(Another) Beginner First Cycle Test E Log
Hi all
Firstly a bit of a background on myself. I’m 27 and have been training since I was 16. I was heavily overweight my entire childhood up until the time I finally made exercise a daily thing. I’m 6’5” and 97kg (213lb).
I don’t know exactly what it was but I recently took an interest in AAS. Being overweight through my childhood and not having wonderful genetics I have never had great confidence in myself. I’ve found over the last couple of years even with playing around with diet and training regimes I seem to have hit a bit of a plateau, or my “genetic limit” if you will. Don’t get me wrong, I am 100% sure I could have put more into my diet and training and got some results but no matter how much effort I put in it’s always going to be limited. I guess the purpose of exploring AAS is as much to get me completely focused on my training and diet again, aside from the obvious physiological effects of the substances.
After doing a lot of research I’ve decided to go with the usual newbie cycle of 500mg Test E per week. Split into two injections per week. Aromasin 12.5mg ed and HCG 250iu twice weekly.
The first thing I’d like to offer advice on is the injections themselves. I’m 4 pins in and I’m lucky in that I haven’t experienced any PIP at all so far. So many beginners seem to deal with hell when it comes to PIP so I’m glad. I’ve done all my pins in the glutes, alternating sides from one injection to the next. Initially I thought for sure the thigh would be easiest, apparently it is for access but doesn’t take AAS as well as the glutes. I will be continuing with glutes for the rest of the cycle, why fix it if it ain’t broke?
Effects so far
Now being I’m only 10 days in it’s still too early on for me to have any sign of any real effects from the Test. However there are a couple of things I’ve noticed that I’ll list below.
- The night of my first injection I had a terrible restless sleep and had heaps of weird dreams. It felt like my body was in flux with new hormones running through it. This might’ve been in my head though as I haven’t experienced it since.
- 2-3 days after the first injection I realised I was noticeably hungrier than I usually am, even while eating a normal amount I was still hungry.
- Every now and then I will get a bit hot, seems to come and go and I will sweat a bit, nothing major at all it just seems like I’m running a bit hotter than usual.
- Intensity of my workouts seem to have gone up. I first noticed what felt like a change 4 days after he first pin. Again, this could be placebo, but it felt real. Lifts haven’t improved so far but intensity is definitely up.
So far I’ve put on about 2-3kg (3-5lb). I feel like I’m looking a bit fuller but it’s really hard to tell and I’m not someone who’s going to take progress photos every day, maybe every week or two I’ll take some for reference. I was on a keto diet before going on cycle but after a lot of feedback I’ve decided to go back to a clean eating well rounded diet including plenty of carbs around workout time.
Things I’ve learnt so far:
- Inject into glutes and start with Test E for first cycle, apparently Test E is one of the smoothest compounds so until you are a seasoned vet I think Test E in the glutes twice weekly is probably the go.
- Needle choice. I went for 25G x 1” needles. I’m thinking of purchasing some 23G x 1.5” as this will make drawing easier (25G takes forever) and 1.5” length will ensure better penetration in the glutes. 1” is fine for other areas, for now I’m just making sure I inject as deep as possible with the current needle.
- I purchased 18G blunt fill needles, hoping that would make drawing easier. However blunt fill needles are only for use with ampules, as they can’t pierce the top of a reusable vial of Test E, so I stuffed up. One of those newbie errors that I won’t make again. If I get a different 18G needle for drawing it won’t be a “blunt” needle.
So that’s pretty much what I’ve got to offer so far. I’ll try and keep this log going to completion and at least make it semi coherent, it seems a lot of people struggle with basic English and explaining events/effects haha. I won’t post all the time, only when I think I have enough to justify an update. I’m hoping I can maybe help some newbies through the errors I make so others can avoid the same problems! There’s so many little ins and outs and details about this process that many people with no experience with needles and compounds etc can mess up, so hopefully someone gets something out of this.
Day 60 w/blood test results
Hey Mikey, I'm glad you asked haha sometimes it seems like these experience logs don't get much attention, although I'm sure a lot of people just browse through to get an idea of what other guys have experienced so hopefully it's worthwhile for people anyway.
Everything has been pretty steady for the last couple of weeks since the last update. Unfortunately I got excited by my strength levels and ended up damaging my back a little. I have had a bulging disk in my lower back for years that comes and goes, the week after I deadlifted 200kg I walked into the gym like I owned the place and was all pumped up, chucked probably more weight on than I needed too early and pushed for too many reps and twinged it a little. I've still been able to keep into my routine I've just had to drop the deadlifts and squats as they are the two things that aggravate it. So I've been pounding the leg press machine and instead of deadlifts I've reverted to increasing my wide-grip lat pulldown workload as I want to focus on thickness in my back and while I can't do deads this seems like the next best thing to focus on. Advice to newbies, DO NOT EGO LIFT! I felt like a champ for a few minutes, but it has caused a bit of pain and I've had to work around it for weeks now, not worth it.
Weight has stabilised in the 106-108kg (234-238lb) range. I felt like I was putting on some good size and didn't want my weight to balloon out any more so I have incorporated a lot more cardio into my regime lately, particularly fasted cardio first thing in the morning. I get up, have some apple cider vinegar, lemon juice & carnitine then take the dog for a good paced walk for about 40 mins. This seems to be working really well so far, it energises me, has stopped the weight ballooning out and I feel as though I've maybe managed to lean out a little bit more.
Blood test results
At the end of week 8 I decided to get blood work done to check where things were at. I got everything including testosterone, cardiac/muscle markers (CK), liver function, renal function, testosterone, oestradiol, iron, glucose, lipids and haematology. I'll list a couple of the more interesting results below, reference ranges are in brackets:
Testosterone - 109.5 (6.0-28.0)
SHBG - 23 (15-50)
Free Testosterone - >2000 (200-600)
CK - 1449 (<201)
Urea - 10.8 (2.5-8.0)
AST - 50 (<41)
ALT - 37 (<51)
Oestradiol - 316 (<150)
Glucose - 4.8 (3.0-5.4)
HDL Cholesterol - 1.3 (>1.0)
LDL Cholesterol - 2.4 (<2.5)
Non-HDL Cholesterol - 2.7 (<3.9)
RBC - 4.75 (4.50-6.50)
White cell count - 5.4 (4.0-11.0)
As you can see from that the gear I have been getting is good! This is a relief for me as you never actually know the quality of any non-prescription compounds you purchase, so to see what I thought I was getting is in fact what I have is a good thing with those test levels through the roof. The elevated CK and AST levels I have had confirmed from a few people are most likely just due to the fact I am doing heavy weight training which is elevating the liver enzyme values. Going by my Urea results I can probably knock a protein shake out of my daily intake as well as I was informed higher Urea levels indicate protein intake is unnecessarily high.
The biggest concern is the high levels of estrogen. I was having 12.5mg Aromasin ed but due to a change in supply I had actually changed over to Arimidex the day after I got these bloods. I was surprised to see estrogen up so high and now have my questions as to whether the Aromasin was legitimate or not. It's appearance and how it was packaged makes me suspicious, but I'm much more confident with the Arimidex. I have gone to Arimidex 0.5mg eod instead of 0.25mg eod because of my elevated estrogen levels. If I was having 12.5mg Aromasin every day and they were at that level then I think I need a bit more AI dosage than the 0.25 Adex eod that most people run. The amount of weight I put on in quick time also made me believe I was high in estrogen from the get-go. I will try 0.5mg Adex eod for a while and see how I feel, if I notice any negatives I'll drop it to 0.25 eod but so far I think I'm feeling a bit better in terms of energy and bloating with the 0.5mg eod dosage.
If anyone in Aus is interested I can provide the details of the doctor I used to get the bloods done. He does everything by teleconference and has a long history of dealing with chemically enhanced athletes so he understands things that might differ because of AAS usage. He was good and went through everything in depth, made a few suggestions to me but said all up I'm one of the lucky ones who seems to be taking to AAS very well with few side effects as my cholesterol and general health is still great. I've just decided to add some flaxseed oil daily into my supplement regime as per his suggestions to keep everything functioning properly, he is a big advocate for raw flaxseed oil over fish oil tablets.
Anyway, sorry for the novel haha thanks to anyone who is following along, I hope people are getting some sort of value out of this. I'll report back soon