HDL lower in cruise dose
Anyone want to give a possible guess on what's the deal is with my HDL continuing to drop into cruise dose?
HDL natty: 53L
HDL 12 weeks into 500mg test only: 39L
Stopped blast @ 14 weeks
HDL 8 weeks in 200mgs test cruise: HDL 33L, LDL 83 Trigs: 57 HDL/Trigs ratio:1.73
Still eating eating stupid clean, as I do year round and zero cheat meals or junk food. Only thing I've lacked in, is getting all my healthy fat intake in, and cardio I've been taking it easy and just walking the dogs a total of 2-3 miles a day. Really trying not to cut anymore fat at the moment which is why I to a step back on cardio. I didn't think it'd drop another 6 points since ending my blast. Will cardio and fat intake effect it this much?
Starting ensuring my healthy fats intake is back up in the 90-100g range, upped omega 3s to 4g and citrus bergamot 1200mgs.
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It’s an unfortunate side effect of being on exogenous test. It’s a problem even at a replacement dose for whatever reason. I’m prescribed 150mg a week and it dropped my HDL like 15 points. Increased my LDL too. I recently lowered my dose to 125mg a week which I assume will still have me around 800-1000. If I’m still feeling good I’ll probably go down to 100. Try to find the floor. You want to be on the lowest dose possible that keeps you feeling good and allows you to maintain your size. If I were you I’d cut your dose to 150 to start if not 125. You don’t need 200mg to maintain your current size.
And get back to doing cardio, it is the best thing you can do to increase HDL. As much as I hate every minute of it, I still do my cardio everyday regardless of if I’m bulking, cutting or maintaining. It’s like an extra 200-250 calories I have to eat to make up to it if I’m gaining, no big deal. You want to get your heart rate up past 120. 130-140 is even better.
I just found it wild that my HDL was consistently 40L for literally all 14 weeks of my blast and dropped as soon as I cruised at a lower dose. And yes, put all those in place this week already. Lowered down to 150mgs to start, but will probably have to do 100-125mgs like you stated. I'll see what bloods say in 5-6 weeks. I tend to hyper respond to anything I put in my body and 125mgs would probably have me in that range as well. My biggest issue was the reta absolutely crushing my appetite at 6mgs. I had to lower it so I could eat more calories to get cardio/energy back in the picture. Good thing about reta is it keeps my LDL and Trigs WAY down no matter what I'm running which is a perk to it. Appreciate the input brother!
Your HDL won’t get back to natty levels. Only way to really bump it up is lower your cruise dose.
Yeah I definitely wasn't expecting it to get back up to natty levels. But I definitely wasn't expecting it to continue to lower. Was hoping to get it back to 45ish tops. Started 150mgs and will recheck in 6 weeks.
Your HDL/LDL didn't change because of a crappy diet. It's changed because your body is now experiencing a new normality in how the liver and peripheral tissues handles lipids with the increase in test levels. Just think of it as a new norm. But if you do want to see an improvement, look into to 10-20mg of Cardarine. Cardarine lowers triglycerides by increasing fatty acid oxidation and promotes the formation of new HDL particles. More HDL particles (good cholesterol) = more transporters to move LDL (bad choleserol) to the liver for disposal. This will increase your HDL and lower your LDL.
My test levels decreased while HDL also decrease. I didn't increase when they decreased from a blast to a cruise. Which doesn't make sense to me when my HDL stays at 39-40 consistently all 12 weeks at 500mgs. Then magically drops even when I lowered my dose.
Unfortunately HDL recovery isn’t linear with lowering test dose. There's alot factors at play. You've got Lipid recovery lag, HDL takes a couple months to rebound after androgen suppression, even if you lower the dose. It’s not an immediate “dose goes down, HDL goes up” effect. You're on 200m/week which still causes high hepatic lipase, increase in liver enzymes, disruption in lipid metabolism. Also, what's your estrogen and SHGB at? HDL is positively influenced by estrogen, if your E2 drops because your blast is over, then your HDL will drop with it. If you ran an AI and now you are not, or if you never ran any AI to begin with that will also have an affect on your HDL. Cholesterol has many factors, it's quiet the mindF to dive deep into it. As long as you keep eating a healthy diet and you're E2 is in check you're good to go. Most people see HDL go down after a blast even when it has been constant during the cycle.
Ahh I gotcha. Good info. Still waiting on my e2 results, should be coming in this week. I did run 12.5 aromasin every 3 days on blast and kept my e2 at 40, then started hcg and it shot up to 92 at the end of my blast. I did stop all AI when beginning this cruise and have zero signs of high estrogen, so it could've tanked a bit too. Hopefully I'm not waiting forever to blast again, was hoping to get back on here after 12 weeks in October, lame. We'll see what the bloods say. Appreciate you being a thought partner. Thanks.
You’re new to cruising right? It probably just hadn’t reached its settling point yet
Yep. First cruise ever. I also think this new src I'm trying is a bit overdosed or I'm ultra sensitive. Test levels came back at 2005, 3 days after a pin on 200mgs. On 500mgs a week it's around 3900. So I'm pretty sure I just answered my own question right there..ha. Certainly need to lower it or go back to my go to src.
Also remember the HDL/LDL ratio is now an antiquated marker for CVD. They found HDL/Triglycerides ratio to be indicative of CVD risk. You don’t want trigs to be greater than 2x your HDL.
Exacting what I've been reading at the moment. Trigs are 57. So my trig/HDL ratio is 1.73 which states "very good" according to charts. So is my 33L not a huge concern given the ratio? Still gonna strive to get it in the 40s before my next blast regardless.
If you lower your cruise dose a little and get that 2000 test level (which is still blast worthy), to something like 900-1100 then you’ll see it creep up some.
You're the man. Appreciate your insight.