+ 16 Don’t get excited yet
Lately I have been seeing a lot of newbs bragging about how great their cycle is going inspite of them knowing fuck all about nutrition. ”Your full of shit Makwa. I have already gained 12 pounds of muscle in 3 weeks eating like I always do.” That keeps ringing through my head. First of all to all you thinking like that you better understand how AAS affects glycogen retention. That intitial bump in weight you get when first starting out your cycle is NOT muscle. It is primarily due to the increased glycogen retention in the muscles. This is one of the effects of AAS. I have gained 15 lbs of muscle from this dbol. No again and if you are really clueless about what you are doing a lot of that weight during the initial weeks is also subq water retention due to having your estrogen out of whack. So don’t get all excited thinking you are the smartest man in the world now because you have gained all this weight right away on your first cycle.
What will separate the men from the boys is how much weight you gain the second half of your cycle. That is when the initial glycogen load is over and you can expect a lot of the gains from here on out to be more lean body mass. This goes out the window of course if your estro is out of whack and all you are gaining is water weight. You will know if it is primarily meaningless weight if you keep on blowing up like the Michelin Man.
So here we are towards the end of the second half of your bulker and you are still sitting at that 12lb gain. You are still proud as a peacock thinking you have gained 12 lbs of muscle without even changing your diet. Epic fail. It will be gone after PCT when your body can no longer hang onto all the glycogen and you shed the water. The moral of the story here is that it is time to get excited once you see the scales continuing to climb during the second half of your cycle. If it is stagnant you better change something up and that something should probably be your diet. This is now the quality weight which you should keep most of if you PCT right. So don’t get to excited about how great your cycle is going and jump the gun. Stay focused on the diet and training and then you should have an accomplishment to be proud of.
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Just a little tidbit to reinforce how profound of an effect glycogen retention/loading can have on weight is that for every molecule of glycogen there are 3 additional molecules of water along with it. So with even a little bump in glycogen retention you can see how the weight can pile on quickly.
I heard it was 4 molecules but either way. For example I added in an boat load of carbs after a long paleo diet and my weight shot up I believe 11 lbs. mostly all water. And even better my BP went up like 30/30. I can’t even imagine if I was on gear. Do you know if the water stays subq and interveinious over surrounding the glycogen? That’s what it looked like and it was not attractive. And based on my BP it was not in the muscles
Sounds more like you were carb loading which is a little different beast than the glycogen loading you experience from AAS. The glycogen retention from AAS is IM so you all the water it brings along with it would not be subq. Hence why if you estro is dialed you get that more hard dense look due to the IM glycogen/water load. That squishy puffy look comes from subq water. When you overload on carbs is what we call spillover. The muscles can only hold so much glycogen, obviously they hold more when using AAS, but if you over eat on carbs you will spillover whether or not you are using AAS, you will just spillover more without the AAS and be even squishier. In your case, if you were on AAS a good chunk of those carbs would have been IM loading and make you look hard and dense but you went overboard with what the muscles could hold and you got a lot subq water.
The key whether or not on AAS is to take in just enough carbs to fill your muscles with glycogen and water. If you take in too much then the carbs (spill over) and cause you to hold subcutaneous water. Your muscles can hold much more when on AAS. Once again the old sponge analogy. Think of your muscles as a sponge. Just enough carbs will keep the sponge nice and full of water, but too many carbs and water will spill all over the place!
Thanks for the post and the reply. That’s what I thought happened to me but I figured I’d ask the guy with the answers. Glad that experience is over. I like the sponge analogy. So in terms of AAS the sponge will hold more water but after the cycle it’s ability to become supersaturated will disappear and the extra water will spill out along with the extra glycogen stores. If the sponge weights more (more dense) that would translate to actual muscle gain.
You have a bigger sponge when on AAS.
Hello Sir,
Thank you for sharing your thoughts Makwa. We all see this on a daily basis. Lack of knowledge and experience in our sport quite often leads to wrong conclusions therefore it is great to have eRoids website where all the necessary information is stored. Bit of research and all these issues can be avoided.
Regards
This is so true, think I have been through this cycle myself couple of times when I started. You get very excited as none of your shirts fit you and you think to yourself this staff os doing wanders to me.
But when time goes by and your body returns back to previous state, you start asking yourself questions what have I done wrong.
Great post Makwa, thank you, well said!
Truth right here +2. Great post!
Dealing with this right now and experienced enough by now to know the 5lb I’ve gained in the first two weeks of my cycle on a 500 calorie per day deficit is nothing to be excited about. Does show the DHB I’m running is doing its job though which is always a good sign. Looking forward to seeing real changes post 6 weeks.
That is one good thing you can interpret with that big initial bump in weight...you know you are not just pinning straight oil. Can't blame it on bunk gear then if you don't end up with a positive gain when cycle is all said and done.
^^^^^exactly!
Once I gained 14lbs in 3 weeks....
....water , lol
Great, informative post. Thanks.
Preach!! I’d also add the longer between cycles or AAS use in general the bigger the initial bump can be. It’s fools gold and for me stalls between week 4-6. it’s why it’s imo so important to taper up your calories on bulks in particular the last 4-6wks. Up both the complex carbs and protein. I tend to base it on the more on the mirror than the scale on when I need to bump calories. I try to add in an extra meal between 350-500 cals at first. If that doesn’t do the trick a second extra meal should be added. I notice a heavy carb load day helps me as well. I’ve always thought folks have painted carbs too much as an enemy. Hey to each their own I guess. Live and learn bro.
Good point to keep bumping up cals as cycle progresses. Keep building new lean mass so you have to feed that new mass to keep and to grow more. I think the other handy trick for busting those plateaus is to add in something like provi to free up some more test and rev up the turbo or a good time to add in an oral, but that is getting a little beyond the scope of this post.
Awesome post bro... diet is key... ALWAYS!!!! Lol...bravo
+2 well said and F— U Makawa lol
Ah Mak, as you get older clearly you’re starting to get jealous of the leet gainz the kids are making!
Great post, as always!
Hell many of the reviews claim 10 to 20 lbs of lean mass in 8 weeks. Those reviews need to be negged.
Great post !
This part me chuckle haha
RustyhookerLoud applause!!!!!
basskiller89Kids getting placebo'd hard
You old men don't know shiiiiit!! I've gained 20 lbs eating KFC and McDonald's bro. I just make sure to hit the gym really hard! I have a phobia of people so I don't actually go to the gym, but I do have a home gym. Between the shake weight and pull-up bar I'm bigger and also leaner then I've ever been. Damn old dirty birds know nothing..
But for real.. damn kids nowadays just doing things blind and hoping everything works out ok for them then when it doesn't they're frantic for the easy fix. It's sad really :(
The quick fix of the glycogen load is why you see so many yo-yo's. They put on their 10lbs during cycle and drop it after and put 10 on next cycle and drop it and so on. You think something would click on eventually in their head and wonder why they are still 160lbs after 5 cycles.
AnonI've read quite a few of your posts and you always bring insight that I otherwise would look past, I appreciate your posts and knowledge. You should definitely have a GURU tag under your name. I'm not sure what GURU means but it stands out when I see it, so it must be important.
Not saying he doesn't deserve it.. I've only seen that tag a couple times since 2011. It's reserved for only a select few.
He is a wealth of information though and a good dude
Tread-M
Viking
MightyMatt812I miss Viking
Both first ballot eroids Hall of Fame right there boss
X2