I definitely think the Indigo is doing *something*, although I’m not sure what. I feel tighter and don’t feel bloated at any point (even after my cheat meal). What I have noticed is that my body temp has increased. I feel hotter after eating and training.

With clients I sometimes look for increased heat after certain meals to signal an increase in metabolism. Could this be the case here? Part of the purpose of Indigo is to allow you to take in more calories and send those calories to muscle. This could be what’s happening here.

Or it could be nothing.

One of the things that is recommended is to increase your carb intake as you go along. This is because it is a nutrient partitioning agent (got to give it something to partition).

As I have mentioned in a previous blog I have kept my intake the same for the first week to see if the Indigo has an effect just on its own. From tomorrow I am going to be increasing my intake by 50g (200 cals) on 5/3/1 days 

My carb intake on a day where I train twice has looked like this,
  • Wake up – 6 caps Indigo 3G
  • 40 mins later – 1 Biotest Finibar
  • 15 mins before workout – 15g MAG-10, 15g Glycofuse
  • During training – 15g MAG-10, 35g Glycofuse
  • 1 hour later – Meal with protein and fat
  • 2 hours later – Meal with protein and fat
  • 2 hours later – Meal with protein and fat
  • 40 mins before – 6 caps Indigo 3G
  • 15 mins before workout – 15g MAG-10, 15g Glycofuse
  • During training – 15g MAG-10, 15g Glycofuse
  • 1 hour later – Meal with protein and fat
  • 2 hours later – Meal with protein and fat
As you can see its pretty low carb apart from around my training. This is mainly because I historically don’t do well with high carbs (gain fat easily) and do better with a higher fat diet. 
That said, with the Indigo 3G I am going to start to add in more carbs. This will look like this 
  • Wake up – 6 caps Indigo 3G
  • 40 mins later – 1 Biotest Finibar
  • 15 mins before workout – 15g MAG-10, 15g Glycofuse
  • During training – 15g MAG-10, 35g Glycofuse
  • 1 hour later – Meal with protein 25g carbs
  • 2 hours later – Meal with protein and fat
  • 2 hours later – Meal with protein and fat
  • 40 mins before – 6 caps Indigo 3G
  • 15 mins before workout – 15g MAG-10, 15g Glycofuse
  • During training – 15g MAG-10, 15g Glycofuse
  • 1 hour later – Meal with protein and 25g carbs
  • 2 hours later – Meal with protein and fat
The extra 25g of carbs will be coming through white rice. However since I am also testing Myprotein Protein Crispies so I may have the occasional bowl of these as a breakfast.

I will follow this 4 days a week with 2 being as per the old menu and 1 being a fast (I still like fasts for a bit of a ‘reset’).

I will see how I handle the extra carbs throughout the week then increase by another 50g the following week if everything is ok. I will continue to monitor the following things to ascertain progress,
  • Body weight
  • The mirror
  • Blood Sugar
  • Performance.
If anything jumps up or is massively out of ordinary I will dial it down or make adjustments.
If you have any questions or comments, please post below.

Stay healthy,


Mike

Blog 3

Hey Guys,

So today I have been on Biotests Indigo 3G for 7 days. I don't normally post updates about my product tests but since I have received so many messages about it I thought I would sling up a few thoughts as I go through the test.

Details on The Indigo 3G can be found HERE

Ok, so after being on the product here are a few thoughts,
  • No change nobody weigh or blood sugar. Man report sudden drop in body weight due to water loss. As I keep my water intake pretty high (4 litres plus a day), its no real surprise I haven't lost any.
  • Many people say theory notice an increased work capacity during training. I personally haven't. All I can think is that A) it doesn't work B) it was a placebo effect or C) they weren't using a proper peri workout nutrition plan before using Indigo 3G
  • I have noticed that I have looked a little 'tighter'. I haven't taken any measurements yet this week so again this could be the mirror playing tricks.
I will say that I haven't started to increase carbs yet. I am giving the product a week to get into my system before adding in carbs. More details about my eating plan on Sunday.

If you have any questions, thoughts or comments, please post below or go HERE

Stay healthy,


Mike

Blog 4

Hey Guys,

Thought I would give everyone an update on my current Indigo Experiment.

Truth be told I had a minor hick up and ran out for 4 days before my next batch came through!

As always there is a silver lining to every situation! This allowed me to see how my body would handle the extra carbs with the 'magic' of the Indigo. 

The results were quite dramatic! I jumped up 2kg in the 4 days! This could be due to the fact that I had increased carbs again and it was to much for me to handle (I had passed my tollerence for them) or it could be that I had stopped taking the product.

I will say that my weight jumped back down after 2 days of taking it though.

I am going to hold my carbs were they are for this week but increase my calories by increasing my fat intake. I am going to do this for a few reasons,

  1. When looking at my macro numbers I think that my fats may be a little low (need to be a bit higher for correct hormone production etc)
  2. Historically I do better on higher fat diets than carbs and I don't want to over shoot for the comp.
  3. I'm moving house this week and I have some peanut butter that needs eating.
Again, I'm going to making a 200 calorie jump and will reasses everything for the last week going into the comp. I plan to load up a little that week and come in right on the class limit of 68kg (more on this and my comp day stratedgy near the time).

So far my experience of Indigo 3G has been a very positive one. It will be very interesting to push things a bit over Xmas and see if I can add some quality numbers to my weights etc. I will say that I have noticed none of the positive side effects that many have listed (added work capicity, a tingling sensation, feeling more 'anabolic' etc). I can only assume that these were placebo effects from wanting the product to work that badly (it is quite expensive) as they are nothing that can be quantified or measured.

Stay Healthy,


Mike 

Blog 5

Hey Guys,

How’s everything going?

Today I thought I would give a mini update on Indigo 3G and what my current thoughts were on the product.


So far the product has allowed me to increase my weight from 64kg to 68kg with very little fat gain (I have taken certain measurements etc but not been homeostatically weighed). I have been able to do this at a steady pace by just increasing my carbs by 50g  (200 cals) when my weight gain stopped, which worked out at about every 2 weeks. This worked out perfectly for competing in NESS (North East Submission Series) on Saturday.

I now have been taking Indigo 3G for 1.5 months and have a few thoughts on the product listed below,
  • I feel the product works in increasing your carb tolerance and is a great tool for workout nutrition, but I haven’t experienced any of the other effects that people have listed. To be honest I think they are placebo effects.
  • I think that I could have been a bit more aggressive with the carb increases if I didn’t have a weight class to worry about. For the next few weeks I’m going to push things a bit harder and see what happens.
  • While Biotest sometimes state that you can take the Indigo with some of their products, I have found that it works a lot better if taken on a fully empty stomach.
  • Any kind of flour or gluten is a ‘no-no’, however I’ve had no problem with certain breads that are toasted (I have a theory on toast anyway).
  • Biotest have recently stated that now only 6 caps per day are needed for optimum effects. This seems that either they were conning us before, or we are going to be selling ourselves short with the new dosage. My bet is it’s the first one.
  • I think that a middle ground of 8 caps, split into 2 servings of 4 will be best for me based on what I have seen.
  • For a true evaluation I will have to come off of Indigo or dramatically reduce the dosage to see if it really has the ‘cell fixing’ properties it claims to have.
  • It hasn’t altered my fasted blood glucose, which is a good thing as I was pretty low carb before.
On a more personal note, I have loads coming out soon from print articles to my first E Book (50 Diet tips for Combat Sports) coming out in the new year!

Also there is still time for you to pick up a bargain to start 2014 in the right way. Just head over to the SITE to take a look!

If you have any questions or comments, please post below.

Stay healthy, 

Mike

Blog 6

Hey Guys,

Well the comp didn't exactly to plan...

I ended up having 2 fights, finishing one by triangle and losing the other one on points. I went to finish the fight, my opponent defended then capitalised brilliantly to take it on points (you can see my sloppy attempt at an arm bar on the Instagram account @mikeunorthodox). Loads now to work on for the next comp in February!

My team took the team trophy so was all good in the end (I shall live vicariously through their medals).

I'm not going to go on about comp strategy and start to look into my fights in detail on here because to be honest, my skill level doesn't really warrant it. I will say that in the future it would help to actually have a strategy and be more aware of points etc.

However I will talk briefly about how things went with the weigh ins etc. I weighed in at 67.7kg (limit was 68.4kg), so I could have had a little bit more food on the morning before weighing in. After I weighed in I had 500ml water and 2 Biotest Finibars. After 45 mins I was still ravenous so I downed another 2...

I then had my first serving of Biotest Plazma at the start of the rules hearing and I sipped on it till my first fight (about 23-30 mins). After the first fight I started to sip on the other 2 servings of Plazma right up till they called my name and then finished it after the fight.

I felt great in all my fights. Felt quick and strong. Also feel like I have recovered well and was back strength training again this morning with no soreness.

All in all, a fantastic day! Big thanks to the guys at NESS (North East Submission Series) for putting on a great event and everyone who came down to compete and support! 

Stay healthy,


Mike

As you can see, that's quite a bit of info! So what's the conclusion?

Well in short the product worked. It allowed me to take in nearly double the amount of carbs that I have ever done before and not get fat in the process. Because of the carbs I was able to workout harder, longer and made great gains in strength and felt brilliant on the mat. I will be continuing to take take it as staple for me as I really do think it has a benefit. i am very interested to see how it helps when I'm leaning down for the BJJ British Open later this year!

Ok, now a couple of negatives on the product.

It is not a miracle pill that will allow you to turn into a muscular god and eat hamburgers all day. Smart, calculated nutrition must be used! Also many people that reviewed the product on the Biotest US site reported many other benefits like added energy, larger work capacity, a longer muscular pump and many others. I did not experience any of this (nor does Biotest claim you will).

The price is a little high. This is based on how much the product costs to source and produce (just try googling cyanidin-3 glucoside and try to buy some). This is not a cheap product. However if you have EVERYTHING else dialled in then it may make a big difference to you.

Would I recommend it to a client? Well I wouldn't put it directly on a nutrition plan, but if a client asked me if it was good to take, I would tell them that it was (as long as it fitted their budget after other essentials had been taken care of).

All in all, a great product that is worthwhile taking. Just make sure you have real world expectations (same as any supplement)!

Stay Healthy,

Mike

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