37 year old
6’2
215@20ish% body fat
I’ve lifted naturally for over 20 years.
Goal-I’d like to be 210 around 9-10% body fat.
It was recommended that I do this protocol for 16wks:
250mg Test E every 5 days
.25mg CJC-1295 (w/DAC) once per week
1,000iu HCG every 4 days (want to maintain some function)
Followed by an 11 wk PCT
I workout 6 days a week-4 being strength and 3 being conditioning. With this being my first cycle, what are your thoughts with the goal being body recomposition/fat loss? Anything sticking out that worries you? I’m open to learning and hearing ideas.
It’s certainly possible; some folks here will disagree but I personally recomped quite a bit on just TRT.
Before giving more advice, can you post an anonymous physique picture? Most here will want to see how reasonable your proposed cycle is (many come here with BF% guesses at least 15% lower than they really are).
I should mention I have had two years of injuries that have kept me from strength training consistently. I gained a lot of fat while losing muscle. I was at 250 six months ago and started strength training again. 4x a week strength work with 2 days conditioning. Diet while dripping the past 35lbs was is 3 meals a day with 2,300 cals total. I didn’t focus on macros then, just trying to be at a deficit. It worked. Now the focus will be trying to get 180 grams of protein in with the 2,300 calories.
Those pics don’t match these lifts. You’re telling my these are current? As others stated you are prob 20-25% BF. Nice work on the current weight loss. Why not continue? You have at least another 10-15lbs to go. I would rather see you run some baseline labs and perhaps as @Andrewgen_Receptors stated you may be a TRT candidate. If not at least you know where you stand.
Yea, totally. I call load of BS. At best i might believe those are calculated of some 10-12 rep set and plugged into come generous calculator.
Anyway, i see that physique could still improve naturally. But OP is at a reasonable age to make decisions. Only thing i have problem with is the 16wk BS. At 30+ i wouldnt want anyone to go through the risk of PCT and just go the smart TRT way.
I stated above my numbers were before being injured for two years and gaining weight in a reply to Andrew. Sorry for not making that more clear. My question still stands, will the above cycle help with cutting/recomp if everything else is where it needs to be?
I stated above that the numbers were before my injuries that sidelined me for two years. I’ve recently gotten back into lifting, have lost 35lbs and starting to get my strength back.
Ive heard others mention trt will shut you down so why not go for something that will actually deliver “results.” What are your thoughts if diet and lifting being equal if my goal is to cut/recomp with the above cycle?
Why trt versus a cycle? Genuine question as I’ve read others downing trt as it shuts you down, so “you may as well go big and get results” type of replies.
At 37, you’re already gambling on your ability to restart anyways, but if you wish to continue a happy, healthy lifestyle - TRT is a more reasonable approach to knowingly shutting yourself down in hopes your HPTA will start back up with enough gumption to sustain you. In reality, any time someone runs a cycle, they take this gamble - but the younger the individual, the more likely they are to rebound (albeit maybe not 100% of what they were before cycling).
Andropause sets in around 35 years old… if you’re going to start dabbling in AAS, you may as well commit to it, but in a ‘safer’ way via TRT. I just think it is unlikely your HPTA is going to return to full function after you cycle, versus you going onto TRT where you can stimulate the parts of the HPTA you need - when you need them to be stimulated (fertility, mostly).
Just a perspective thing; IMO TRT makes more sense if you’re going to dabble.
I didn’t find this clear as well, as I thought those were your current lifts while working through several injuries.
Get your numbers to where they were; then you can say that everything is ‘where it needs to be’. If you do this, you will have likely recomped, re-gained some more muscle and lost some more fat. But you won’t be able to do this while in a deficit. At least not naturally. And to take drugs to get to where you already were naturally would be considered a waste by many.
Technically yes.
But my problem is the 16 week idea. If you plan on doing the PCT, you will regain fat while you have 0 test in your system, and you will lose some muscle also.
Cycle is a stupid thing to do. If you are interested in details, here is a post i wrote a while back about this :
