Here is the thing you are not being honest about, and I don't mean to us or you are lying, I mean not honest with yourself likley. I see guys all the time, again just the other day, say "damn I've gained 10 lbs in 2.5 weeks on test E." My come back is "well now you know what you can do without test because it had not kicked yet during those 2 .5 weeks.". See thats the thing, when you run gear you tend to do things right or at least train harder and or eat bigger. This is before we think about placebo which btw is a very real thing. I don't care what caused you to be better, you're better and thats all that matters. So thats it usually, be honest with yourself and test it. Work your balls off in the kitchen and the gym and run a very specific protocol and then do the same thing on your test cycle. May surprise you to see you do just as well off cycle, if not better off cycle. You already described part of that problem as you said you forgot about the shutdown. What happened is. You created a shutdown with less test than your natty was already giving you. Thats a net loss in free test and yet you are doing better. This also confirms you work harder towards the goal on cycle than you do off. I know the placebo effect because I experienced it as a young guy as well, that just got stung feeling full of superman juice and again, the placebo is very real. You run the same kitchen and gym off sometime and see where it goes, if you're not advancing at 20 then its very somple, you're not working hard enough. If something is not working, make it work by doing it better.