Am I doing my cycle right? Long read

[3rdmike]

Hello, I'm 25m 192lbs 5'11". I want to make sure I'm doing my cycle right, as I have some concers. So, I'm on trt. Doc has me at 80mg a week, split twice a week. I have responded well to that, as my levels went from 250, to 1238. My estrogen was at 123 and so I'm also taking anastrozole, 1/2mg twice a week.

After I seen how my body responded to the 80mg a week for a few months, I decided to do an 8 week cycle. I went for test 400mg (200mg cyp and 200mg ena), 1.2 ml a week, which (if my math is right) works out to 240mg of each. Along with my 80mg of cyp and deca at 210mg a week. The deca is once a week, where as the test is split between 2 doses.

I was eating 3800cals a day, 200-220g of protien at first, then jumped my cals to 4300 a day 4 weeks in. My weight gain hasn't been much and it has me worried that I could be doing something wrong. I'm about to finish week 5 at 192lbs as of today (last week 191lbs). My water intake is about 4-5L a day (1-1.3 gallons) not including my two protein shakes which are 1L each.

I've read countless times that people gain like 10lbs of water weight in the first few weeks, but i haven't done that. I've been gaining 1lb a week, but I was gaining that before the cycle. My lifts have been increasing much more since the cycle. I do an upper lower split. Upper body days take me 2 and a half hours, with 3 minutes of rest between each set wit 8-10 different workouts, depending on what upper body day it is. While lower body days take me about an hour and a half with the same 3 minute rest time for 5 workouts. I do 3 sets of each workout (except calfs, calfs have 4 sets) with rep ranges similar to 8-10 (depends on what I'm doing. With barbell bench pressing it's 6-8, with Dumbell bench press it's 8-10) and I try to get as close to failure as possible. Sometimes only doing half a rep, or that last rep takes me a forever to complete.

I have very little side effects, from slightly increased acne and being a little more emotional (that's probably from my estrogen being a little high, as I get emotional just before my next dose of anastrozole) my blood pressure is doing well (at least i think). Highest I've recorded was 122 over 78. Lowest I got was 113 over 65.

I'm worried something is off, since the weight I started at was 187lbs on week 1 and I'm now 192lbs on week 5. Anyone have any insight?

[956Vette]

Hey 3rdmike, welcome to the forum, thanks for your questions. Why do you think your estrogen was elevated so high from a therapeutic testosterone dosage and what were your side effects? While it's difficult to make sense of your metrics, assume the best advice is to reduce your arimidex intake dramatically. Definitely a shame as well as concerning you didn't experience a significant weight gain off the bat from a wild cycle, eating is a full time job while after mass.

[3rdmike]

Hey 3rdmike, welcome to the forum, thanks for your questions. Why do you think your estrogen was elevated so high from a therapeutic testosterone dosage and what were your side effects? While it's difficult to make sense of your metrics, assume the best advice is to reduce your arimidex intake dramatically. Definitely a shame as well as concerning you didn't experience a significant weight gain off the bat from a wild cycle, eating is a full time job while after mass.

Thanks! My blood results said my estrogen was 123 and my doc is the one that prescribed the anastrozole. I didn't actually start taking the anastrozole until 2-ish weeks ago. Only side effects I had was crying at kind of sad things and my pre-existing gyno was flaring up. Do you think I should increase my calories again? 4300 is becoming difficult to cleanly.

[956Vette]

Thanks! My blood results said my estrogen was 123 and my doc is the one that prescribed the anastrozole. I didn't actually start taking the anastrozole until 2-ish weeks ago. Only side effects I had was crying at kind of sad things and my pre-existing gyno was flaring up. Do you think I should increase my calories again? 4300 is becoming difficult to cleanly.

Ten four. Estrogen can be difficult to interpret, happen to have a range available? When following up on your estrogen, please ensure you ask for an ultra-sensitive (e2) test going fwd. Unsure it's commonplace to be crying/sad while testosterone is sky high and estrogen is proportional - typically men lacking testosterone, post cycle, with estrogen at dramatically higher ratios encounter feelings of being overly emotional. Might be wise to have a SERM on hand to help your estrogen battle, nolvadex is a lot easier on the body and will help arimidex be effective at a minimum dosage. Furthermore, for someone with gyno, it's unnecessary to experiment with testosterone dosages over 200mg (hardly like running half that tbh, more is not better) - what you want is to run 80mg test and 1000mg nandrolone, had you want to degen with lesser odds of flaring up.

[3rdmike]

Ten four. Estrogen can be difficult to interpret, happen to have a range available? When following up on your estrogen, please ensure you ask for an ultra-sensitive (e2) test going fwd. Unsure it's commonplace to be crying/sad while testosterone is sky high and estrogen is proportional - typically men lacking testosterone, post cycle, with estrogen at dramatically higher ratios encounter feelings of being overly emotional. Might be wise to have a SERM on hand to help your estrogen battle, nolvadex is a lot easier on the body and will help arimidex be effective at a minimum dosage. Furthermore, for someone with gyno, it's unnecessary to experiment with testosterone dosages over 200mg (hardly like running half that tbh, more is not better) - what you want is to run 80mg test and 1000mg nandrolone, had you want to degen with lesser odds of flaring up.

Sadly not, all it says on the sheet is estradiol- 17 beta and that it has to be lower than 162pmol/L. Should I drop the dosage then? Maybe 1/4mg twice a week? Instead of the 1/2mg twice a week. I still feel pretty good. I don't feel bad or anything like that.