So I ended my 1st 8 week cycle 5 days ago. Here's the poop.

Over All Impression: Roids are no miracle. There are sacrifices including money, hard work, physiological changes and a little pain. All in all, I'm impressed. I was hoping for more, but in the end I gained muscle, lost fat and look better. It was not fair to the Var as I hurt my back and got a mild flu.

Negative Impressions: The gonad pain was not fun... but was not too severe either. Coming off cycle I felt pain too... it stopped today. I think testicles hurt shrinking or growing. I didn't like eating the icky chocolate I mixed my Var into -- but I got used to it. It took almost 2 weeks to kick in... and the sweating and body-heat was not real fun at first but subsided pretty quickly... well, not the body heat but I started to like that.

Positive Impressions: Lots. Wish I could stay on the stuff non-stop. I miss the pump. My muscles have really softened up now. Noticeable at 3 days, now at 5 days my muscle tension is almost back to normal. My muscles healed super-quick.... and now they don't. I miss that too. Like I said, I'm not as fat and have more muscle. But I'm still nearly 30% BF.

So ends my very first cycle. I've learned a lot. Here's what I've learned:

1) Using steroids to lose weight is generally not a good idea. If you do, use Var and/or Primo as they are best for cutting. But don't expect to lose weight as you'll end up gaining muscle. ithunk said "cardio first, roids later" is wisdom.
2) Roids make you heal very fast, but in that healing you will grow more muscle and this needs to be a desire of yours, fat or not. Lucky for me I need more muscle.
3) Roids are generally made for young men who are naturally very skinny. Most articles and things written online or in books are written to and for them. Anti-ageing (HGH et al) is really what old guys like me need. Side note: HGH costs a LOT!!!
4) Testicles shrink and grow on and off cycle, respectively. As I'm broke and don't wanna waste money on testing I'm using this as my white-trash way of estimating natural test in my body. If you can afford to hit the doc once every 2 or 3 months and get your levels tested do it! I may do it in the future if I win the lotto or something
5) Effects of my roid started to diminish near the end of my cycle. I do not understand the science behind this, but since my gonads were getting pretty small I think it's time to exodus the roids.

So, what's next for me?

CARDIO

I'm doing 1000 cal/day 5x per week (about 2 hour light workout). While off cycle I know it's catabolic (or whatever... however you spell or say it.. means "muscle eating") to work out hard. So I'm going to lift light now and cardio long (45 minutes at a time for eliptical and so on). I'm going to keep this up until New Year.

After the New Year begins I'm thinking of doing a 10 or 12 week cycle. Mild stack, will look like this, maybe:

week gear dose
1 Avanar 20mg ED
2 Anavar 20mg ED
Primo 50mg EOD
3 Same as week 2
4-8 Anavar 40mg ED
Primo 100mg EOD
9 Avanar 40mg ED
Primo 50mg EOD
10 Avanar 20mg ED
End

Or something like that... advise???

So, there it is. I'm off cycle and wish I'd have purchased some T3 and or clen to test that. Next off-cycle I'll do T3 for sure. Clen I'm iffy on, but like the possibility of anti-catabolic effects (i can't spell that word )

I'll keep this posted wish more photos and stats when I get to it. Thanks for following and thanks for the advise from everyone. I've been given advise to base my cycle on test or primo and add Var... so that's what's gonna hit next time. Any advise?

I'm off to cardio now. cardio is boring as hell. oh well... weight loss 1st