posted Wed, 02/11/2026 - 13:18
548
+ 10 Should I continue to lose weight?
ad
I’m 5’6, 31 y/o. Went from 206 to 147lb in about 11 months.
Lift 4-5 times a week and I throw in incline walking for about 20-30 minutes after my lifts. Where do I go from here? I’ve been on a calorie deficit for those 11 months. Is it time to start a bulk or should I lose another 10/15 pounds?
I’m feeling a little stuck on where to go from here. I clearly still have fat to lose, but at the same time I feel like I lack muscle and strength.
Currently on:
100mg test C (past 7 months)
Reta (started at around 170 pounds)
- Bookmark
- 10
- 0

Nice work dude, that's quite the transition.. I would want to bulk, eat lots of protein, and lift super heavy.
Great progress. What you'll need to do now is a transition phase of eating near maintenance, for 2-4 weeks. You'll be surprised how much muscle you can gain from the rebound in intense trimming.
Once you level out (give or take a few pounds) start to slowly add calories. Don't bother agonising over the 100's of a calorie! That's silly and obsessive (like a sauce would easily work out to be that much). Round it up roughly to ~500 extra. You're talking say an extra couple of snacks compared to your usual diet.
Main thing is not to be scared of a little bit of fat gain. That's one of the hardest because psychologically you've hammered it in your head about "not being fat", but you need to give some room for growth. Don't beat yourself up over the occasional planned binge.
Don't add any more compounds until you have a good baseline - see how you respond. Literally testosterone will feel 10x different on a bulk compared to the diet. Your drive (including sex drive)/energy will go up massively. Let it settle for 4-6 weeks. The switch alone will be enough to give pretty dramatic results, at least initially. You could easily cruise on trt (or just above) for the next 6-9 months on "newbie" gains alone, so long as your routine/diet isn't silly.
Look at yourself in those pics, you should be proud. Now it's time to build muscle. You do not need to keep losing weight, now its build muscle and the muscles will also help keep the fat off.
I think if your diet is clean, you’d be fine just trying to bulk up. Find a good active hobby to start. Jiu jitsu was a life saver for me.
Awesome progress!!
You’re in the same spot I was a few months ago. At some point you just have to stop cutting and decide to gain muscle/mass.
I’ve gained weight and I would be lying if I said that was easy on me. But the strength gains have been incredible and I can see myself getting bigger I just remind myself of that and it becomes totally worth it.
Ya your good for whatever if it's natural or gear add a 500 calorie surplus of more clean food to the food your eating and start gaining my man nice work bro you could lower the reta first or just drop it to bulk if you start eating too dirty add a little back imo
Amazing progress, congrats on the recomposition! Plenty of great advice in here and it sounds like you have a plan!
First off, damn nice work. That’s a lot of weight lost and you did it the right way. Respect.
At this point I’d stop pushing the deficit and move into a small surplus, something like ~200 calories/day, then track bodyweight and performance. You could lose more, but you’ll probably get more out of adding muscle and density now. A couple hundred calories is easy to manage. Extra rice, an extra protein shake, nothing dramatic.
Being leaner now also works in your favor hormonally. With less body fat, estrogen issues tend to be much easier to manage, and small increases in calories or training volume usually go toward muscle instead of fat.
You did what most people skip. You actually got lean first instead of trying to “bulk it off later.” That puts you in a great position long term.
Nice job staying consistent. Now it’s about building slowly instead of grinding the deficit forever.
Ranger3252Great work, not it’s time to build and sculpt your physique.
Nice progress. Way to go melting off that fat.
First off, excellent progress. You should be very proud of yourself. I’d add in 3-5iu of gh if you can. This will allow you to eat a bit more without storing fat. That’s a big reason most of us are on it. I don’t want to be a bad influence because it seems ur doing true “trt” with 100mg, but id highly consider bumping that up to at least 200-250. You are at the point where putting on more muscle will definitely help you out, the more muscle you have the more food (and oxygen) your body uses to sustain. For training, id cut volume and focus solely on progressive overload. Track all your top sets.
Long story short, doing the adjustments I said, I believe you can definitely recomp from here. Getting tighter while putting on more muscle tissue. This is my take; I’m sure there will be a lot of varying opinions.
Regarding a small blast. I was thinking of running 250-300mg test for 16 weeks, but I recently had to drop my trt dose to 80mg because of a small lump under my left nipple. If I’m that sensitive to e2 how do you recommend I run this blast? AI from week 1?
You honestly have to manage it with blood work my man. It takes about 5-6 weeks saturate your test and at that point you will be able to see where your e2 is living. This is the point I would start the AI. If you get heavy e2 sides before the saturation you may have to get bloodwork earlier to manage. You would then need follow up blood work once you start managing the e2 with an AI.
Yeah I was definitely planning on a small blast eventually. I’ll adjust calorie intake and focus on progressive overload for now. I really appreciate the response.
Big future ahead with your work ethic!
I second what Pete recommends but I would say if you go to 200-250mg per week don't have that as your new trt dose, use it as a mini blast for 12-16 weeks and see how you feel. You've made great progress so far, well done!
Right, if he’s good with 100mg he should stay there, def not bump it permanently. This is in context to recomping
Great work and the results show.