I've lost most of my Deca gains, but kept most of my Anavar gains

[Oxbow]

I did a 10-week Deca cycle (with a base of testosterone), and 2 years later, I did an 8-week Anavar cycle (with the same testosterone base). Training and food remained the same.

I've lost most of my Deca gains but kept most of my Anavar gains years after. So, I was thinking about something.

There are "dry" compounds with only 100% pure muscle-building effects like Anavar, Primo, or I think Tren, and there are "wet" compounds with water gains like Deca or Dbol.

What if Deca gains are, in fact, a lot water? And people on forums repeat, "Deca is for mass, Anavar is for cutting," but actually, the real truth is that you become huge with Deca because of water retention, and then you will lose most of it?

What if Anavar builds actually more muscle, but because there is no water retention at all, it's very less noticeable? But it's real muscle, and you keep it?

It reminds me of the scam of the weight gainer for skinny teenagers: they gain weight and think it's muscle, but it's only fat due to fast sugar.

[DougWar]

Deca cause water retention but nothing too noticeable, You wont gain 5 liters of water from it, some people use deca for cutting too.
The main factor for water retention is diet.
In two years your diet still the same? You didn't do cheat meals with your cycle? and so you on...

[kelkel]

There's another variable somewhere that's missing.

[Octaneforce]

depending how close you were to your natural genetic limit, it is not surprising to lose gains after 2 years. Also in that 2 years you probably got better at lifting, so your more experienced body hung onto the var gains. But theres just too many variables to know for sure.

wet compounds definitely feel more temporary because of the water weight. But theres still new muscle under that water if you did things correctly.

If you wanna keep gains you need to be married to a needle. I love every moment of it.

[Cuz]

depending how close you were to your natural genetic limit, it is not surprising to lose gains after 2 years. Also in that 2 years you probably got better at lifting, so your more experienced body hung onto the var gains. But theres just too many variables to know for sure.

wet compounds definitely feel more temporary because of the water weight. But theres still new muscle under that water if you did things correctly.

If you wanna keep gains you need to be married to a needle. I love every moment of it.

Harsh reality. Sad, but true. If you could stay the same shape you were naturally vs on gear then there would be no need for gear…

[darktime]

So staying consistent with diet, lifting programme and sleep seem the obvious ones, coming off a blast. Would people do it any different for Deca vs Anavar for example

Oh and other than cruising right back to an elevated low test level 150-300mg/w - what can be done to keep gains from dipping too quick after a cycle, is there another variable depending on wet vs dry compounds? even anecdotally?

[Quester]

"Ive lost most of my deca gaines and kept most of my Anavar gaines"
Yep

[Honkey_Kong]

If you're beyond your natural limit or beyond what your diet/training/sleep will allow you to do naturally, you'll lose gains. You probably "kept" your var gains because you weren't at your limit. Plus deca is a wet steroid anyways, you might've lost some water weight.

What I'd recommend is taking an inventory of how you train and what you eat. I know you're saying your diet didn't change, but that would be where I'd say the smoking gun is.

Another thing I thought of would've been how fast you recovered (or didn't recover) from the cycle. Deca with test is likely going to shut you down a lot more than var with test. Plus, you ran the deca cycle longer and deca takes longer to clear from the system. Without bloodwork records there's no way to prove anything, but I suspect this might be a "smoking gun."