When it comes to TRT meeting your expectations, I find the most dissatisfying experience for men is when their expectations are not realistic. This, in my opinion, is largely due to the way testosterone has been portrayed by the media and even in the gym. Call them myths, urban legends or whatever you’d like, most have a very unclear and unrealistic view. I always find it a bit disheartening when a man discontinues his treatment because of these unrealistic expectations as he’s doing far more harm to his body than he realizes. With that in mind, I wanted to cover some of these often confusing issues, and hopefully it will prevent a few from making a mistake.
1. Fatigue – One of the most common questions I get is “why am I more tired today than I was yesterday?” Well, did you get less sleep, have you been under more stress or exhausted yourself with activity more than normal? Have you been eating less, eating crappier or all of the above? TRT is not going to make you feel like the energizer bunny 24/7.
2. Fat Loss & Muscle Gain – First and foremost, Testosterone is not a fat burner. Further, taking testosterone is not going to magically make muscle appear on your body. It is true, very true, low levels of testosterone often have a negative affect on the metabolism, which can lead to muscle loss and fat gain. Improving your testosterone levels will reverse this, but any fat loss or muscle gain is then up to you. With low levels, fat loss and muscle gain can become extremely difficult; in fact, in many cases I’d say it’s next to impossible for some men. But by optimizing testosterone levels, your body now has the ability to do what you want it to do. That’s the purpose of TRT, to provide you the ability, not to provide you the one stop fix all solution.
3. Mood & Feelings – Many, if not most men, expect some type of feeling from TRT. I don’t know if it’s a high they expect or what as most don’t really have a way to explain it, but the lack of this “Feeling” disheartens many. It is true, testosterone is labeled as a drug, but you cannot view it in the same light as other drugs. First and foremost, there is no “High” so let’s get that out of the way. Further, testosterone doesn’t work like other drugs we may be used to. For example, you’re in pain, take a pain pill and the pain goes away – it’s over and done. Testosterone does not work this way. TRT is a process, one that requires some patience. Look at it this way, low testosterone levels promote stress and damage, but it’s not stress and damage that occurs overnight. In the same light yet reversed, increasing testosterone levels is not going to fix all your problems overnight, in days or even in a few weeks. It is a process that takes time. Yes, low levels have been linked to depression and I’ve seen many men who were taking antidepressants discontinue them thanks to TRT, but I’ve yet to see it happen quickly. Again, it takes time and how long is hard to say since everyone is different.
4. Libido – Some expect TRT to turn them into porn stars. Here’s the best way to look at it: In your 20’s or whenever you experienced your best libido in your life, unless you were blessed with porn star abilities already, why would returning your testosterone levels back to where they were in your 20’s or 30’s now create something that never existed in the first place? The idea is to return you to normal, your normal. Granted, if your normal happened to always be terrible (you had low levels in your youth) your new normal will more than likely be better than your old normal.
I’m not trying to dissuade anyone from TRT, far from it, and if it seems that way here’s the crux of the matter. You have low levels and you can forgo or discontinue treatment and return to low levels. In doing so:
1. Your libido will suffer
2. You will not have the ability to burn fat or build muscle like you’d like
3. Your disposition will suffer
4. You will have less energy and a harder time with life.
The entire point of TRT is to prevent or reverse this from happening. The point of TRT is not to turn you into something you’re not. For the latter, that begins to fall into steroid cycling, but even then I believe many have a gross misunderstanding of that, again very unrealistic expectations. And that is due to the way we view testosterone – it is viewed just as we view every other drug known to man, when in fact, it’s unlike those drugs. Hormones cannot be viewed in this light.
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Originally Posted by 2Sox
