Hello All,

I know it looks like I’m new here, but I’ve been a long time lurker. Also had a different account 7-10 years ago, but have no idea what that name was. I’m not a public person, so the idea of posting this incredibly long “intro” or pictures of any kind is out of the ordinary. However, I want to do so in hopes that I can help prevent anybody (especially young’ns) from doing all the stupid stuff I did in my early-mid 20’s. I truly do not care if everyone laughs/bashes at my past, as I am a new person now. I care much more about overall health than vanity at this point in my life. The opposite was true back then.

To dive on in, I was a tennis & baseball kid growing up, so I started lifting at 18 in college. After only 6 months I started my first prohormone, Halodrol (the look on your face right now is fantastic. Hang tight though, it only gets better!). The results were great. I lifted regularly for another 2-3 years. I stayed off everything because I was also slammin a lot of beer, and I at least knew to not combine poisons.

Got depressed around age 21-22 and wasn’t doing anything good for my body. Stopped working out. Started drinking way too much. Started dabbling in other party favors. Took that to the max until I got arrested for a PI and had some on me. Despite it being shitty, I’m thankful everyday that I got busted.

I took my probation seriously. Started seeing a psychologist and psychiatrist. Tried various meds until one stuck. Changed my habits into healthy ones again (probably too healthy for those around me).

I started lifting again really because it was just something to do instead of bars.. and this is when I really started to fall in love with it. I studied a lot too. Not sure if I’m allowed to mention other websites/forums, but I was a Datreus disciple. The knowledge, insights, theories there were crazy cool to me. It wasn’t heavily focused on AAS, but very focused on peptides, rhgh, natural hgh, how the body works etc. So I got over my fear of needles and got into peptides.

I digress.. So after a couple years of serious lifting, I decided it was time for a little boost (I know I know). I was 24-25. I decided I would do a simple Test + Anavar cycle. I went to visit my buddy who could get the goods. He had a fellow lifter with him. The guy was a ripped monster and competed. He asked me why I wanted to take anavar, and I told him I wanted to cut. He told me anavar isn’t worth the price and won’t do much, so why don’t I get on some tren instead. I didn’t even know what tren was at that point, but when the ripped monster tells you what to do, you do it right?

So I left with two vials of tren and two vials of Test; enough for six weeks or so I guess. It was all the money I had to spend, and I’d just re-up in a month (hint: don’t do this). I did actually do some research once I got it, but 10 years ago most forums were balls to the walls about how great tren is with very few people talking about the negatives other than night sweats and it killing cardio. For me, I think I got all the sides almost immediately. They were pretty brutal but the results were good. I was very much vanity > health at that point.

I really don’t know what was next. My first cycle never ended; it turned into a four year blast and cruise with a lot of orals along the way. This was when almost everyone agreed that Test should be more than your other compounds, so I was always on high Test, always on Masteron, almost always on EQ, and almost always on Deca for either joint support or bulking. My cruises weren’t even cruises. They were probably close to a gram of gear per week. I looked like an oily, walking, red erection with bacne.

Despite knowing long workouts are bad, I was in the gym 2-3 hours per day, six days a week. I truly just loved lifting. It was mentally therapeutic, but physically the opposite. My body was beat up and my joints were having a hard time, specifically a shoulder, wrist, and both knees. I couldn’t work a job if it required me to stand for an hour at a time, and decided at the age of 28-29 it was time to ease up and get my knees evaluated. I had partial tears in both patellar tendons. I started physical therapy. With little improvement from that, I got platelet rich plasma injections. With little improvement from those, surgeries were the next and only option left.

The recovery time is 10-12 months, so I waited until January to get the first knee. That way my deductible would be met, and the second knee would be “free” in November. In January, I went to get my pre-op bloodwork done, and my liver numbers were outrageous. No way they would operate on me. I took every liver support supplement possible, and it took eight weeks until they were finally within a range they needed for operation. So the first surgery was in March. Never got that knee fully rehabbed because I needed to cram the second one in by December. The first one still bothers me five years later.

Back to back surgeries plus the recovery time meant 18 months of no lifting and being in my head a lot. I could have lightly, but I grew really resentful of what I had loved so much. I couldn’t work, had to move in with my parents (which ended up being great for us), and felt like I was wasting my life lying on a couch because of what I had done to my body.

I never did a proper PCT from my four year blast cruise. Before the surgeries, I told myself I was going to low dose Test the whole time. But became very unmotivated during the recovery, so I just stopped that too. The mind is a crazy thing.

So at age 29-30, and with all the resentment towards working out, I started living a typical sedentary lifestyle. I never got super fat, but it was just a time of doing whatever I wanted since I had such strict diets and routines before. In this 3-4 year period, I started focusing more on a career and had a baby. Most of my time went to family and my job, with little self care. Also during this time, I went to get my test levels checked and, unsurprisingly, they were lower than a 70 year old man. Got some lotion prescribed to me, and TRT will be a part of my life forever now.

Then in January 2020 I started getting the itch again!!! However, gyms were shutting down and there was chaos amongst us, so I had to put the itch on hold. Not sure if everyone is familiar with HotWorx, but you do workouts in a tiny sauna. They were one of the first gyms to open back up for my area. I signed up and decided I’d row and cycle my way back into shape and actually get healthy. I rowed and cycled A LOT. In the 07/30/20 picture below, that’s after three months, to give you a frame of reference to where I started (just seeing that I can't post a pic here, so that will come somewhere else.) I finally started lifting again in October of 2020.

I am committed to doing things right this time, and give everyone here the opportunity to hold me accountable if I ever start getting stupid again. Just remind me that my health and my family are more important than a few pounds gained or a few pounds lost. Right now, I’m still shedding pounds and going to get to 9-10% BF for a month or two before I start a very slow bulk. One thing I used to always do wrong was go back and forth if I was bulking or cutting. I’d start getting too fat, so I’d cut. Then I’d get discouraged in the weight room and bulk. So I’m very much focused on 9-10% right now. I’m intermittent fasting and very Keto at the moment.

Not sure how to wrap up this novel other than saying I hope this can help deter some of y’all from being idiots. I don’t have a lot to contribute to the eroids forums in terms of science and brains, but I really do hope I can encourage everyone to keep their cycles in check and to value their health over looks unless you’re getting paid millions of dollars.

If you’ve made it this far, thank you, and you get a gold star.