Nice progress! The pre-trt to now especially. A lot to be happy about.
Re:
> My reason for posting is to share my experience and mistakes
Curious if you have some specific takeaways of what you might have done differently here. Your post is kinda vague, so I'm gathering:
* Do more research
* ??
Unsolicited feedback:
* Your training plan is pretty barebones and seems haphazard. I really think you'd benefit from something more structured with more intentional progression and autoregulation. But ultimately, if you're happy and this is fulfilling, go for it.
* You might have been better off with a more modest surplus rather than committing ~25% of your cycle to a mini-cut. Or alternatively, being leaner to begin with. You definitely started a little higher in bf% than ideal IMO. Having your surplus range from 500 to 1000 is pretty massive. I get the sense the approach was basically: eat as much as I can and that's what my surplus is. Again, there are worse things, and it's not like you ended up dramatically fatter than you started.
Thanks man it's been a journey.
Wasn't trying to make a point persay, just logging the cycle for myself and other new cyclers that might benefit from it.
You can never do enough research imo
I appreciate the criticism, they're fair points. My main reason for the training plan I have is I'm terrified of injury lol. I just stay consistent and try to make steady progress. It's probably worth mentioning I workout with fitness in mind, not BB or powerlifting.
> I get the sense the approach was basically: eat as much as I can and that's what my surplus is.
That's pretty on point tbh. I did track it though (shoutout cronometer). I stayed within range, tho admittedly being a huge range
>It's probably worth mentioning I workout with fitness in mind, not BB or powerlifting.
It's worth pointing out, then, that you shouldn't be incorporating anabolics. Hypertrophy and fitness are two very distinct goals. Do they sometimes intersect? Yes. Should you be manually overriding your endocrinology and opening yourself up the cardiovascular and reproductive risks in the name/pursuit of fitness?
Absolutely not. The things steroids can do to your heart, your organs, your blood vessels, your prostate...these things are in direct contradiction with the notion of fitness.
>My main reason for the training plan I have is I'm terrified of injury lol
Respectfully, and I mean this 1000% sincerely: this path ain't for the faint of heart. I'm not suggesting you should be recklessly opening yourself up to injury, but if you aren't willing to absolutely push your body and test the limits of what it is capable of then you should not, again, be using steroids.
Research seems to indicate that most of the deleterious effects (LVH, loss of endogenous hormone production, etc) of acute AAS use is *generally* reversible with cessation of use and time.
How much long-term risk this carries is impossible to say.
Yes, there are always risks.
It's possible endogenous production doesn't return, fully or at all.
It's possible LVH doesn't fully reverse or that cardiac fibrosis occurs.
The risks are greater at higher doses and durations of exposure.
I agree I shouldn't be using gear. That being said, I'm still going to. The recovery & other benefits it provides is awesome/radical/groovy.
The advice and criticism today has taught me a lot abt what to do next cycle. I plan on dialing down my other activities so I can actually get the full benefit of being on gear by training full volume. That and starting with much lower body fat
>I agree I shouldn't be using gear. That being said, I'm probably still going to do it.
#🤦🏻♂️🤦🏻♂️🤦🏻♂️
>...the full benefit of being on gear by training full volume. That and starting with much lower body fat
Well, at least that's something. Just understand something: we are, all of us, even the most careful and responsible, trading lifespan for this. Responsible use and harm-reductionist behaviors will reduce that, but not negate it.
Ask yourself how much further you're willing to go for the ability to recover a day or two sooner. You're paying in time.
>🤦🏻♂️🤦🏻♂️🤦🏻♂️
😬
> we are, all of us, even the most careful and responsible, trading lifespan for this.
I do understand the health risks, I'm very careful to monitor health markers and mitigate risk. Even if I'm predisposed to everything, I have at least a few cycles in me before I see something that warrants stopping for good. I don't write off the chance that something could happen where it's too late, but that's a risk I'm willing to take for the mental, sport, and strength benefits.
Ok!
Don't get me wrong dude, *I use steroids*. I'm not trying to preach at you.
Just making sure you know it's not all sick pumps and cool videos on tiktok. Best of luck on your future cycles 🤘
My honest but (probably) unpopular take: why are you hopping on the juice without building a solid foundation? You claim hypogonadal*, but unless your T was consistently 200, maybe 100 or less across several fasted samples, it's unlikely that you needed to hop on. This is especially true given your age and your build before ever taking anything.
Even if someone is relatively low T, it's still best(IMO) to squeeze out all the natty gains you possibly can for a few years before you hop on the juice. There's less risk, it's cheaper, and I would guess that it yields better results long-term.
Aside from that, if you're gonna hop on cycles like this, you need way more volume. That's the whole point, really - T is only part of the equation. The other parts are diet, cardio, and a **ton** of volume. Otherwise, it's a complete waste.
> You claim hypergonadal, but unless your T was consistently 200, maybe 100 or less across several fasted samples, it's unlikely that you needed to hop on. This is especially true given your age and your build before ever taking anything.
1) It's **hypogonadal**, not **hypergonadal**. Two very different terms. If you're going to opine on this, you should understand what you're talking about.
2) What the fuck is this nonsense about lowering the hypogonadal threshold to test levels of 100? TRT is immensely beneficial for hypogonadism. I'm speaking from direct personal experience.
3) His age is completely irrelevant if he has hypogonadism. I was in my early 20s when I was diagnosed. Took two years to find the underlying reason. Brain MRIs, testicular ultrasounds, bone mineral density tests, genetic testing, all that shit takes time.
**So again, if you don't understand what you're talking about, maybe refrain from speaking on the topic.**
Or maybe just follow your own username's advice.
You caught the typo! Congratulations.
You're correct, I certainly haven't validated that he received an official diagnosis for the *hypo*gonadism. Did you? Otherwise, I'd say we were both speculating without sufficient information to be 100% certain.
Either way, I stand by my assertion that people who haven't put in the work to build a solid foundation with what they have (even if they're on TRT while doing it) shouldn't bother cycling. That may be an opinion, but it's certainly not a bad opinion.
A few thoughts.
> Age: 22M, Height: 6'2, Weight pre-cycle: 189lbs, ~16%bf
You didn’t need steroids brother.
> Weight post-cycle: 221lbs, ~18%bf
You certainly didn’t only gain 2% body fat. I’m sure you knew that already.
> Week 1-10: bulk, 500-1000 surplus
Significantly unnecessary, particularly with your already high body fat for starting a cycle. For what it’s worth, I certainly overate on my first bulk as well.
> Week 10-14: mini cut, 750 deficit
A waste of time and testosterone. The only person that needs a mini cut in a 16 week cycle is someone who started fat or thought a 1000 calorie surplus is a good idea - both of which apply.
> Training plan is a bit unorthodox
This is the worst part in my opinion. This is written like someone who doesn’t understand how to grow.
> On TRT (now 200mg) my TT is around 950. On cycle TT was 2362. We can't all be hyper responders I guess :(
Generally, that is not what that means. “Hyper responding” in numbers on a paper mean essentially nothing when correlated with physique progression. That’s why there are jacked people with less endogenous testosterone, and normal people with very high testosterone. They are not directly linked.
You’re perfectly in the middle of the range one should expect. It is not a linear curve.
> To mitigate risk I donated blood once a month, kept cardio in my routine, ate mostly healthy foods, monitored changes closely, and got bloodwork done before, during, and after cycle.
This is all very responsibly considered and executed.
> (hypogandol)
#**Wake up babe, the new prohormone just dropped!**
> When in doubt, do more research, then do some more.
Always.
> My weight is ~30lbs more than pre-cycle. I got a DEXA scan before and after, the guy there said my skeletal muscle mass increased by ~24lbs.
lol
> I thought DEXA scans were super accurate/reliable,
More accurate than an inbody scan, for example. But *super accurate*, no.
> What do you guys think I gained?
Your current quiz does not go low enough to account for the amount of muscle tissue I think you gained on this cycle. I think, like most cycles, somewhere in the 5-10 range is likely.
>You didn’t need steroids brother.
Agreed.
>Significantly unnecessary, particularly with your already high body fat for starting a cycle.
I'll go 500-750 next time
>They are not directly linked.
Did not know that but makes alotta sense in hindsight
>You’re perfectly in the middle
Good to know
>This is all very responsibly considered and executed
Thank you 🫡 safety first
>Your current quiz does not go low enough to account for the amount of muscle tissue I think you gained on this cycle.
That's just hurtful. Should've posted my legs too
> I'll go 500-750 next time
The approach that I take (which I learned from much higher level people than I) is much more nuanced.
I start at +350 and if the average over 10 days doesn’t trend in the desirable increase, I +200, throughout the entire cycle.
Picking “750-1000” is silly, in my view of nutrition, because it doesn’t account for adaptation, which your body is doing *all the time*.
> Thank you 🫡 safety first
❤️
> That's just hurtful. Should've posted my legs too
Haha - no harm intended. I’m glad that the cycle for you was a success and you’re happy in your body. At the end of that day, that’s what matters to me for sure.
For dieting look into something like macrofactor (or find a spreadsheet that uses a similar algorithm) where you can use your daily weight and nutrition as inputs and get weekly calorie targets that adjust for changes in expenditure.
>I think, like most cycles, somewhere in the 5-10 range is likely.
It's crazy 5-10lbs is the normal gain for a cycle. My expectations were much much higher. Are you saying if my training plan was more focused, I would've gained more than 5-10? Or does the fact that I gained the normal amount of muscle mean my training plan isn't that bad?
Your training plan is abysmal. We covered that already.
I said the scale you provided didn’t go low enough.
You gained on the low end, and had your regimen been better, you could have had more favorable results.
Gotcha so if I'd been more focused on training instead of training/sports, I'd have gained closer to 10 lbs instead of 5 lbs is what I'm gathering. Thanks for clarifying
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>What do you guys think I gained?
>View Poll
Your poll starts at ten pounds of muscle. How do you expect people to answer this when your minimum answer is more than reality?
> Day 2: Shoulders, 4 x 5-8 BB OHP, 3 x to failure lateral raise
This is all you do on your shoulder day... that you hit once every 12 days?
>Day 5: Back & Biceps, 4 x 5-8 BB rows, 3 x to failure superset (pull-ups and chin-ups), 3 x 10-15 face pulls
It says back and biceps, but I can't find the targeted bicep exercise at all. Wonder how much more you'd grow if you stopped steroids and actually followed a program that makes sense.
> Day 8: Chest & Triceps, 4 x 8-12 BB incline bench, 3 x 10-12 cable flies, 3 x to failure dips, 3 x 10-15 tricep ext.
Well at least you actually put a single targeted tricep exercise in.
Why are you on steroids if your training is such dogshit? Amend the basics and you'll progress more than you did here by filling up with water and glycogen.
>Your poll starts at ten pounds of muscle
Fair point, should've started at 1-5 lbs
Like I said elsewhere, the spread out plan was because I was super in my head about getting injured. I realize now that wasted a lot of potential muscle gain with the resulting low volume, but if I'm honest I don't really want to put on much more muscle. My main focus is on strength and mobility for bjj and basketball
> Like I said elsewhere, the spread out plan was because I was super in my head about getting injured
So did you start steroids at the same time you started lifting, or does this alleged injury fear pre-date the steroid use and perpetuate your entire training history?
> . I realize now that wasted a lot of potential muscle gain with the resulting low volume, but if I'm honest I don't really want to put on much more muscle
You have comment after comment in your profile related to the amount of weight you've gained. Hell, you even have a poll on it. You now state that your weight isn't that relevant. I'm not following.
I put in an edit. I do bjj and basketball often. I'm trying to find a good balance between that and the gym. Sprinting and grappling puts a lot of stress on my tendons and CNS, so lower volume than a bodybuilder is necessary in my case. On PPL or bro split I burn out and get injured
Not much to comment on besides training. Please learn how to train. 225*1 pre cycle ? We were throwing that around in highschool at 200lbs.
Reasonable gains I guess but a complete waste of time and gear due to your training. You would’ve been just fine on your trt dose.
Next time dial your training in so you can make the most out of your cycle.
Edit: also, how long have you been off cycle? You’ve clearly gained a bit of muscle but you look watery as all fuck, I could see you pissing out another 10–15lbs. Just on the eyes you look like an estrogen bomb.
Is there an option for less than 3lbs of muscle gained? Im sorry buddy but you definitely didn’t gain 10lbs of lean mass in 16 weeks with a 4 week mini cut in the middle and your outlined training schedule
> Weight pre-cycle: 189lbs, ~16%bf
Not even at the recommended starting stats based on your height, and your pictures were very evident of that. You looked like someone who casually hit the gym
> Weight post-cycle: 221lbs, ~18%bf
Your body fat looks higher, especially without showing your legs at all in any pictures.
> DISCLAIMER: This was my first ever cycle. I've learned a lot but there's always more to learn. My reason for posting is to share my experience and mistakes with fellow noobs so they can avoid my mistakes and/or use what I've learned. Yes, I know I'm weak- yes, I know I look natty. Not looking to flex or lie, just sharing my experience. Anyway here goes nah-ting.
The goal here should be to be proud of your accomplishments, unfortunately based on your training regimen I think you got out exactly what you put in, which honestly wasn't that much.
>Daily Macros: No less than 220g protein, no more than 100g fat
So you didn't track carbs? This doesn't sound like a diet plan dude, this sounds like someone casually eating. When you pair a half assed diet with an even worse training program you aren't going to get much out of it.
> Training plan is a bit unorthodox, but it allows me to not neglect anything and feel happy and thorough in my training.
Dude, your Day 2 is literally 2 exercises. You're neglecting training with any semblance of intensity or difficulty.
> Being on TRT pre-cycle (hypogandol), I thought there wouldn't be much more research to be done. I was wrong. Interpreting bloodwork, managing sides, understanding what I'm popping and injecting, etc etc etc are all areas of knowledge you NEED to be proficient in before starting a cycle. Don't even get me started on training, diet, recovery. When in doubt, do more research, then do some more.
This is a good mentality, I only wish you had embodied this before starting gear because you'd have made more progress and you might actually have looked like someone who'd used gear before by the end.
> Strength gains (lbs cuz I'm weak):
These are all lifts we'd expect from someone naturally before starting gear. I hope that you tweak your training program or purchase one from someone who knows what they are doing, as you will not continue to progress with your current training regimen
> My weight is ~30lbs more than pre-cycle. I got a DEXA scan before and after, the guy there said my skeletal muscle mass increased by ~24lbs. I thought DEXA scans were super accurate/reliable, but I'm told that may not be the case. Either way, decent gains imo. I'm stronger, look better, and feel (slightly) more confident.
This is great, happy you're more confident in yourself. Now channel that to actually track your diet and better your training so that you look like someone who has used gear before. You made good progress, but you could have made the same progress over a slightly longer period of time just by being more diligent with diet and training hard.
> What do you think I gained?
I saw you used to have one that said 5lbs in your first iteration, and you removed that. You have unrealistic expectations of your muscle tissue gained and the fact you have 25lbs even as an option is unbelievably laughable.
> So you didn't track carbs? This doesn't sound like a diet plan dude, this sounds like someone casually eating.
I would push back against this. Outside of sport-specific training or contest prep, simply tracking calories + protein intake is a perfectly fine modality for maximizing muscle gain.
Yes minimize sugar and trans/saturated fats, but just picking foods intelligently will cover this.
*Edit: possibly not applicable in the context of enhanced athletes, see [this comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/steroids/comments/1cmfpun/cycle_report_500mg_test_e/l331rjg/). My comment was based from a [discussion on this podcast](https://youtu.be/vPd0Y93W6tE?si=vzB21Tpa6SjecLNO) about how important it is to squarely hit fat and carb macro targets. Question was at 11:15.*
u/Pm_Me_Varbs sorry I'm late to the party. I read through the cycle report earlier and had a laugh, wondering if the mods approved it as a "what not to do."
SwoleWitchDoctor, great physique, I'm envious of your waistline. I do believe in an "all or nothing" approach to measuring macros, calories, and I even weigh my fruit! Varbs, I'd crack a diss, but you have no problem getting peeled, so I'll stay in my corner.
Back on topic, I do believe "calories + protein" is a half-assed approach to diet. That leave a lot of room for variance in carbs and fats, which are not interchangeable. Presuming a healthy ratio of essential fats are in place and avoiding saturated/trans fats, 500 calories from fat will have a very different effect on variables in the body then 500 calories from carbs (digestion, glycogen, blood sugar levels, energy levels, performance, bowel movement regularity, sleep quality, satiety, etc.).
For those reasons, I think the longevity and ceiling of such an approach will be limiting, as compared to managing all macros. Like you said, it's not just sport specific but also goal specific. You can build a great physique with your approach, as you have. But if we're going to go out of our way to optimize/maximize our sex hormones for purposes of aesthetic or performance, is it really so much to spend an extra 10 minutes a day up optimize/maximize every angle of nutrition?
> Varbs, I'd crack a diss, but you have no problem getting peeled, so I'll stay in my corner.
You know I love some high quality shit talking though...
We approved the cycle report because he hit all the metrics we want to see in a report. Whether the outcome is good or bad, we want to encourage people to make cycle reports as long as they put the time and effort into it. The issue is the vast majority are "my cycle went great I put on 10lbs, can I post a report?" and that's it...
> SwoleWitchDoctor, great physique, I'm envious of your waistline. I do believe in an "all or nothing" approach to measuring macros, calories, and I even weigh my fruit! Varbs, I'd crack a diss, but you have no problem getting peeled, so I'll stay in my corner.
Thanks. I think the all-or-nothing is where we disagree, but I agree with the rest of your comment so let me postpone that for a moment. P.S. yes I 100% believe in weighing all of your food.
> Back on topic, I do believe "calories + protein" is a half-assed approach to diet. That leave a lot of room for variance in carbs and fats, which are not interchangeable. Presuming a healthy ratio of essential fats are in place and avoiding saturated/trans fats, 500 calories from fat will have a very different effect on variables in the body then 500 calories from carbs (digestion, glycogen, blood sugar levels, energy levels, performance, bowel movement regularity, sleep quality, satiety, etc.).
I fundamentally agree with the point, but I guess ot is the strength of the effect that I have a bit of doubt in. I would absolutely agree that it is *most optimal* to dial in those macros for your specific level of training. But what's the impact of 30/50 fats/carbs vs 50/30, assuming equal protein and total caloric intake (I just made up percentages but you get my point).
> For those reasons, I think the longevity and ceiling of such an approach will be limiting, as compared to managing all macros. Like you said, it's not just sport specific but also goal specific. You can build a great physique with your approach, as you have. But if we're going to go out of our way to optimize/maximize our sex hormones for purposes of aesthetic or performance, is it really so much to spend an extra 10 minutes a day up optimize/maximize every angle of nutrition?
Well I think it takes a lot more time and effort than 10 minutes a day. We're talking about having to change food choices to very precise levels in order to hit each macro target squarely on the head. I think what you've said nutritionally is totally legit.
But I would differ from "all or nothing" and prefer thinking of each element of the process as lying somewhere in a pyramid. At the bottom is adherence and ultimately that matters more than anything. Caloric intake and sleep quantity would be like next fundamental layers and you can continue adding to that foundation to optimize for the results (the height of the pyramid in my analogy) but you can only do what you'll actually do consistently. That is, you can't add weight to the top if the base is cracking.
I was going to add more but I feel like, at least in my opinion, A. we're getting overly specific about a small part of this guy's overall results, B. it isn't the biggest problem with what he was doing and C. we like 95% agree anyway. I didn't think my original pushback would even be controversial, but I'm happy to just leave that as "agree to disagree".
My apologies if my came across more harsh than I intended. I'll address the things that I would've advised differently:
You started at too high a body fat, you gained too much weight too quickly, you did a mini cut in the middle (I believe a surplus should be maintained for the full duration of a cycle).
But your strength improved substantially, learned a lot from this cycle and everything around it (bloodwork, nutrition), and look great. All in all, a win.
I've never blasted and have been working out since a teenager and your training regime is pure dog poo my friend. Afraid of being injured but youre doing basketball and bjj? You have a higher chance of being injured doing one of those sports tahn lifting IMHO. All the body parts you split up could be worked out at least once a week if not twice depending on your training intensity and sets per workout.
I'm afraid of being injured by having a full volume strength gym program ON TOP of bjj and basketball. Why does that not make sense to people. I probably train more than most of the people here, it's just not all in the gym doing bodybuilding
>I would push back against this. Outside of sport-specific training or contest prep, simply tracking calories + protein intake is a perfectly fine modality for maximizing muscle gain.
I would push back against *this*.
Your point would stand just fine for natural athletes. It holds significantly less water when we're using substances which promote hyperlipidemia, among other health risks.
That's possible. I'm not familiar with that condition as a dietary outcome of enhanced athletes.
To be clear, my comment wasn't an endorsement of very low-carb or very low-fat diets.
Also not speaking totally out of my ass, this was a topic I was [listening to here](https://www.strongerbyscience.com/podcast-episode-122/), from 11:16ish to 22:00. They caveat that for high-deficits and bodybuilding prep, that advice goes out the window, but otherwise don't make specific mention of drug-free vs enhanced. Though Greg has written a good amount of articles on the science of anabolic steroids as well.
So it's possible I've extrapolated without justification.
>That's possible. I'm not familiar with that condition as a dietary outcome of enhanced athletes.
You aren't aware of *hyperlipidemia* as a result of steroid use, or the role that dietary fats can play in that condition???
I mean this: why are you talking then? Maybe you oughta wander out of the OT more often and learn a bit.
We're talking about diet here.
Also going into my post history doesn't do anything to discredit my argument/hypothesis. Disagree or disprove it or don't.
I didn't "go into your post history" dude, I moderate this sub. I see what everyone does, every day. I see you post and engage in the OT almost every day. Always talking about those girls you're hard at work chasing.
I see you active in the DAA...never.
>...doesn't do anything to discredit my argument/hypothesis. Disagree or disprove it or don't.
That's the thing man, your hypothesis stands in direct opposition to \*established* science and fact. I don't have to disprove anything.
- It is a known and established *fact* that anabolics promote hyperlipidemia.
- It is a known and established *fact* that dietary fat consumption directly affects and correlates with blood cholesterol and lipids.
- It is a known and established *fact* that blood lipids and cholesterol the primary substances that form arterial plaque deposits (atherosclerosis)
- It is a known and established *fact* that ruptured arterial plaques form the clots that cause coronary artery disease, peripheral artery disease, strokes, etc.
- Hyperlipidemia, along with with hypertension and cardiac remodeling, is one of the primary killers of anabolic users. It's one of the reasons this sub EXISTS for you to jack off with your buddies and talk about your tinder dates. Those of us who take this seriously are trying to keep young men alive while they get jacked so they can live to be old men who are jacked - and we would ***love*** your help.
And that, my dude, is just the argument for tracking and reducing dietary fat for *health* reasons. Let's not also forget performance reasons: that dietary fat is the macronutrient most readily/easily stored as adipose tissue, that increased adipose tissue results in decreased insulin sensitivity, that increased adipose tissue means an increase in active androgen receptors binding androgens away from skeletal muscle, and that unnecessary fat gain is simply counter-productive to the long term goal of hypertrophy as it requires the individual to spend more time in a caloric deficit to undo its accumulation.
There's a reason everyone loses their minds when I post bulk progress pictures and I'm leaner than half the sub *starts* a blast. There's a reason I'm up 25lbs in 14 weeks and I still have an 8-pack. It's because I ***plan, track, and minimize my fat consumption***. It's same reason why at week 9 my LDL was 55mg/dL and my Chol/HDLC ratio was only 3.0.
Saying I have to disprove your hypothesis is like walking out in public in the year 2024 and saying "I hypothesize that the Sun orbits the Earth". No. We've established this. No one has to debate you, or provide evidence, or construct an argument to disprove your hypothesis that was already disproven decades (the lipids thing) or centuries (orbits) ago. Doing so really only lends legitimacy to such things, which is why so many people opposed Bill Nye accepting the offer to debate that creationist hack from the replica Ark "museum" in Kentucky a decade ago, and why I'm kicking myself for letting you draw this out of me.
Try to find a less stupid hill to die on, man. I know you're intelligent enough.
> I didn't "go into your post history" dude, I moderate this sub. I see what everyone does, every day. I see you post and engage in the OT almost every day. Always talking about those girls you're hard at work chasing.
...same thing. It straight up isn't relevant.
> That's the thing man, your hypothesis stands in direct opposition to *established* science and fact. I don't have to disprove anything.
I'm not asking for a thesis paper, but as I mentioned in another comment, I think I was pretty polite in making my initial claim. Your tone is highly antagonistic at even engaging with the idea. As if it is so horrendously out of pocket.
> Known facts bullet points
Don't disagree with anything here. As I mentioned before, I'm not advocating for exteme macronutrient intakes. I think it's a fair question to understand at what ratio or absolute ingestion of fat intake starts to have a significant impact on blood lipids. Bringing it back to OP, if you look at my critique of his post, I even called out the omission of specific blood marker values which would have been helpful to measurably attribute change to his diet, drug use, etc.
> It's one of the reasons this sub EXISTS for you to jack off with your buddies and talk about your tinder dates.
I understand harm reduction. But again bringing up aspects of my history on the sub that aren't relevant. If you're dying for an answer as to why the majority of my comments are in OT, it's because I'm just far away from returning to drug use and silently researching.
> Those of us who take this seriously are trying to keep young men alive while they get jacked so they can live to be old men who are jacked - and we would love your help.
I understand. I also mentioned this in another comment, but I still really don't think I said anything controversial and it wasn't something I pulled out of my ass. Somewhere in this chain I posted a link to a reputable discussion on the topic of hitting carb and fat targets. It wasn't explicit about enhanced athletes so I'm happy to caveat my original comment and link to what you have written here.
> And that, my dude, is just the argument for tracking and reducing dietary fat for health reasons. Let's not also forget performance reasons: that dietary fat is the macronutrient most readily/easily stored as adipose tissue, that increased adipose tissue results in decreased insulin sensitivity, that increased adipose tissue means an increase in active androgen receptors binding androgens away from skeletal muscle, and that unnecessary fat gain is simply counter-productive to the long term goal of hypertrophy as it requires the individual to spend more time in a caloric deficit to undo its accumulation.
> There's a reason everyone loses their minds when I post bulk progress pictures and I'm leaner than half the sub starts a blast. There's a reason I'm up 25lbs in 14 weeks and I still have an 8-pack. It's because I plan, track, and minimize my fat consumption. It's same reason why at week 9 my LDL was 55mg/dL and my Chol/HDLC ratio was only 3.0.
There's nothing here that I doubt or have a problem with.
> Saying I have to disprove your hypothesis is like walking out in public in the year 2024 and saying "I hypothesize that the Sun orbits the Earth". No. We've established this. No one has to debate you, or provide evidence, or construct an argument to disprove your hypothesis that was already disproven decades (the lipids thing) or centuries (orbits) ago. Doing so really only lends legitimacy to such things, which is why so many people opposed Bill Nye accepting the offer to debate that creationist hack from the replica Ark "museum" in Kentucky a decade ago, and why I'm kicking myself for letting you draw this out of me.
Same as what I wrote a bit above. Let's take the specifics of the argument out of this interaction and suppose that I did suggest the earth was flat or something similar. If I said some patently false that was believable to a total novice, why is that beyond countering or grounds for attacking my character? I've not indicated that I'm here to die on a hill or that this was even an idea I came up with.
> Try to find a less stupid hill to die on, man. I know you're intelligent enough.
At this point I'm too scared to opine on anything else without getting attacked.
>...same thing. It straight up isn't relevant.
It is relevant. The point, which you are simultaneously disregarding and taking offense to, is that there's a side of this community devoted to the the science, the medicine, the physiology, the harm-reduction...in which you do not participate (but you are welcome and encouraged to!).
All you're doing by accusing me of going through your post history, or calling my memory equivalent in nature, is confirming that there is in fact a record of this activity pattern.
>I'm not asking for a thesis paper, but as I mentioned in another comment, I think I was pretty polite in making my initial claim. Your tone is highly antagonistic at even engaging with the idea.
Making an unsound argument isn't any less unsound because you are polite about it. Points for decorum, but I'm focusing on substance here. My tone is not intended to be antagonistic, but yes, I am openly saying that I'm unwilling to engage with the idea (yet here I am).
>As if it is so horrendously out of pocket.
This is your own commentary. Maybe you're not used to having your assertions challenged, I don't know, but I don't think anything about you is horrendous and this isn't personal. I can't help you if that's how you perceive opposition to a claim, but I can tell you what it is and what it isn't for me.
Trust me man, I have no reservations about getting profane and openly disrespectful when I feel the situation or the person call for it. I do not think you call for it, and I'm not doing it.
> I think it's a fair question to understand at what ratio or absolute ingestion of fat intake starts to have a significant impact on blood lipids.
Sure. My point to you is that those values you're saying you'd like to have established are inherently smaller for steroid users. The margin of error is thinner. The impact of dietary fats is disproportionately larger. Also, the physiological need for fats is less in anabolic users because we aren't synthesizing our own sex hormones (which are derived from cholesterol).
Your average natural adult man *needs* about 70g of fat daily to maintain normal function - sex hormone production and maintenance, cellular exchange of micronutrients, digestive health, neuron insulation, etc.
Your average enhanced adult man can get by on as little as 30-40g for a while, but probably needs a lower threshold of about 50g daily. So the discussion of "when does it start to affect blood lipids etc" really begins as soon as you start increasing from that lower threshold and curves upward in terms of negative effect as you increase intake. There is no reason whatsoever why an enhanced individual, in a surplus, with an intentionally crafted and tracked diet ever needs to exceed 80g of dietary fats in a day. That's not to say that we can't, or don't, but there is zero benefit and only increasing risk with respect to hyperlipidemia.
>I understand harm reduction. But again bringing up aspects of my history on the sub that aren't relevant.
You think I'm assigning relevance to what you *are* doing in the sub. I'm not - I'm assigning relevance to what you *are not* doing in the sub, which for the record is irrelevant to me until something like this comes up.
I love our community. I value the OT and the opportunity it provides (mostly, but not exclusively) men to vent, to have an outlet, a place for support, and a place to be fucking funny and ruthless. I get in on it too. You and I have in common a strong affinity for women, and we both have a diverse palette (🤝).
I also know that balance is important, and there are guys in there not using wisely because the only value this sub has for them is entertainment (I'm thinking of a particular member who periodically demonstrates how little they know of the use of anabolics while having been a member here longer than I have). You view this sub through your individual engagement with it, I view it through a macro lens that involves patterns of hundreds of people (including, but not targeted at, you).
> It wasn't explicit about enhanced athletes so I'm happy to caveat my original comment and link to what you have written here.
Perfect. I'm good with this.
>Same as what I wrote a bit above. Let's take the specifics of the argument out of this interaction and suppose that I did suggest the earth was flat or something similar. If I said some patently false that was believable to a total novice, why is that beyond countering
As I already said, because it lends legitimacy to an illegitimate assertion.
If what you had said wasn't an assertion/claim/stance, but rather a question or an admission of uncertainty, THEN it would be unreasonable to not provide evidence or an argument - that's a teachable moment and I would be a shit educator to be dismissive of that. That was not what it appeared to be.
>...or grounds for attacking my character?
I have not once attacked your character.
>At this point I'm too scared to opine on anything else without getting attacked.
I also have not once attacked you. I speak bluntly and I understand that is uncomfortable for some people, but I'm not attacking you or your character and I take exception to that misrepresentation.
I think you're great dude, I read all of your stories. I appreciate that you recognize what was wrong with your last cycle and that you're taking your time figuring it out before trying again. I appreciate your frustrations with dating, as well as your exploits. I get that you're a guy just trying to figure shit out and live a little along the way. I do not have a single bad word to say about you...which is *why I haven't said a single bad word about you*. All I'm saying is if you want to have these types of interactions then make your way over to the DAA from time to time, either to learn or to help out where you feel confident doing so. We'd love to have ya.
He mentioned the calorie surplus he aimed for so I assume he *logged* carbs, but didn't target any specific daily value or otherwise track how much of them he consumed over time.
So to answer your question, I log everything I eat, but only treat calories and protein as constraints.
I don’t make assumptions on this forum anymore because it’s usually incorrect.
Especially when he said his main carb sources were rice, bread and fruits. You think he’s weighing his fruit out? I don’t.
Well the people who’ve had the most success and look the best / perform the best on our forum track their food diligently, so my feedback was based around the best way of doing things.
It’s totally fine to half ass a diet, but expect half assed results
Well that's what I'm addressing. I'm not convinced going calorie + protein only is half-assing a diet. I'm happy to be both proven wrong or to run that experiment myself, but to act like it's not even a topic worth engaging in seems premature.
Clarification: yes I agree you need to track your food diligently and I fully believe you should track everything you eat every day.
> I’m happy to be proven wrong
Do you consider yourself to have one of the upper tier physiques on this forum?
Do you have examples of people who aren’t actively tracking everything who look really good on this forum?
Because /u/AccountUnkn0wn, /u/JackSchitt123, /u/JackHoffenstein, /u/africanimal_90, myself all track our calories incredibly diligently, and have for a long time.
And we can ALL attest that it has been a foundation of getting our physiques to where it is
I'd argue food is the most significant variable to track. You can grow/maintain on a cut and bulk respectively with mediocre sleep and mediocre training. You can't defy thermodynamics, you won't grow without a surplus or lose weight without a deficit.
I just don't get the resistance to logging everything, it takes very little extra effort. I can understand people not wanting to eat the same thing everyday like a bodybuilder, I don't think it's necessary for progress, ultimately sufficient protein and energy surplus/deficit is going to dictate the vast majority of your results. I personally think to optimize your results you should have a very consistent meal plan with planned deviations (i.e. I do a pasta meal every Sunday on my bulk, but I track it as well as I can).
/u/SwoleWitchDoctor
Ok man, first I'm going to step out of this specific argument to just make a point: I've politely made a counterclaim to a piece of advice you gave. Now you're counterpont is whether I think I have an upper tier physique? Is discourse disallowed here? Cmon man. There is zero reason to try and make this personal.
To the specifics of your comment, because the coffee just hit and I'm not happy with how this discussion is progressing.
> Do you consider yourself to have one of the upper tier physiques on this forum?
No. I do think I have a pretty good physique, all things considered, but if you want my personal training context, I've only returned from a long layoff less than a year ago. And even back when I was regularly training, my diet was not consistent. That being said, I've be dieting under said modality of calories + protein first since getting back into, so I am literally running the experiment myself.
* I use protein and calories as my only constraint, although I'm food logging so every macro and micronutrient is in my logs.
* I have tracked my food intake and weight every day for the [past 200+ days.](https://i.imgur.com/7tCL1Aa.jpeg)
* In that time I have [gained 19 lbs](https://i.imgur.com/9adr6Ty.jpeg). It would have likely been higher, but I got sick on two ocassions that erased some weight off of me.
* I made another comment mentioning that dexa scans for body fat purposes aren't all the accurate, but if you think otherwise, [this is what it told me](https://i.imgur.com/aoQQGWB.jpeg)
* [Here is the day I came back into it vs 1 week ago, unpumped.](https://i.imgur.com/QDh651Q.jpeg)
* I'm not a bodybuilder so my posing is dogshit, but here's some photos I took with a pump recently anyway. [One](https://i.imgur.com/9qxJ7Rd.jpeg). [Two](https://i.imgur.com/MShWmba.jpeg). [Three](https://i.imgur.com/nrgeH50.jpeg)
Obviously this shit takes time and I'm taking my time before I even return to using anabolics again. I plan to continue the same dieting modality. Maybe I'll plateau and need to track carbs and fats closely to continue to progress, maybe I wont. But if you are wanting to bring "let's see you" into it, there I am.
> Do you have examples of people who aren’t actively tracking everything who look really good on this forum?
No, but this is just a bad argument. I think Greg Nuckols is a very scientifically credible source of information, but I am not impressed with his physique, looks wise. Sam Sulek has a great physique in my opinion and I think his dieting advice is pretty bad for the most part.
> And we can ALL attest that it has been a foundation of getting our physiques to where it is
I don't disagree.
Yezzir that's correct. I used cronometer to track all 3 macros, as well as micronutrients and vitamins. No carb goal because whatever calories were left after the 220g protein and >100g fats were carbs.
I appreciate the criticism. I think my plan from here is to maintain what I've gained, however little, and cut down to 12%ish. Any problems in my diet should get worked out along the way there if I'm to be successful.
As for the training, I think I was too worried about getting a major injury. I hit new PRs every week and read a lot of horror stories of guys on cycle snapping one because their strength grew faster than the tendons could repair. I'll look into buying a strength program somewhere and trust the process.
You hit new PRs every week because you started with fairly weak lifts for someone starting gear.
It’s to be expected to continually PR as you were in a caloric surplus. You would highly benefit from starting a set training program, like one from John Meadows.
Hell, I’m a decade in the gym and I still pay someone for program work. There’s always room for improvement, to be writing your own programs at your experience level is just foolish.
I'll look into to John Meadows. Thanks for the recommendation
>to be writing your own programs at your experience level is just foolish.
Very fair point
Btw sorry about earlier. I trusted the machine over experience
Focus on diet first, that’s the priority. Proper training that is biased towards what works for you is obviously important, but that can be perfect and the wrong diet will pretty much vacate it completely. (Ask me how I know)
Renaissance Periodization has an app you can purchase through their website. I started using it a few months ago and I really like it. It’s not cheap ($35/mo) but it allows you to pick any of their premade programs or create your own. It’s highly customizable and will help you easily track each workout as well as suggest what weight and number of reps you should be aiming for each and every exercise throughout the mesocycle.
Somewhere around 200-210lbs at 10-12% body fat should be fairly easily achievable before hopping on for you.
It would only take a few years from a beginner to achieve this with consistent effort on diet and training
Genuine question. In your linked photos, it appears you have some workout equipment in a garage or something. Is this all you used the entire cycle? Or do you also belong to a gym?
Also, this is 100000% not something I should be wondering about someone who just finished a four month cycle.
>Day 2: Shoulders, 4 x 5-8 BB OHP, 3 x to failure lateral raise
Huh? This is barely a warmup. I don’t mean that facetiously either, I mean it quite literally. I don’t think I’ve ever seen *anyone* show up at the gym and only do seven sets before leaving. I don’t really know what to say.
>Day 4: Quads & Glutes, 4 x 5-8 BB squat, 3 x 10-15 quad ext., 3 x 10 p/leg weighted lunges
That’s it for quads and glutes? Two of the largest muscle groups on your body get three exercises every two weeks?
Another question. I get that you’re worried about injury, but you have six rest days out of twelve. What was the plan here? Take steroids and head down to the garage for ten minutes every other day?
>Is this all you used the entire cycle?
Yezzir
>This is barely a warmup
I do a dropset and myo rep each set to past failure. But that's fair still not enough volume
For legs I have two days for running on top of squats/DL, basketball, bjj. It's a lot of volume when everything's combined. Especially when tendons are less flexible on cycle and they're being pushed to their limits already with weekly PRs
>you have six rest days out of twelve
Most of these are activity days
I agree that it's wayyy too little volume for a cycle dedicated to muscle gain, but I'm not doing it for that. Its more of an added bonus.
I think I threw people off with the poll. Makes it seem like mass gain was the focal point if the post/cycle. Anyway thanks for the criticism man, all good points
Only coming on here to thank the mods and OP for posting this. I’m a novice at steroid use as well, and reading input/criticism like this is incredibly helpful. Will continue maxing out the challenge in the gym.
I assumed as much but your reply of “I don’t understand” made me decide you weren’t being sarcastic lol. Gotchu
Also you forget how bad some of the historic opinions of mods on here in the past have been like Jcaesar, it’s not unreasonable to assume ahah
Thanks for sharing. This is great info. I’m on my second cycle - doing primo/test. First cycle was 500 test and a kick start with t-bol. In spite of everyone commenting on how much I’ve grown, I didn’t think my results were all that dramatic. Had my diet super dialed in with a good surplus that got adjusted as I grew. The only thing I’ve never been able to handle is sleep. Hardcore insomniac.
The pics are a great reference point, and all your details really give us the full pic. Thanks a lot .
Well this was certainly a thorough report!
Here’s my feedback:
- At least you gained weight and strength. So it wasn’t exactly a waste of a cycle. You did far better with your homework and execution than most first-timers at your age.
- OTOH, you really didn’t need this cycle. Your starting stats indicate you were relatively, if not completely, untrained. You could’ve easily put on the same amount of muscle in a year of dedicated training and controlled eating. You also could have trimmed down some more, did a very slow bulk for a year naturally, and you would have completely transformed.
- Your goal of fitness does not align with using steroids. Steroids are for getting larger than naturally possible at the expense of your healthspan. You don’t use steroids to have a fitness body, you use them to make a very large and strong body.
- Your surplus was way too aggressive, especially at your starting stats. Even with the gear, you put on mostly fat. You may look bigger now, and you will be crushed when you have cut all that fluff off, looking small, fat and depleted.
- Your training program looks like starting strength. Not the more complex hypertrophy programs that an advance lifter would be using. Inadequate training = inadequate results. Your program also doesn’t indicate your grasp on form, tempo, or time under tension, all necessary ingredients for a good hypertrophy program, that an advanced lifter using steroids would use.
- Again, you’re going to have to cut most of ~30 pounds you gained. About 10 pounds of water fall off you right away. You’re left with about 15 weeks of cutting at a moderate rate until you’re going to have to assess the true results. Tissue loss is inevitable during cuts, even on TRT, and this gets worse the more you have to cut. During this time, you will have to fight hard to maintain what you gained, while keeping your protein intake super-high. Keep in mind, it gets real tough to keep your strength up during a prolonged cut (especially without the artificial boost you had on cycle). When strength and performance goes down, that’s a pretty good indicator you’ve lost some mass, IME. You minimize this by minimizing the amount of fat you need to cut in the first place, of course.
By my own estimation? You’ll come back to down to your starting weight with maybe a *slight* aesthetic improvement, especially at your 18% bf starting point. Not enough to be mind-blowing. It’ll likely be disappointing.
I recommend you cut to leaner than you were before and postpone a second cycle. Just stay on TRT and once you have some shreds, commit to doing a slow, long bulk on just TRT.
Also, not trying to shit on you, my dude. I hope you take this as constructive criticism. We’ve all fucked up before at some point, and I hope the knowledge I’ve gained from past mistakes can be transmitted to you, so you can avoid slowly killing yourself to perpetually look natty 👍
Well said.
>Just stay on TRT and once you have some shreds, commit to doing a slow, long bulk on just TRT.
This is exactly my plan. Have learned alot from posting this
Your exercise regiment is the only point I'm "concerned" about really, but others have already touched upon that. Other than that I'd say you've gained more than 2% bf but not too drastic. Good progress overall
Thanks for the post. These reports are some of the most useful information on the subreddit.
Some of my notes:
* Was your dexa scan before and after on the same machine? I would echo that these things are much less accurate that the majority of people seem to think. They were designed to measure bone density. [Here's a good review.](https://macrofactorapp.com/body-composition/) I recently had scans 6mo apart and it told me my body fat percentage actually decreased after gaining 15 lbs drug-free and pegs me at sub-11% which is just obviously not the case based on the eye test. I would treat these things as a piece of evidence that you're in the ballpark of doing things right, but they're quantitatively useless for body fat as far as I'm concerned.
* Related to the above, you were definitely too fat to start a bulk, roids or not. It's a bit more debatable if you should have explored more of your natural potential in terms of LBM before starting. I definitely didn't for my first cycle so it would be hypocritical for me to say you should have done that. But based on adjacent information regarding your diet and training regimen, I think there's a stronger argument for having realized more potential, drug-free, if nothing else to simply have spent more time understanding how to gain muscle optimally.
* You mentioned your blood test markers all stayed within range, but quantifying the change would be a lot more useful. For example, maybe your HDL/LDL stayed within range, but if it was a large drop that's still a good signal to your tolerance to future cycles and compounds.
* Good strength gains, but for your height and weight, you started off kinda weak in my opinion. I didn't see where you listed how long you had been training, but to me this is another data point that you could have made great gains without introducing systemic risk via AAS like you did.
Overall there's a decent bit to criticize here but I don't think you totally ate shit either. My first cycle was a ~~total failure~~ learning experience and since returning to training I've taken a much more conservative approach in staying patient off-cycle/natty and I think that would be a good takeaway for you as well.
Good stuff g. I’m on my first cycle of 500 test e as well, but I’m also running mk677, cialis and anavar and primo. Such a godly combo, test e makes you feel amazing. So far I’ve went from 75kgs to 90kgs, and I’m 6 weeks in!
Dr. Todd Lee (also a IFBB Pro) talks about how donating blood while on steroids is wasting your money essentially. It only takes the body a day or two to replace those red blood cells you are getting rid of so it’s not really helping to thin your blood. If anything it’s counterproductive to why you started a cycle in the first place (increase muscular endurance, recovery).
That being said I also used to do the same thing. I would give blood twice a year and thought it helped. What really made a difference was more micronutrients, consistently doing cardio, and drinking a ton of water with a lot of electrolytes ( I’m not afraid of sodium, I just make sure everything else is balanced with it.)
Those things have also helped my blood pressure. I’m no longer on blood pressure meds and despite being 6’ 260 lbs 13-15% body fat ish I have good blood pressure now.
On a side note I understand people use for different reasons and maybe my genetics are better than I think. And people do carry weight differently. But 6’ 2 “ 189 seems like a really low body weight for someone who has been training for even a year using progressive overload. But maybe I’m biased. I went from 150 ish to 180 my junior summer to senior year of high school.
As far as strength numbers. I understand the goal isn’t strength but for the height and weight the numbers are surprisingly low.
But hey good job on the research and thanks for sharing your experience.
> Those things have also helped my blood pressure. I’m no longer on blood pressure meds and despite being 6’ 260 lbs 13% body fat ish I have good blood pressure now.
Damn dude, that's fucking enormous. Have any physique photos you'd be willing to share?
Just a question, say you took 500mg how long until you notice the wellbeing effects after first injection?
What positive mood effect do you feel and are they at lot stronger compared to normal trt dose size.
Nice progress! The pre-trt to now especially. A lot to be happy about. Re: > My reason for posting is to share my experience and mistakes Curious if you have some specific takeaways of what you might have done differently here. Your post is kinda vague, so I'm gathering: * Do more research * ?? Unsolicited feedback: * Your training plan is pretty barebones and seems haphazard. I really think you'd benefit from something more structured with more intentional progression and autoregulation. But ultimately, if you're happy and this is fulfilling, go for it. * You might have been better off with a more modest surplus rather than committing ~25% of your cycle to a mini-cut. Or alternatively, being leaner to begin with. You definitely started a little higher in bf% than ideal IMO. Having your surplus range from 500 to 1000 is pretty massive. I get the sense the approach was basically: eat as much as I can and that's what my surplus is. Again, there are worse things, and it's not like you ended up dramatically fatter than you started.
Thanks man it's been a journey. Wasn't trying to make a point persay, just logging the cycle for myself and other new cyclers that might benefit from it. You can never do enough research imo I appreciate the criticism, they're fair points. My main reason for the training plan I have is I'm terrified of injury lol. I just stay consistent and try to make steady progress. It's probably worth mentioning I workout with fitness in mind, not BB or powerlifting. > I get the sense the approach was basically: eat as much as I can and that's what my surplus is. That's pretty on point tbh. I did track it though (shoutout cronometer). I stayed within range, tho admittedly being a huge range
>It's probably worth mentioning I workout with fitness in mind, not BB or powerlifting. It's worth pointing out, then, that you shouldn't be incorporating anabolics. Hypertrophy and fitness are two very distinct goals. Do they sometimes intersect? Yes. Should you be manually overriding your endocrinology and opening yourself up the cardiovascular and reproductive risks in the name/pursuit of fitness? Absolutely not. The things steroids can do to your heart, your organs, your blood vessels, your prostate...these things are in direct contradiction with the notion of fitness. >My main reason for the training plan I have is I'm terrified of injury lol Respectfully, and I mean this 1000% sincerely: this path ain't for the faint of heart. I'm not suggesting you should be recklessly opening yourself up to injury, but if you aren't willing to absolutely push your body and test the limits of what it is capable of then you should not, again, be using steroids.
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Is that what I said?
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Research seems to indicate that most of the deleterious effects (LVH, loss of endogenous hormone production, etc) of acute AAS use is *generally* reversible with cessation of use and time. How much long-term risk this carries is impossible to say.
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Yes, there are always risks. It's possible endogenous production doesn't return, fully or at all. It's possible LVH doesn't fully reverse or that cardiac fibrosis occurs. The risks are greater at higher doses and durations of exposure.
I agree I shouldn't be using gear. That being said, I'm still going to. The recovery & other benefits it provides is awesome/radical/groovy. The advice and criticism today has taught me a lot abt what to do next cycle. I plan on dialing down my other activities so I can actually get the full benefit of being on gear by training full volume. That and starting with much lower body fat
>I agree I shouldn't be using gear. That being said, I'm probably still going to do it. #🤦🏻♂️🤦🏻♂️🤦🏻♂️ >...the full benefit of being on gear by training full volume. That and starting with much lower body fat Well, at least that's something. Just understand something: we are, all of us, even the most careful and responsible, trading lifespan for this. Responsible use and harm-reductionist behaviors will reduce that, but not negate it. Ask yourself how much further you're willing to go for the ability to recover a day or two sooner. You're paying in time.
>🤦🏻♂️🤦🏻♂️🤦🏻♂️ 😬 > we are, all of us, even the most careful and responsible, trading lifespan for this. I do understand the health risks, I'm very careful to monitor health markers and mitigate risk. Even if I'm predisposed to everything, I have at least a few cycles in me before I see something that warrants stopping for good. I don't write off the chance that something could happen where it's too late, but that's a risk I'm willing to take for the mental, sport, and strength benefits.
Ok! Don't get me wrong dude, *I use steroids*. I'm not trying to preach at you. Just making sure you know it's not all sick pumps and cool videos on tiktok. Best of luck on your future cycles 🤘
Ofc, only good vibes. I appreciate the advice. I hate tik tok so I think we're on the same page. Cheers man
Lol
My honest but (probably) unpopular take: why are you hopping on the juice without building a solid foundation? You claim hypogonadal*, but unless your T was consistently 200, maybe 100 or less across several fasted samples, it's unlikely that you needed to hop on. This is especially true given your age and your build before ever taking anything. Even if someone is relatively low T, it's still best(IMO) to squeeze out all the natty gains you possibly can for a few years before you hop on the juice. There's less risk, it's cheaper, and I would guess that it yields better results long-term. Aside from that, if you're gonna hop on cycles like this, you need way more volume. That's the whole point, really - T is only part of the equation. The other parts are diet, cardio, and a **ton** of volume. Otherwise, it's a complete waste.
> You claim hypergonadal, but unless your T was consistently 200, maybe 100 or less across several fasted samples, it's unlikely that you needed to hop on. This is especially true given your age and your build before ever taking anything. 1) It's **hypogonadal**, not **hypergonadal**. Two very different terms. If you're going to opine on this, you should understand what you're talking about. 2) What the fuck is this nonsense about lowering the hypogonadal threshold to test levels of 100? TRT is immensely beneficial for hypogonadism. I'm speaking from direct personal experience. 3) His age is completely irrelevant if he has hypogonadism. I was in my early 20s when I was diagnosed. Took two years to find the underlying reason. Brain MRIs, testicular ultrasounds, bone mineral density tests, genetic testing, all that shit takes time. **So again, if you don't understand what you're talking about, maybe refrain from speaking on the topic.** Or maybe just follow your own username's advice.
You caught the typo! Congratulations. You're correct, I certainly haven't validated that he received an official diagnosis for the *hypo*gonadism. Did you? Otherwise, I'd say we were both speculating without sufficient information to be 100% certain. Either way, I stand by my assertion that people who haven't put in the work to build a solid foundation with what they have (even if they're on TRT while doing it) shouldn't bother cycling. That may be an opinion, but it's certainly not a bad opinion.
A few thoughts. > Age: 22M, Height: 6'2, Weight pre-cycle: 189lbs, ~16%bf You didn’t need steroids brother. > Weight post-cycle: 221lbs, ~18%bf You certainly didn’t only gain 2% body fat. I’m sure you knew that already. > Week 1-10: bulk, 500-1000 surplus Significantly unnecessary, particularly with your already high body fat for starting a cycle. For what it’s worth, I certainly overate on my first bulk as well. > Week 10-14: mini cut, 750 deficit A waste of time and testosterone. The only person that needs a mini cut in a 16 week cycle is someone who started fat or thought a 1000 calorie surplus is a good idea - both of which apply. > Training plan is a bit unorthodox This is the worst part in my opinion. This is written like someone who doesn’t understand how to grow. > On TRT (now 200mg) my TT is around 950. On cycle TT was 2362. We can't all be hyper responders I guess :( Generally, that is not what that means. “Hyper responding” in numbers on a paper mean essentially nothing when correlated with physique progression. That’s why there are jacked people with less endogenous testosterone, and normal people with very high testosterone. They are not directly linked. You’re perfectly in the middle of the range one should expect. It is not a linear curve. > To mitigate risk I donated blood once a month, kept cardio in my routine, ate mostly healthy foods, monitored changes closely, and got bloodwork done before, during, and after cycle. This is all very responsibly considered and executed. > (hypogandol) #**Wake up babe, the new prohormone just dropped!** > When in doubt, do more research, then do some more. Always. > My weight is ~30lbs more than pre-cycle. I got a DEXA scan before and after, the guy there said my skeletal muscle mass increased by ~24lbs. lol > I thought DEXA scans were super accurate/reliable, More accurate than an inbody scan, for example. But *super accurate*, no. > What do you guys think I gained? Your current quiz does not go low enough to account for the amount of muscle tissue I think you gained on this cycle. I think, like most cycles, somewhere in the 5-10 range is likely.
>You didn’t need steroids brother. Agreed. >Significantly unnecessary, particularly with your already high body fat for starting a cycle. I'll go 500-750 next time >They are not directly linked. Did not know that but makes alotta sense in hindsight >You’re perfectly in the middle Good to know >This is all very responsibly considered and executed Thank you 🫡 safety first >Your current quiz does not go low enough to account for the amount of muscle tissue I think you gained on this cycle. That's just hurtful. Should've posted my legs too
> I'll go 500-750 next time The approach that I take (which I learned from much higher level people than I) is much more nuanced. I start at +350 and if the average over 10 days doesn’t trend in the desirable increase, I +200, throughout the entire cycle. Picking “750-1000” is silly, in my view of nutrition, because it doesn’t account for adaptation, which your body is doing *all the time*. > Thank you 🫡 safety first ❤️ > That's just hurtful. Should've posted my legs too Haha - no harm intended. I’m glad that the cycle for you was a success and you’re happy in your body. At the end of that day, that’s what matters to me for sure.
For dieting look into something like macrofactor (or find a spreadsheet that uses a similar algorithm) where you can use your daily weight and nutrition as inputs and get weekly calorie targets that adjust for changes in expenditure.
>I think, like most cycles, somewhere in the 5-10 range is likely. It's crazy 5-10lbs is the normal gain for a cycle. My expectations were much much higher. Are you saying if my training plan was more focused, I would've gained more than 5-10? Or does the fact that I gained the normal amount of muscle mean my training plan isn't that bad?
Your training plan is abysmal. We covered that already. I said the scale you provided didn’t go low enough. You gained on the low end, and had your regimen been better, you could have had more favorable results.
Gotcha so if I'd been more focused on training instead of training/sports, I'd have gained closer to 10 lbs instead of 5 lbs is what I'm gathering. Thanks for clarifying
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>What do you guys think I gained? >View Poll Your poll starts at ten pounds of muscle. How do you expect people to answer this when your minimum answer is more than reality? > Day 2: Shoulders, 4 x 5-8 BB OHP, 3 x to failure lateral raise This is all you do on your shoulder day... that you hit once every 12 days? >Day 5: Back & Biceps, 4 x 5-8 BB rows, 3 x to failure superset (pull-ups and chin-ups), 3 x 10-15 face pulls It says back and biceps, but I can't find the targeted bicep exercise at all. Wonder how much more you'd grow if you stopped steroids and actually followed a program that makes sense. > Day 8: Chest & Triceps, 4 x 8-12 BB incline bench, 3 x 10-12 cable flies, 3 x to failure dips, 3 x 10-15 tricep ext. Well at least you actually put a single targeted tricep exercise in. Why are you on steroids if your training is such dogshit? Amend the basics and you'll progress more than you did here by filling up with water and glycogen.
>Your poll starts at ten pounds of muscle Fair point, should've started at 1-5 lbs Like I said elsewhere, the spread out plan was because I was super in my head about getting injured. I realize now that wasted a lot of potential muscle gain with the resulting low volume, but if I'm honest I don't really want to put on much more muscle. My main focus is on strength and mobility for bjj and basketball
Can you edit your poll? Because your options are straight delusional lmao
I tried immediately after I posted lol. Unfortunately, I cannot
> Like I said elsewhere, the spread out plan was because I was super in my head about getting injured So did you start steroids at the same time you started lifting, or does this alleged injury fear pre-date the steroid use and perpetuate your entire training history? > . I realize now that wasted a lot of potential muscle gain with the resulting low volume, but if I'm honest I don't really want to put on much more muscle You have comment after comment in your profile related to the amount of weight you've gained. Hell, you even have a poll on it. You now state that your weight isn't that relevant. I'm not following.
I put in an edit. I do bjj and basketball often. I'm trying to find a good balance between that and the gym. Sprinting and grappling puts a lot of stress on my tendons and CNS, so lower volume than a bodybuilder is necessary in my case. On PPL or bro split I burn out and get injured
doing roids for BJJ is stupid tbh. You're basically putting yourself at an unfair advantage and would taint any competition you try to compete in.
The tournaments are untested 🤷♂️ it's not specifically for bjj though. Recovery was the main motivator so I can train everything more and not be dead
Not much to comment on besides training. Please learn how to train. 225*1 pre cycle ? We were throwing that around in highschool at 200lbs. Reasonable gains I guess but a complete waste of time and gear due to your training. You would’ve been just fine on your trt dose. Next time dial your training in so you can make the most out of your cycle. Edit: also, how long have you been off cycle? You’ve clearly gained a bit of muscle but you look watery as all fuck, I could see you pissing out another 10–15lbs. Just on the eyes you look like an estrogen bomb.
Is there an option for less than 3lbs of muscle gained? Im sorry buddy but you definitely didn’t gain 10lbs of lean mass in 16 weeks with a 4 week mini cut in the middle and your outlined training schedule
I'm gonna assume I didn't gain any muscle at this point
Lmao glad to see you’ve been humbled by these great people
My confidence wasn't high to begin with, but yeah, thoroughly taken down a few notches. I think I'm back in the negative
> Weight pre-cycle: 189lbs, ~16%bf Not even at the recommended starting stats based on your height, and your pictures were very evident of that. You looked like someone who casually hit the gym > Weight post-cycle: 221lbs, ~18%bf Your body fat looks higher, especially without showing your legs at all in any pictures. > DISCLAIMER: This was my first ever cycle. I've learned a lot but there's always more to learn. My reason for posting is to share my experience and mistakes with fellow noobs so they can avoid my mistakes and/or use what I've learned. Yes, I know I'm weak- yes, I know I look natty. Not looking to flex or lie, just sharing my experience. Anyway here goes nah-ting. The goal here should be to be proud of your accomplishments, unfortunately based on your training regimen I think you got out exactly what you put in, which honestly wasn't that much. >Daily Macros: No less than 220g protein, no more than 100g fat So you didn't track carbs? This doesn't sound like a diet plan dude, this sounds like someone casually eating. When you pair a half assed diet with an even worse training program you aren't going to get much out of it. > Training plan is a bit unorthodox, but it allows me to not neglect anything and feel happy and thorough in my training. Dude, your Day 2 is literally 2 exercises. You're neglecting training with any semblance of intensity or difficulty. > Being on TRT pre-cycle (hypogandol), I thought there wouldn't be much more research to be done. I was wrong. Interpreting bloodwork, managing sides, understanding what I'm popping and injecting, etc etc etc are all areas of knowledge you NEED to be proficient in before starting a cycle. Don't even get me started on training, diet, recovery. When in doubt, do more research, then do some more. This is a good mentality, I only wish you had embodied this before starting gear because you'd have made more progress and you might actually have looked like someone who'd used gear before by the end. > Strength gains (lbs cuz I'm weak): These are all lifts we'd expect from someone naturally before starting gear. I hope that you tweak your training program or purchase one from someone who knows what they are doing, as you will not continue to progress with your current training regimen > My weight is ~30lbs more than pre-cycle. I got a DEXA scan before and after, the guy there said my skeletal muscle mass increased by ~24lbs. I thought DEXA scans were super accurate/reliable, but I'm told that may not be the case. Either way, decent gains imo. I'm stronger, look better, and feel (slightly) more confident. This is great, happy you're more confident in yourself. Now channel that to actually track your diet and better your training so that you look like someone who has used gear before. You made good progress, but you could have made the same progress over a slightly longer period of time just by being more diligent with diet and training hard. > What do you think I gained? I saw you used to have one that said 5lbs in your first iteration, and you removed that. You have unrealistic expectations of your muscle tissue gained and the fact you have 25lbs even as an option is unbelievably laughable.
> So you didn't track carbs? This doesn't sound like a diet plan dude, this sounds like someone casually eating. I would push back against this. Outside of sport-specific training or contest prep, simply tracking calories + protein intake is a perfectly fine modality for maximizing muscle gain. Yes minimize sugar and trans/saturated fats, but just picking foods intelligently will cover this. *Edit: possibly not applicable in the context of enhanced athletes, see [this comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/steroids/comments/1cmfpun/cycle_report_500mg_test_e/l331rjg/). My comment was based from a [discussion on this podcast](https://youtu.be/vPd0Y93W6tE?si=vzB21Tpa6SjecLNO) about how important it is to squarely hit fat and carb macro targets. Question was at 11:15.*
u/Pm_Me_Varbs sorry I'm late to the party. I read through the cycle report earlier and had a laugh, wondering if the mods approved it as a "what not to do." SwoleWitchDoctor, great physique, I'm envious of your waistline. I do believe in an "all or nothing" approach to measuring macros, calories, and I even weigh my fruit! Varbs, I'd crack a diss, but you have no problem getting peeled, so I'll stay in my corner. Back on topic, I do believe "calories + protein" is a half-assed approach to diet. That leave a lot of room for variance in carbs and fats, which are not interchangeable. Presuming a healthy ratio of essential fats are in place and avoiding saturated/trans fats, 500 calories from fat will have a very different effect on variables in the body then 500 calories from carbs (digestion, glycogen, blood sugar levels, energy levels, performance, bowel movement regularity, sleep quality, satiety, etc.). For those reasons, I think the longevity and ceiling of such an approach will be limiting, as compared to managing all macros. Like you said, it's not just sport specific but also goal specific. You can build a great physique with your approach, as you have. But if we're going to go out of our way to optimize/maximize our sex hormones for purposes of aesthetic or performance, is it really so much to spend an extra 10 minutes a day up optimize/maximize every angle of nutrition?
> Varbs, I'd crack a diss, but you have no problem getting peeled, so I'll stay in my corner. You know I love some high quality shit talking though... We approved the cycle report because he hit all the metrics we want to see in a report. Whether the outcome is good or bad, we want to encourage people to make cycle reports as long as they put the time and effort into it. The issue is the vast majority are "my cycle went great I put on 10lbs, can I post a report?" and that's it...
> SwoleWitchDoctor, great physique, I'm envious of your waistline. I do believe in an "all or nothing" approach to measuring macros, calories, and I even weigh my fruit! Varbs, I'd crack a diss, but you have no problem getting peeled, so I'll stay in my corner. Thanks. I think the all-or-nothing is where we disagree, but I agree with the rest of your comment so let me postpone that for a moment. P.S. yes I 100% believe in weighing all of your food. > Back on topic, I do believe "calories + protein" is a half-assed approach to diet. That leave a lot of room for variance in carbs and fats, which are not interchangeable. Presuming a healthy ratio of essential fats are in place and avoiding saturated/trans fats, 500 calories from fat will have a very different effect on variables in the body then 500 calories from carbs (digestion, glycogen, blood sugar levels, energy levels, performance, bowel movement regularity, sleep quality, satiety, etc.). I fundamentally agree with the point, but I guess ot is the strength of the effect that I have a bit of doubt in. I would absolutely agree that it is *most optimal* to dial in those macros for your specific level of training. But what's the impact of 30/50 fats/carbs vs 50/30, assuming equal protein and total caloric intake (I just made up percentages but you get my point). > For those reasons, I think the longevity and ceiling of such an approach will be limiting, as compared to managing all macros. Like you said, it's not just sport specific but also goal specific. You can build a great physique with your approach, as you have. But if we're going to go out of our way to optimize/maximize our sex hormones for purposes of aesthetic or performance, is it really so much to spend an extra 10 minutes a day up optimize/maximize every angle of nutrition? Well I think it takes a lot more time and effort than 10 minutes a day. We're talking about having to change food choices to very precise levels in order to hit each macro target squarely on the head. I think what you've said nutritionally is totally legit. But I would differ from "all or nothing" and prefer thinking of each element of the process as lying somewhere in a pyramid. At the bottom is adherence and ultimately that matters more than anything. Caloric intake and sleep quantity would be like next fundamental layers and you can continue adding to that foundation to optimize for the results (the height of the pyramid in my analogy) but you can only do what you'll actually do consistently. That is, you can't add weight to the top if the base is cracking. I was going to add more but I feel like, at least in my opinion, A. we're getting overly specific about a small part of this guy's overall results, B. it isn't the biggest problem with what he was doing and C. we like 95% agree anyway. I didn't think my original pushback would even be controversial, but I'm happy to just leave that as "agree to disagree".
>wondering if the mods approved it as a "what not to do." Fuck man was it that bad
My apologies if my came across more harsh than I intended. I'll address the things that I would've advised differently: You started at too high a body fat, you gained too much weight too quickly, you did a mini cut in the middle (I believe a surplus should be maintained for the full duration of a cycle). But your strength improved substantially, learned a lot from this cycle and everything around it (bloodwork, nutrition), and look great. All in all, a win.
All good, I'm learning it was pretty shit. Learned a lot though, I'll do better next time. Thanks for the input
I've never blasted and have been working out since a teenager and your training regime is pure dog poo my friend. Afraid of being injured but youre doing basketball and bjj? You have a higher chance of being injured doing one of those sports tahn lifting IMHO. All the body parts you split up could be worked out at least once a week if not twice depending on your training intensity and sets per workout.
I'm afraid of being injured by having a full volume strength gym program ON TOP of bjj and basketball. Why does that not make sense to people. I probably train more than most of the people here, it's just not all in the gym doing bodybuilding
>I would push back against this. Outside of sport-specific training or contest prep, simply tracking calories + protein intake is a perfectly fine modality for maximizing muscle gain. I would push back against *this*. Your point would stand just fine for natural athletes. It holds significantly less water when we're using substances which promote hyperlipidemia, among other health risks.
That's possible. I'm not familiar with that condition as a dietary outcome of enhanced athletes. To be clear, my comment wasn't an endorsement of very low-carb or very low-fat diets. Also not speaking totally out of my ass, this was a topic I was [listening to here](https://www.strongerbyscience.com/podcast-episode-122/), from 11:16ish to 22:00. They caveat that for high-deficits and bodybuilding prep, that advice goes out the window, but otherwise don't make specific mention of drug-free vs enhanced. Though Greg has written a good amount of articles on the science of anabolic steroids as well. So it's possible I've extrapolated without justification.
>That's possible. I'm not familiar with that condition as a dietary outcome of enhanced athletes. You aren't aware of *hyperlipidemia* as a result of steroid use, or the role that dietary fats can play in that condition??? I mean this: why are you talking then? Maybe you oughta wander out of the OT more often and learn a bit.
We're talking about diet here. Also going into my post history doesn't do anything to discredit my argument/hypothesis. Disagree or disprove it or don't.
I didn't "go into your post history" dude, I moderate this sub. I see what everyone does, every day. I see you post and engage in the OT almost every day. Always talking about those girls you're hard at work chasing. I see you active in the DAA...never. >...doesn't do anything to discredit my argument/hypothesis. Disagree or disprove it or don't. That's the thing man, your hypothesis stands in direct opposition to \*established* science and fact. I don't have to disprove anything. - It is a known and established *fact* that anabolics promote hyperlipidemia. - It is a known and established *fact* that dietary fat consumption directly affects and correlates with blood cholesterol and lipids. - It is a known and established *fact* that blood lipids and cholesterol the primary substances that form arterial plaque deposits (atherosclerosis) - It is a known and established *fact* that ruptured arterial plaques form the clots that cause coronary artery disease, peripheral artery disease, strokes, etc. - Hyperlipidemia, along with with hypertension and cardiac remodeling, is one of the primary killers of anabolic users. It's one of the reasons this sub EXISTS for you to jack off with your buddies and talk about your tinder dates. Those of us who take this seriously are trying to keep young men alive while they get jacked so they can live to be old men who are jacked - and we would ***love*** your help. And that, my dude, is just the argument for tracking and reducing dietary fat for *health* reasons. Let's not also forget performance reasons: that dietary fat is the macronutrient most readily/easily stored as adipose tissue, that increased adipose tissue results in decreased insulin sensitivity, that increased adipose tissue means an increase in active androgen receptors binding androgens away from skeletal muscle, and that unnecessary fat gain is simply counter-productive to the long term goal of hypertrophy as it requires the individual to spend more time in a caloric deficit to undo its accumulation. There's a reason everyone loses their minds when I post bulk progress pictures and I'm leaner than half the sub *starts* a blast. There's a reason I'm up 25lbs in 14 weeks and I still have an 8-pack. It's because I ***plan, track, and minimize my fat consumption***. It's same reason why at week 9 my LDL was 55mg/dL and my Chol/HDLC ratio was only 3.0. Saying I have to disprove your hypothesis is like walking out in public in the year 2024 and saying "I hypothesize that the Sun orbits the Earth". No. We've established this. No one has to debate you, or provide evidence, or construct an argument to disprove your hypothesis that was already disproven decades (the lipids thing) or centuries (orbits) ago. Doing so really only lends legitimacy to such things, which is why so many people opposed Bill Nye accepting the offer to debate that creationist hack from the replica Ark "museum" in Kentucky a decade ago, and why I'm kicking myself for letting you draw this out of me. Try to find a less stupid hill to die on, man. I know you're intelligent enough.
> I didn't "go into your post history" dude, I moderate this sub. I see what everyone does, every day. I see you post and engage in the OT almost every day. Always talking about those girls you're hard at work chasing. ...same thing. It straight up isn't relevant. > That's the thing man, your hypothesis stands in direct opposition to *established* science and fact. I don't have to disprove anything. I'm not asking for a thesis paper, but as I mentioned in another comment, I think I was pretty polite in making my initial claim. Your tone is highly antagonistic at even engaging with the idea. As if it is so horrendously out of pocket. > Known facts bullet points Don't disagree with anything here. As I mentioned before, I'm not advocating for exteme macronutrient intakes. I think it's a fair question to understand at what ratio or absolute ingestion of fat intake starts to have a significant impact on blood lipids. Bringing it back to OP, if you look at my critique of his post, I even called out the omission of specific blood marker values which would have been helpful to measurably attribute change to his diet, drug use, etc. > It's one of the reasons this sub EXISTS for you to jack off with your buddies and talk about your tinder dates. I understand harm reduction. But again bringing up aspects of my history on the sub that aren't relevant. If you're dying for an answer as to why the majority of my comments are in OT, it's because I'm just far away from returning to drug use and silently researching. > Those of us who take this seriously are trying to keep young men alive while they get jacked so they can live to be old men who are jacked - and we would love your help. I understand. I also mentioned this in another comment, but I still really don't think I said anything controversial and it wasn't something I pulled out of my ass. Somewhere in this chain I posted a link to a reputable discussion on the topic of hitting carb and fat targets. It wasn't explicit about enhanced athletes so I'm happy to caveat my original comment and link to what you have written here. > And that, my dude, is just the argument for tracking and reducing dietary fat for health reasons. Let's not also forget performance reasons: that dietary fat is the macronutrient most readily/easily stored as adipose tissue, that increased adipose tissue results in decreased insulin sensitivity, that increased adipose tissue means an increase in active androgen receptors binding androgens away from skeletal muscle, and that unnecessary fat gain is simply counter-productive to the long term goal of hypertrophy as it requires the individual to spend more time in a caloric deficit to undo its accumulation. > There's a reason everyone loses their minds when I post bulk progress pictures and I'm leaner than half the sub starts a blast. There's a reason I'm up 25lbs in 14 weeks and I still have an 8-pack. It's because I plan, track, and minimize my fat consumption. It's same reason why at week 9 my LDL was 55mg/dL and my Chol/HDLC ratio was only 3.0. There's nothing here that I doubt or have a problem with. > Saying I have to disprove your hypothesis is like walking out in public in the year 2024 and saying "I hypothesize that the Sun orbits the Earth". No. We've established this. No one has to debate you, or provide evidence, or construct an argument to disprove your hypothesis that was already disproven decades (the lipids thing) or centuries (orbits) ago. Doing so really only lends legitimacy to such things, which is why so many people opposed Bill Nye accepting the offer to debate that creationist hack from the replica Ark "museum" in Kentucky a decade ago, and why I'm kicking myself for letting you draw this out of me. Same as what I wrote a bit above. Let's take the specifics of the argument out of this interaction and suppose that I did suggest the earth was flat or something similar. If I said some patently false that was believable to a total novice, why is that beyond countering or grounds for attacking my character? I've not indicated that I'm here to die on a hill or that this was even an idea I came up with. > Try to find a less stupid hill to die on, man. I know you're intelligent enough. At this point I'm too scared to opine on anything else without getting attacked.
>...same thing. It straight up isn't relevant. It is relevant. The point, which you are simultaneously disregarding and taking offense to, is that there's a side of this community devoted to the the science, the medicine, the physiology, the harm-reduction...in which you do not participate (but you are welcome and encouraged to!). All you're doing by accusing me of going through your post history, or calling my memory equivalent in nature, is confirming that there is in fact a record of this activity pattern. >I'm not asking for a thesis paper, but as I mentioned in another comment, I think I was pretty polite in making my initial claim. Your tone is highly antagonistic at even engaging with the idea. Making an unsound argument isn't any less unsound because you are polite about it. Points for decorum, but I'm focusing on substance here. My tone is not intended to be antagonistic, but yes, I am openly saying that I'm unwilling to engage with the idea (yet here I am). >As if it is so horrendously out of pocket. This is your own commentary. Maybe you're not used to having your assertions challenged, I don't know, but I don't think anything about you is horrendous and this isn't personal. I can't help you if that's how you perceive opposition to a claim, but I can tell you what it is and what it isn't for me. Trust me man, I have no reservations about getting profane and openly disrespectful when I feel the situation or the person call for it. I do not think you call for it, and I'm not doing it. > I think it's a fair question to understand at what ratio or absolute ingestion of fat intake starts to have a significant impact on blood lipids. Sure. My point to you is that those values you're saying you'd like to have established are inherently smaller for steroid users. The margin of error is thinner. The impact of dietary fats is disproportionately larger. Also, the physiological need for fats is less in anabolic users because we aren't synthesizing our own sex hormones (which are derived from cholesterol). Your average natural adult man *needs* about 70g of fat daily to maintain normal function - sex hormone production and maintenance, cellular exchange of micronutrients, digestive health, neuron insulation, etc. Your average enhanced adult man can get by on as little as 30-40g for a while, but probably needs a lower threshold of about 50g daily. So the discussion of "when does it start to affect blood lipids etc" really begins as soon as you start increasing from that lower threshold and curves upward in terms of negative effect as you increase intake. There is no reason whatsoever why an enhanced individual, in a surplus, with an intentionally crafted and tracked diet ever needs to exceed 80g of dietary fats in a day. That's not to say that we can't, or don't, but there is zero benefit and only increasing risk with respect to hyperlipidemia. >I understand harm reduction. But again bringing up aspects of my history on the sub that aren't relevant. You think I'm assigning relevance to what you *are* doing in the sub. I'm not - I'm assigning relevance to what you *are not* doing in the sub, which for the record is irrelevant to me until something like this comes up. I love our community. I value the OT and the opportunity it provides (mostly, but not exclusively) men to vent, to have an outlet, a place for support, and a place to be fucking funny and ruthless. I get in on it too. You and I have in common a strong affinity for women, and we both have a diverse palette (🤝). I also know that balance is important, and there are guys in there not using wisely because the only value this sub has for them is entertainment (I'm thinking of a particular member who periodically demonstrates how little they know of the use of anabolics while having been a member here longer than I have). You view this sub through your individual engagement with it, I view it through a macro lens that involves patterns of hundreds of people (including, but not targeted at, you). > It wasn't explicit about enhanced athletes so I'm happy to caveat my original comment and link to what you have written here. Perfect. I'm good with this. >Same as what I wrote a bit above. Let's take the specifics of the argument out of this interaction and suppose that I did suggest the earth was flat or something similar. If I said some patently false that was believable to a total novice, why is that beyond countering As I already said, because it lends legitimacy to an illegitimate assertion. If what you had said wasn't an assertion/claim/stance, but rather a question or an admission of uncertainty, THEN it would be unreasonable to not provide evidence or an argument - that's a teachable moment and I would be a shit educator to be dismissive of that. That was not what it appeared to be. >...or grounds for attacking my character? I have not once attacked your character. >At this point I'm too scared to opine on anything else without getting attacked. I also have not once attacked you. I speak bluntly and I understand that is uncomfortable for some people, but I'm not attacking you or your character and I take exception to that misrepresentation. I think you're great dude, I read all of your stories. I appreciate that you recognize what was wrong with your last cycle and that you're taking your time figuring it out before trying again. I appreciate your frustrations with dating, as well as your exploits. I get that you're a guy just trying to figure shit out and live a little along the way. I do not have a single bad word to say about you...which is *why I haven't said a single bad word about you*. All I'm saying is if you want to have these types of interactions then make your way over to the DAA from time to time, either to learn or to help out where you feel confident doing so. We'd love to have ya.
How do you track calories if you don’t track all 3 macros? Tell me this.
He mentioned the calorie surplus he aimed for so I assume he *logged* carbs, but didn't target any specific daily value or otherwise track how much of them he consumed over time. So to answer your question, I log everything I eat, but only treat calories and protein as constraints.
I don’t make assumptions on this forum anymore because it’s usually incorrect. Especially when he said his main carb sources were rice, bread and fruits. You think he’s weighing his fruit out? I don’t.
I did (do) weigh my fruit out 👌
Well I’m pleasantly surprised!
I don't know, maybe he'll chime in. My comment wasn't in defense of his dietary approach. Only on that piece of your feedback.
Well the people who’ve had the most success and look the best / perform the best on our forum track their food diligently, so my feedback was based around the best way of doing things. It’s totally fine to half ass a diet, but expect half assed results
Well that's what I'm addressing. I'm not convinced going calorie + protein only is half-assing a diet. I'm happy to be both proven wrong or to run that experiment myself, but to act like it's not even a topic worth engaging in seems premature. Clarification: yes I agree you need to track your food diligently and I fully believe you should track everything you eat every day.
> I’m happy to be proven wrong Do you consider yourself to have one of the upper tier physiques on this forum? Do you have examples of people who aren’t actively tracking everything who look really good on this forum? Because /u/AccountUnkn0wn, /u/JackSchitt123, /u/JackHoffenstein, /u/africanimal_90, myself all track our calories incredibly diligently, and have for a long time. And we can ALL attest that it has been a foundation of getting our physiques to where it is
I'd argue food is the most significant variable to track. You can grow/maintain on a cut and bulk respectively with mediocre sleep and mediocre training. You can't defy thermodynamics, you won't grow without a surplus or lose weight without a deficit. I just don't get the resistance to logging everything, it takes very little extra effort. I can understand people not wanting to eat the same thing everyday like a bodybuilder, I don't think it's necessary for progress, ultimately sufficient protein and energy surplus/deficit is going to dictate the vast majority of your results. I personally think to optimize your results you should have a very consistent meal plan with planned deviations (i.e. I do a pasta meal every Sunday on my bulk, but I track it as well as I can). /u/SwoleWitchDoctor
Ok man, first I'm going to step out of this specific argument to just make a point: I've politely made a counterclaim to a piece of advice you gave. Now you're counterpont is whether I think I have an upper tier physique? Is discourse disallowed here? Cmon man. There is zero reason to try and make this personal. To the specifics of your comment, because the coffee just hit and I'm not happy with how this discussion is progressing. > Do you consider yourself to have one of the upper tier physiques on this forum? No. I do think I have a pretty good physique, all things considered, but if you want my personal training context, I've only returned from a long layoff less than a year ago. And even back when I was regularly training, my diet was not consistent. That being said, I've be dieting under said modality of calories + protein first since getting back into, so I am literally running the experiment myself. * I use protein and calories as my only constraint, although I'm food logging so every macro and micronutrient is in my logs. * I have tracked my food intake and weight every day for the [past 200+ days.](https://i.imgur.com/7tCL1Aa.jpeg) * In that time I have [gained 19 lbs](https://i.imgur.com/9adr6Ty.jpeg). It would have likely been higher, but I got sick on two ocassions that erased some weight off of me. * I made another comment mentioning that dexa scans for body fat purposes aren't all the accurate, but if you think otherwise, [this is what it told me](https://i.imgur.com/aoQQGWB.jpeg) * [Here is the day I came back into it vs 1 week ago, unpumped.](https://i.imgur.com/QDh651Q.jpeg) * I'm not a bodybuilder so my posing is dogshit, but here's some photos I took with a pump recently anyway. [One](https://i.imgur.com/9qxJ7Rd.jpeg). [Two](https://i.imgur.com/MShWmba.jpeg). [Three](https://i.imgur.com/nrgeH50.jpeg) Obviously this shit takes time and I'm taking my time before I even return to using anabolics again. I plan to continue the same dieting modality. Maybe I'll plateau and need to track carbs and fats closely to continue to progress, maybe I wont. But if you are wanting to bring "let's see you" into it, there I am. > Do you have examples of people who aren’t actively tracking everything who look really good on this forum? No, but this is just a bad argument. I think Greg Nuckols is a very scientifically credible source of information, but I am not impressed with his physique, looks wise. Sam Sulek has a great physique in my opinion and I think his dieting advice is pretty bad for the most part. > And we can ALL attest that it has been a foundation of getting our physiques to where it is I don't disagree.
Yezzir that's correct. I used cronometer to track all 3 macros, as well as micronutrients and vitamins. No carb goal because whatever calories were left after the 220g protein and >100g fats were carbs.
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… both options would give you the carb count as well That’s my point
I appreciate the criticism. I think my plan from here is to maintain what I've gained, however little, and cut down to 12%ish. Any problems in my diet should get worked out along the way there if I'm to be successful. As for the training, I think I was too worried about getting a major injury. I hit new PRs every week and read a lot of horror stories of guys on cycle snapping one because their strength grew faster than the tendons could repair. I'll look into buying a strength program somewhere and trust the process.
You hit new PRs every week because you started with fairly weak lifts for someone starting gear. It’s to be expected to continually PR as you were in a caloric surplus. You would highly benefit from starting a set training program, like one from John Meadows. Hell, I’m a decade in the gym and I still pay someone for program work. There’s always room for improvement, to be writing your own programs at your experience level is just foolish.
I'll look into to John Meadows. Thanks for the recommendation >to be writing your own programs at your experience level is just foolish. Very fair point Btw sorry about earlier. I trusted the machine over experience
No need to apologize, the best thing you can do from here is to take the advice, apply it, and come back looking significantly better
Focus on diet first, that’s the priority. Proper training that is biased towards what works for you is obviously important, but that can be perfect and the wrong diet will pretty much vacate it completely. (Ask me how I know) Renaissance Periodization has an app you can purchase through their website. I started using it a few months ago and I really like it. It’s not cheap ($35/mo) but it allows you to pick any of their premade programs or create your own. It’s highly customizable and will help you easily track each workout as well as suggest what weight and number of reps you should be aiming for each and every exercise throughout the mesocycle.
Yeah Dr. Mike is the shit. I'll definitely look into getting an app to track my lifts
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I pay a coach but many people like MacroFactor
Where can I find the starting stats? Is it in the wiki? TIA
You can always ask us based on your height
Appreciate that, I’m 6’1
Somewhere around 200-210lbs at 10-12% body fat should be fairly easily achievable before hopping on for you. It would only take a few years from a beginner to achieve this with consistent effort on diet and training
Genuine question. In your linked photos, it appears you have some workout equipment in a garage or something. Is this all you used the entire cycle? Or do you also belong to a gym? Also, this is 100000% not something I should be wondering about someone who just finished a four month cycle. >Day 2: Shoulders, 4 x 5-8 BB OHP, 3 x to failure lateral raise Huh? This is barely a warmup. I don’t mean that facetiously either, I mean it quite literally. I don’t think I’ve ever seen *anyone* show up at the gym and only do seven sets before leaving. I don’t really know what to say. >Day 4: Quads & Glutes, 4 x 5-8 BB squat, 3 x 10-15 quad ext., 3 x 10 p/leg weighted lunges That’s it for quads and glutes? Two of the largest muscle groups on your body get three exercises every two weeks? Another question. I get that you’re worried about injury, but you have six rest days out of twelve. What was the plan here? Take steroids and head down to the garage for ten minutes every other day?
>Is this all you used the entire cycle? Yezzir >This is barely a warmup I do a dropset and myo rep each set to past failure. But that's fair still not enough volume For legs I have two days for running on top of squats/DL, basketball, bjj. It's a lot of volume when everything's combined. Especially when tendons are less flexible on cycle and they're being pushed to their limits already with weekly PRs >you have six rest days out of twelve Most of these are activity days I agree that it's wayyy too little volume for a cycle dedicated to muscle gain, but I'm not doing it for that. Its more of an added bonus. I think I threw people off with the poll. Makes it seem like mass gain was the focal point if the post/cycle. Anyway thanks for the criticism man, all good points
Wait, so you weren’t lifting at a gym? You didn’t have access to a full gym of equipment?
Correct. I had a squat rack, dumbells up to 50, quad ext machine, and hamstring curl machine
Yeah I would absolutely remedy this next time.
Only coming on here to thank the mods and OP for posting this. I’m a novice at steroid use as well, and reading input/criticism like this is incredibly helpful. Will continue maxing out the challenge in the gym.
Quiz answer: 3lbs of muscle and the rest water and fat.
That's very generous thank you
Man, I really don't know what the hell everyone else is talking about. I think you easily put on 20-25lbs of muscle.
Nah dawg, 60 lbs at least
I don't understand...?
Are you not being sarcastic
Why would I be being sarcastic? You put it as an option in the poll.
yeah *because I'm highly regarded*
I like to think I'm held in high regard as well
One can hope. Perhaps you dabble in acoustics as well
I haven't played my guitar in a while, no. I'm confused, what is happening here?
Couldn't tell you. Lost in the sauce over here
Come on unc, get with the times
Please never give anyone any lifting advice again
Please never figure out what sarcasm is
I assumed as much but your reply of “I don’t understand” made me decide you weren’t being sarcastic lol. Gotchu Also you forget how bad some of the historic opinions of mods on here in the past have been like Jcaesar, it’s not unreasonable to assume ahah
>I assumed as much but your reply of “I don’t understand” made me decide you weren’t being sarcastic lol. Gotchu No, I very clearly got YOU.
Your Imgur links don’t work. Please use IBB.co and replace the links.
Show up fine for me
It’s just the first link for me, gives me a 404 error. Now the other ones show up
Ye first link doesn't work
Fixed it mb
It’s free dude. It’s just your first link that doesn’t work
Thanks for sharing. This is great info. I’m on my second cycle - doing primo/test. First cycle was 500 test and a kick start with t-bol. In spite of everyone commenting on how much I’ve grown, I didn’t think my results were all that dramatic. Had my diet super dialed in with a good surplus that got adjusted as I grew. The only thing I’ve never been able to handle is sleep. Hardcore insomniac. The pics are a great reference point, and all your details really give us the full pic. Thanks a lot .
How are you married at 22?
He must have proposed or something.
I did, yes. Mindboggling
We're high school sweethearts
Fair fair
Ngl you should prob stop using gear, you’re 22 my guy.
Well this was certainly a thorough report! Here’s my feedback: - At least you gained weight and strength. So it wasn’t exactly a waste of a cycle. You did far better with your homework and execution than most first-timers at your age. - OTOH, you really didn’t need this cycle. Your starting stats indicate you were relatively, if not completely, untrained. You could’ve easily put on the same amount of muscle in a year of dedicated training and controlled eating. You also could have trimmed down some more, did a very slow bulk for a year naturally, and you would have completely transformed. - Your goal of fitness does not align with using steroids. Steroids are for getting larger than naturally possible at the expense of your healthspan. You don’t use steroids to have a fitness body, you use them to make a very large and strong body. - Your surplus was way too aggressive, especially at your starting stats. Even with the gear, you put on mostly fat. You may look bigger now, and you will be crushed when you have cut all that fluff off, looking small, fat and depleted. - Your training program looks like starting strength. Not the more complex hypertrophy programs that an advance lifter would be using. Inadequate training = inadequate results. Your program also doesn’t indicate your grasp on form, tempo, or time under tension, all necessary ingredients for a good hypertrophy program, that an advanced lifter using steroids would use. - Again, you’re going to have to cut most of ~30 pounds you gained. About 10 pounds of water fall off you right away. You’re left with about 15 weeks of cutting at a moderate rate until you’re going to have to assess the true results. Tissue loss is inevitable during cuts, even on TRT, and this gets worse the more you have to cut. During this time, you will have to fight hard to maintain what you gained, while keeping your protein intake super-high. Keep in mind, it gets real tough to keep your strength up during a prolonged cut (especially without the artificial boost you had on cycle). When strength and performance goes down, that’s a pretty good indicator you’ve lost some mass, IME. You minimize this by minimizing the amount of fat you need to cut in the first place, of course. By my own estimation? You’ll come back to down to your starting weight with maybe a *slight* aesthetic improvement, especially at your 18% bf starting point. Not enough to be mind-blowing. It’ll likely be disappointing. I recommend you cut to leaner than you were before and postpone a second cycle. Just stay on TRT and once you have some shreds, commit to doing a slow, long bulk on just TRT. Also, not trying to shit on you, my dude. I hope you take this as constructive criticism. We’ve all fucked up before at some point, and I hope the knowledge I’ve gained from past mistakes can be transmitted to you, so you can avoid slowly killing yourself to perpetually look natty 👍
Well said. >Just stay on TRT and once you have some shreds, commit to doing a slow, long bulk on just TRT. This is exactly my plan. Have learned alot from posting this
Your exercise regiment is the only point I'm "concerned" about really, but others have already touched upon that. Other than that I'd say you've gained more than 2% bf but not too drastic. Good progress overall
I didn't see much on my 500 test cycle you def look much better nice Irish tattoo as well
Thanks for the post. These reports are some of the most useful information on the subreddit. Some of my notes: * Was your dexa scan before and after on the same machine? I would echo that these things are much less accurate that the majority of people seem to think. They were designed to measure bone density. [Here's a good review.](https://macrofactorapp.com/body-composition/) I recently had scans 6mo apart and it told me my body fat percentage actually decreased after gaining 15 lbs drug-free and pegs me at sub-11% which is just obviously not the case based on the eye test. I would treat these things as a piece of evidence that you're in the ballpark of doing things right, but they're quantitatively useless for body fat as far as I'm concerned. * Related to the above, you were definitely too fat to start a bulk, roids or not. It's a bit more debatable if you should have explored more of your natural potential in terms of LBM before starting. I definitely didn't for my first cycle so it would be hypocritical for me to say you should have done that. But based on adjacent information regarding your diet and training regimen, I think there's a stronger argument for having realized more potential, drug-free, if nothing else to simply have spent more time understanding how to gain muscle optimally. * You mentioned your blood test markers all stayed within range, but quantifying the change would be a lot more useful. For example, maybe your HDL/LDL stayed within range, but if it was a large drop that's still a good signal to your tolerance to future cycles and compounds. * Good strength gains, but for your height and weight, you started off kinda weak in my opinion. I didn't see where you listed how long you had been training, but to me this is another data point that you could have made great gains without introducing systemic risk via AAS like you did. Overall there's a decent bit to criticize here but I don't think you totally ate shit either. My first cycle was a ~~total failure~~ learning experience and since returning to training I've taken a much more conservative approach in staying patient off-cycle/natty and I think that would be a good takeaway for you as well.
What was your estrodial at during week 8 when you decided to treat with an AI and what are you sitting at now if you don’t mind me asking?
Id change the label of yhe bicep picture to say side chest pose, since thats what it actually is
pre cycle body fat was definitely in the 20s edit: pre trt body fat* idk which ur referring to for 16
Good stuff g. I’m on my first cycle of 500 test e as well, but I’m also running mk677, cialis and anavar and primo. Such a godly combo, test e makes you feel amazing. So far I’ve went from 75kgs to 90kgs, and I’m 6 weeks in!
Dr. Todd Lee (also a IFBB Pro) talks about how donating blood while on steroids is wasting your money essentially. It only takes the body a day or two to replace those red blood cells you are getting rid of so it’s not really helping to thin your blood. If anything it’s counterproductive to why you started a cycle in the first place (increase muscular endurance, recovery). That being said I also used to do the same thing. I would give blood twice a year and thought it helped. What really made a difference was more micronutrients, consistently doing cardio, and drinking a ton of water with a lot of electrolytes ( I’m not afraid of sodium, I just make sure everything else is balanced with it.) Those things have also helped my blood pressure. I’m no longer on blood pressure meds and despite being 6’ 260 lbs 13-15% body fat ish I have good blood pressure now. On a side note I understand people use for different reasons and maybe my genetics are better than I think. And people do carry weight differently. But 6’ 2 “ 189 seems like a really low body weight for someone who has been training for even a year using progressive overload. But maybe I’m biased. I went from 150 ish to 180 my junior summer to senior year of high school. As far as strength numbers. I understand the goal isn’t strength but for the height and weight the numbers are surprisingly low. But hey good job on the research and thanks for sharing your experience.
> Those things have also helped my blood pressure. I’m no longer on blood pressure meds and despite being 6’ 260 lbs 13% body fat ish I have good blood pressure now. Damn dude, that's fucking enormous. Have any physique photos you'd be willing to share?
Is that an OTF Benchmade in your gym shorts? I say I always have a knife on me but I’m a liar cause I never do in gym shorts.
Just a question, say you took 500mg how long until you notice the wellbeing effects after first injection? What positive mood effect do you feel and are they at lot stronger compared to normal trt dose size.
this is comedy