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Into week 5 of 500mg test cyp blast. Have seen zero results on the scale or strength wise. Diet is on point at 4200 cals daily. Had bloods drawn last week against my better judgement. Waiting for the call from my doc to chew me a new one about my levels. I am on TRT 120mg weekly. Am I supposed to be pinning that still on top of this blast as well? What gives here? Perhaps I am being impatient.
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you should really of done private blood work that your doc would never see.
what are your stats ? 4200 cals sounds great, but how many Carbs are you getting in in a day (Carbs are critical for gains when blasting)?
your total test isn't really all that high, its not bad, just not near as high as I've seen others blasting 500mg. your free test is good though.
I don't see any results for E2. Are you taking an AI and if so how much? if your running it too high you could be killing your gains.
are you using the Pharma Test you get with your TRT to blast with, or some other ?
you don't need to pin your TRT dose of test, just whatever total dose your at is your total dose.
how many times in the past have your blasted test at 500+mg, and how many past cycles have you done?
I have done 1 blast several years ago. I had no choice but to go to my doc. I don’t have the option of private labs here in NY. My only option would have been to drive i to Pennsylvania. Not really down for a 6 hour round trip just for bloods. My carb intake is 420 grams daily. Protein is around 360 and fats around 120-130. I’m actually taking erase pro once daily for AI. I have Adex on hand but I’m not using it.Quote:
Originally Posted by GearHeaded
I'd stop taking all anti estrogens for awhile and see if you respond well to that (estrogen in the presence of high levels of Test will greatly increase your IGF production and help you grow).
I'd lower your protein intake (its thermogenic effect is great for cutting, but not for bulking), when your on cycle your body becomes way more efficient at utilizing protein and retaining nitrogen. you don't need as much of it when on cycle, when your off cycle or natty then you need a lot more.
I'd also up your dosage and pin more often. 200mg 3x per week
give those small tweaks a try and see how you respond . if your worried about getting gyno by not using an AI or your gyno prone then run a small dose of a SERM like nolva or ralox (if your not gyno prone you'll be fine)
Repost
I am going to bump to 600mg/wk. never pinned 3x weekly. I assume M/W/F?
yeah that works .. or EOD, but you'd have to adjust the dosage and do the math to see what that comes out to per injection, probably be around .7cc EOD to equal 600 per week.
Perfect. I’ll give M/W/F a shot. Still taking 1 erase pro daily. Getting a little subcutaneous retention on my stomach but I can still see a 6 pack in the morning. By the evening it’s very blurry. Ins and out of 400+ grams of carbs daily I suppose. Waiting for that real kick!!!Quote:
Originally Posted by GearHeaded
Gear, I've never heard of protein being thermogenic, can you elaborate. Are certain proteins more thermogenic? Now that I'm off cycle tryin to cut, this sounds appealing!
Sorry for hijacking thread
well I'm not a 'science' guy so thermodynamics is above my head, but will expound as best I can.Quote:
Originally Posted by guitarzan
a calorie is nothing but a form of energy/heat .
exact defintion
""Any of several approximately equal units of heat, each measured as the quantity of heat required to raise the temperature of 1 gram of water by 1°C at 1 atmosphere pressure. Also called gram calorie, small calorie.""
so thermodynamics does play a role in our consumption of food, i.e., calories. our bodies use these calories for energy. BUT these calories are not just floating around for us to grab and swallow. they are contained within food sources, and in order to get to these calories, in order for our body to "mine" out the golden nuggets of a calorie, it has to break down the food that the calorie is contained in through various processes, digestion being one of them.
to get right to the main question now..
protein has 'hard to get calories' as opposed to fat and carbs. for every 100 calories that you can get out of a piece of protein your body is going to burn up and spend 30 calories of energy to do this (its a high cost mining operation).
but for every 100 calories you get out of a fat or carb source you only spend about 3-8 calories in energy to get the 100.
so in comparison to fats and carbs, consuming protein burns through a ton more calories and in a way puts you in a calorie deficit.. your burning calories just from eating that steak.
so you can see how this is very beneficial to a cut . at the same time if you add in some fiberous veggies with the protein, foods that contain insoluble fiber (basically carbs that your body has to expend energy to digest but gets zero calories back in return because those insoluble calories can't be absorbed into the blood stream)
hope that makes sense.
heck you can even dial diets in using this .. your macros may look quite a bit different if you calculated them while integrating in thermodynamics.
eg.. if you ate 2000 calories of protein per day and your maintenance calories was 2000, you'd actually be in quite a large deficit because your body burns though 600 of those calories just to digest and absorb the 2000.. so you'd be at 1400 calories per day , not 2000.
Ok, I kinda knew some of that, just never put it all together. Thanks, that's a big help
Well into week 6 now and still now weight or size changes. Measurements all the same. AAS aside with proper diet and training I should still be seeing gains. It has to be my diet. I am inclined to believe what gearheaded mentioned about protein intake may possibly be the culprit here. At the end of every day before bed I ingest 4300-4500 calories but 40% of those calories are from 350-360 grams of protein. I believe those 3-4 chicken breasts and 2 shakes aren’t helping. My 4500 calories is probably equating to maybe 3500 if I am reading he rule of thermodynamics correctly. As I said before, I know AAS isn’t magic but even without this blast I should be tipping the scales if I have everything in order. I’m weighing food and hitting macros so there has to be some other variable in my diet that I’m missing. The past week or so I have cut protein back to about 280g daily and my carbs are up around 600. Fats at about 140. By the end of the night my abdomen is a watery mess. I wake up tight and the water is gone.
When your on cycle your body is WAY more efficient at using protein and retaining nitrogen. SO you don't need near as much protein on cycle as you would off cycle or as a Natty. unless your were cutting and trying to lose weight, then the protein will help with this as I mention the reasons why aboveQuote:
Originally Posted by Meloncap78
so YES , lower that protein down a lot and up the CARBS. When your on cycle your body partitions nutrients, especially carbs, way better. Carbs are going to be your main fuel source and your go to for growth as well. why growth ? because glucose when going from the blood stream into the muscle cell as glycogen also brings in amino acids, creatine, and other nutrients . this is what is needed for muscle to grow, glucose/carbs are the "transporter" of anabolic nutrients into the muscle.
also carbs are CarboHYDRATES ,, they 'hydrate' the muscle cells by bringing in water. this will fill the cell out and put on size, as muscle is made up of mainly water
Thank you sir. I’ll report back in a couple of weeks.Quote:
Originally Posted by GearHeaded
Even without AAS shouldn’t the OP be growing at a steady rate of 1-2lbs a week?
a 500 cal surplus should see 1lbs a week added naturally, so how can he not be seeing ANY changes at all?
Calories are Calories at the end of the day right, so if he is truly in a surplus, he should be gaining weight? Just my thought train.
OP, are you doing lots or Cardio and or a demanding job ?
I am up 8 pounds and still have abs. I had a bit of an issue with the erase that I'm taking. I am taking 1 erase pro plus as an AI daily(which calls for 2 a day) and I was starting to feel soulless if that makes any sense. Just tired and kind of depressed. I stopped the erase for 2 days and started feeling a lot better. a couple of days after that point I started holding water and feeling a ton of anxiety and my BP started going up (I check it a few times a week). At this point I took an erase again and by the next day I felt balanced again. So I am going to assume at first my estro was crashing and then it started to elevate. I have been taking 1 erase EOD and it seems to be the balance. BP is around 129/75. I am in week 7 and hopefully things will really start to heat up here. I know that strength is up because I threw my back out pulling 405 even though my form remained solid through the entire lift. now I am unfortunately stuck with a leg press and extensions for the rest of this blast. I am repping 100's for 8-9 on DB press which is new for me. My squat is up to 285 for 5 which has never happened. the only major thing I have noticed since lowering protein and upping my carbs is that by the end of the night I find it harder to breathe and I just feel bloated and stuffed. Also I hold a lot of water toward the end of the night. By the morning when I wake up it's all gone but it still isn't very comfortable.
What’s up guys. Just an update. I ended this cycle early at 10.5 weeks. I started to feel like crap most of the time and it seems I topped of at around 9 pounds gained. The problem is it seems my bodyfat went up considerably. Pants are fitting tighter and got some fat on my pecs again. Abs are pretty much gone completely and I’ve got some ass fat going on. I cut my calories from 4200 to 3200 a few days ago and went from 194 to 190. My start at the beginning of this cycle was 185 around 10-11% bf. Now I’m at 190 and it seems that I have a significant fat gain. None of these numbers make sense to me. A lifting buddy of mine suggested that I’m at my genetic potential and trying to force feed muscle on is just going to go to fat. I explained that gear brings an individual beyond that. In any event I’m pretty sure at 185 10% I wasn’t even close to genetic potential to begin with. I also now have some puffy nipples. This cycle was an absolute waste of time and effort and now I am stuck cutting back down which will probably put me under 185 this time. Is it possible to gain 100% fat and lose muscle?