Am I correct in my thinking here…
I’m on legit TRT and my Doc justwd bumped me up to 140 mg/wk of Test C split into 2 doses (We’d & Saturday). As I have been reading and learning over the past year, I’ve also began tracking my sleep to try and get that shit dialed in (this is the bane of my fucking existence though), using My FitnessPal to track what I’m putting in my body and monitor macros and burning up the Peloton 5-6 days per week. I’m 50, 5’10” and run around 178-180 and my FitBit scale shows me around 18-19% body fat..which is all in my stomach and moobs. ALL of these things are relatively new to me, coat I was a runner for many years and am in relatively decent cardiovascular shape. I also started taking 5mg Cialis daily about a month ago to help with BP and “extracurricular activities”.
On to my questions; I’ve been playing around with my dosage from 200 (per week in 2 doses) all the way down to running my current tray dose of 140/week. I’ve read the importance od getting the BF% down as low as possible before your first cycle and want to do that/work on that now. What’s the best way for me to accomplish this? Also, is there a point where I’m taking too much Test and not eating (or exercising)enough to take advantage of it..even at the levels I’m pushing? I know these are very basic questions and so apologize for the simplicity. I’ve been searching my ass off and can’t find anything that completely answers my questions. I don’t want to waste my test, and, more importantly, I don’t want to screw up my progress/protocol by doing things incorrectly. If you’ve taken the time to read this novel, I thank you very much. I have labs also, if you’d like to see them. Thanks again for having such a helpful site for of knowledge people.
- Bookmark
- 0
- 0
Great information below about the slow process of fat loss.
I recommend looking to Makwa on the search tab. He has posted some good information about continuous fat loss.
The basics are that you either need to drop calories or increase cardio when you plateau. Ideally, we just increase cardio but you can only do so much. The other point is carb cycle which will be more useful towards the end of fat loss to keep the metabo ramped up.
Good deal, I’ve been reading a lot of posts from @Makwa because he seems to really know his stuff and has a very good way of explaining things that are easy for beginners to understand. Thanks for the suggestions also…I never knew what a journey it would be to lose body fat..especially as someone who has always been a pretty lean person. I’m learning that you can still be skinny and fat..which blows my mind, but is so true!
Fat loss is just a slower process than people realize or hope for. The reason you see pros getting shredded in their 12-16 week preps is because they never get that high in the fat % to begin with. For your scenario, let’s just assume the scale is accurate and you’re 19% body fat. Let’s say you want to get to the 10-11% range before cycling. 8% loss at your stats is ~15lbs. In a 3,500 cal deficit that is 15 solid weeks of staying strict and hitting your cardio and cal goals. Little slip ups here and there (because let's be honest it’s life and you still need to enjoy it) will cause that to be longer. So really it’s like a 18-20 week process to drop from 19% to looking quite lean and starting your cycle. At 50 you could look in to adding HGH to expedite this. The scientific literature shows fasted cardio vs non-fasted makes no difference in fat loss. Just have to hit your net negative energy balance. I always do my cutting on my 140mg/wk legit TRT dose. If cutting, I do my cardio fasted simply because I inject some HGH first thing in the AM and do my cardio. Don’t wanna eat right after injecting HGH.
How active are you? Grab a pedometer and try to avg 15k steps a day and I promise the weight will shed off. Just make sure you eat enough. You drop your cals too much and you shed all weight not just fat and end up with that “skinny fat” look in the end.
Stay vigilant. Weight loss is purely a mental struggle. Enjoy your life and get there at the pace that works for you. Just understand that might be half a year.
Side note: that’s a sexy legion
Thanks so much for the detailed reply @SeeOhShow I do appreciate the time it takes to respond and to teach someone the reality of this type of lifestyle. Your post tells me that my previous thinking is unrealistic and I most definitely embody that “skinny fat” look and it pisses me off. Time to get realistic and start putting in more work to achieve my goals. I am pretty active and on an average day I’ll do 7500 steps min and around 11-12k on a busy day, plus another 20 mins on the Peloton. Diet is probably where I can improve the most and I’ve always been pretty ignorant on nutrition as I’ve always had a blazing metabolism and could eat whatever I wanted and how ever much I wanted…not anymore. lol. Thanks again for the suggestions, I will take them into consideration moving forward.
Also, the Legion is amazing. P226 with Romeo 1 Pro. Great gun, but it pains me to say my P320 XCarry Legion shoots better. Regardless, she is a pretty sumbitch!
I can’t even begin to count how much money I’ve spent on firearms I just thought looked cool. Only to find out they shoot like shit in my hand lol. But I refuse to sell anything. It just gets put away and neglected. I have commandments I follow and #1 is “Always stay gun positive”….i can add to the collection but can never remove
A damn fine commandment!
It don't matter how many guns you have, if you ain't got bullets.
Comment of the week for sure … spat my scrambled eggs out lol
Sorry about the eggs.
lol it’s just a collection of paperweights if you’re in that scenario
They would still be effective for pistol whipping though.
If we’re going that route, gonna have to bring out the truck gun. Too much trouble cleaning the…uh…..biological matter out of the nice pew pews! --
If your going to use the truck gun, make sure to remove the recoil pad, if you have one.
Are you getting enough calories? A low calorie diet for several months will put your body in defense mode. Your body will try storing as much fat as possible. What are your testosterone levels at on 140mg a week? Those FitBit scales aren't accurate. They should work as a reference though.
In general, I’m netting about 2000 calories per day (offsetting it by burning around 400 calories a day from excercise) As far as my range for 140/week, I don’t know yet as I just got bumped to that dose in the last couple of weeks, but at 120/week I went from 216 to 706 total test and from 4.6 to 14.3 free test.
I always assumed the FB scale wasn’t super accurate, but it serves its purpose well enough for me for the moment.
706 TT on 120mg a week is pretty damn good for a 50 year old man. What was the reason for bumping up the dose? How are your estrogen levels?
Most of the Low T symptoms I was experiencing were still hanging around, so we agreed to bump it up a little bit and see if there were any changes. (Mainly libido and zero energy/motivation which were the main reasons I went down the TRT road. My first two labs over a year ago had my Total T in the 160s & 130s and Free 6.2 & 6.1) My estrogen was low during the last labs (56), so I can only speak currently as to me not experiencing any symptoms of having high E levels. My prolactin has also been running on the high end (15.4) so I believe thats playing into my libido issues. As most people here say, hormones are complicated and it’s really easy to fuck them up, so I’m trying to sponge as much as possible, so that doesn’t happen. Of course, reading too much (and not vetting the content) is just as dangerous in my opinion. Too many people have the protocol of “MORE!” and I’m trying hard to stay away from that mindset. Having been previously hooked on opioid pain killers, that started from dental work and elbow surgery, I approach most meds with caution and a healthy respect of their power to hijack my ass!
Again, thanks for the dialogue, I really appreciate it.
If your still having those symptoms at 709 TT, I would’ve gotten the estro and prolactin REALLY perfected first. Especially when your estro is low and prolactin is high. I’d be willing to bet one or both of those is the actual culprit. But unfortunately, like you said, Some docs even have the “more is better” mindset. The increase in testosterone dose should help the estro as long as you don’t increase AI with the test dose. I didn’t notice if you mentioned if your taking anything for estrogen control? And then you could try a really low dose of caber every 3 days to bring the prolactin down. And for me just one or two doses will usually bring me down in to range and then I don’t have to keep taking it for a while until I notice symptoms again. So I’d take it once, wait three days, take again, wait three days and libido and nipples would be back to normal and then I’d stop taking it and I’d be good a while. Idk if that’s necessarily the right way to do it, but it worked for me and I never seemed to really crash my levels
Interesting. I agree with you that the Prolactin and E has something to do with symptoms. Talking to my Dr about those two things makes them look at me like I’m from Mars and must be out of my mind..because what do those two things have to do with your symptoms? Yeah, I’m sure it happens everywhere, but it’s so damn frustrating when I don’t know a lots but seem to know more than my Doc. As for your questions: No, I’m not taking an AI or anything for Prolactin. I did take some P5P back when I first started this journey and was on 1 packet of AndroGel a day and I must have taken it too long and ended up being an edgy bastard. I quit the P5P and it went away. I am interested in Caber and have heard others mention it, but have zero knowledge of it. Thanks for the suggestions and confirmation that those two are likely causing some issues. I’ll get those checked as well on my labs in a couple of weeks.
The goal with TRT should be to find an amount of test that doesn't require an a.i.
Ya his estro was actually too low I was just wondering if he was on one and if that was causing it to be low. A lot of doctors just prescribe 150mgs test and then like 1mg arimidex, just right off the bat with no reason. They just think they go hand in hand and you need one no matter what.
I prefer to not take pills for something that may be able to be avoided. But, if his estro is under control, that's good. Depending on the units his estrogen is in, it may be high. Male: 10 to 50 pg/mL (36.7 to 183.6 pmol/L)
Sorry, I should have put the units earlier instead of assuming. 56 ng/ml and it was actually pulled on 7/3, so this was before I went on injections. I thought it was later, so I may have given you guys incorrect info earlier. My apologies, I’ve got so many fuckin labs that I get them jumbled up at times. Regardless, I don’t feel like I have any of the common symptoms of high E, and my Doc didn’t prescribe one. I’m definitely gonna pull prolactin and Estrogen on my next labs..anything else you guys think I should look at? I can also post some of my labs if it would help. Thanks again fellas..I appreciate you guys taking the time to share your knowledge.
Are you sure it was ng/ml? Not that it matters now. Just curious.
Remember how I just said my dumb ass gets stuff mixed up sometimes? Yeah, you’re right I looked at prolactin units instead of estrogens. Here’s a screenshot:
Ok, I think the range for your estrogen is wrong on that test. I keep finding the estrogen range for men at 10 to 50 pg/mL. To me, it looks like your estrogen was high while only producing 166 ng/dL of testosterone. Jesus. I wonder what your estrogen is at now. When I had high estrogen, I would have issues maintaining an erection. If your estrogen is too high, your masking that problem by taking cialis everyday.
So, Scoob, you planted some serious curiosity in me the other day in our conversation about LabCorp’s estrogen levels being wrong. After thinking about it and doing some more research, I thought it was weird that their test was called “Estrogens” and not Estraidol or something else. This led me to thinking it may be a combined test of some sort that does not share the same metric we talked about before. I think that’s the case, but I’ve taken a screenshot for you to look at and tell me what you think about it. It’s easy for me to jump to conclusions, but I’m so green on hormones and interpreting bloodwork that I’d rather have someone more experienced give me their opinion first. ---- As always, I appreciate your time and input in helping me do things correctly. If I had any Scooby Snacks I’d sure treat you to a box!
I thought "Estrogens" was strange too. The reference range may still be for a woman though. Also under Units, I don't understand what the <40, that's under pg/mL, is for.
I think the <40 is the limit for “pre-pubescent” I keep seeing that when I am searching on LabCorp’s site. To me “Estrogens” doesn’t tell me shit and is a worthless test without the breakdown.
Maybe you can get just an estradiol test at some point. I just read that estradiol is 10 times more potent than estrone.
I’ll definitely get that tested next round of bloods..or both of them couldn’t hurt. I dropped back to my TRT dose for the past 2 injections, so I’ll hang out here until I get my next bloods, unless I start getting any negative symptoms. It’s working well, so if it’s easier to drop fat with less Test, then that suits my goals better. I’ll keep ya updated when I find out what my E levels really are. Thanks bro!
You're welcome. I'm interested in what the results will be.
Oh shit! I never even considered that the test range may not have been correct. I do, like most people, look at where I fall on the range and never ask myself I whether the range is accurate, for a male or female, for a child, etc. I probably need to get some shit checked on my own ASAP, so
I can figure this out. I mean, my nips aren’t the least bit sensitive or tender and while I do take 5mg Cialis daily, I’ve only been doing it for about 40 days or so and mainly for the BP benefits..the other benefits are def a plus though!
It probably wouldn't be a bad idea to get it checked. Cialis definitely has its benefits. I get a lump under my right nipple. I'll dig my fingertips in around the nipple(not on the nipple) and I can catch it early. It hurts when I get one. I have let it get pretty big before(about the size of a pea). One time someone flicked me in the nipple when it was a little big and it hurt. I didn't react. I didn't want to have to explain that one. I got back on aromasin until it was gone.
I’ve been hyper vigilant about gyno since starting TRT because of all the horror stories and pics of moobs. So, I’m constantly checking my nips to see if they are tender or developing any lumps. I’d definitely have bit my tongue on the nip flip too..kinda hard to explain that one. Next thing ya know you’re getting the ol “What’s wrong you got sand in your vagina?” dropped every 5 mins. At least that’s how my dudes are..ruthless and relentless. Lol
If people I work with realized I had an issue, there would be a target on my nipple.
How about your blood sugar, A1C level?
Blood sugar is always below 100, last labs it was 99, but I didn’t fast beforehand. Not sure about A1C, would
It be listed on the labs as something different? If not, then it doesn’t look like ive ever had it checked.
A1C would be listed as A1C. It is a number given to represent about 3 months of blood sugar levels. The blood sugar level, most times will be ok. My blood sugar level comes back good, but my A1C puts me in the prediabetic category.
Ok, that was my thinking, but some shit doesn’t flow like that. Regardless, it looks like I’ve never had it checked. Glucose every 6 months (for the past 5/6 yrs) and it’s always good to go. I may add that to my list of things to test next.
Does type 2 diabetes run in your family?
Nope. Dad developed it late in life but that was due to too many White Russians..1/2 gallon or more and a bottle of Kahlua a day will do that to ya.
That means you have it in your family. Regardless of the White Russians, Although that certainly didn't help. I would get A1C tested for peace of mind.
I’ll definitely do that. Thanks again for all your help Scoob!
No problem. Good thing you posted your bloods. It took me a while to notice the ranges. I thought something seemed wrong, I just couldn't pinpoint it.
Stick to your trt dose for starter, adding the extra test will make it harder to lose that lingering fat. Clean diet is the biggest thing alongside some hiit cardio. Do your cardio in the morning while fasting, 20 minutes minimum. And lots of core, and I mean like planks and leg raisers more than anything.
Thanks @V0411! I appreciate you taking the time to read and reply. Your answer was direct and exactly what I needed to hear. I hadn’t thought of doing the cardio while fasting, so that’s the kind of thing that will help a lot. I have been working my way into HIIT workouts, so I’ll focus on those as well as the core exercises. Thanks again bro.
No problem always glad to help if I cann