Advice for 2nd Cycle?

I’ll be starting my second cycle soon and looking for a little advice.

My first cycle was 500mg test e per week for 14 weeks. .5 adex EOD.
I felt great pretty much the entire cycle until the end when I was talked into finishing with some mast. Ended up causing major back and chest acne that took around 6 months after cycle to finally clear up.

PCT was horrible, I took clomid only and was a blubbering mess for awhile.
I don’t remember what dosage my buddy had me taking but i felt horrible, probably didn’t help I was going thru a break up while on pct.

I ended my cycle at around 215 lbs 13% BF Jan 12th 2019.

Stats now are 200lbs around 10% BF

I’ve stopped listening to my buddy because he’s trying to get me on these crazy cycles that I don’t feel I’m ready for.
I’d like to slowly work my way up and get a feel for everything.

I’m considering
12-14 weeks
test e 500mg/ week
EQ 400mg/ week
Adex .5 EOD

Possibly throw in some NAC and tudca
Then following the perfect PCT protocol.

Is this a reasonable second cycle or am I still doing too much?

Do some research here, brother. You may not need any Adex at all. Stop trying to control E2 and recognize the benefits of the proper Test/E2 ratios. If anything, run Nolva at 20 mg/day to protect from gyno.

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That sounds like a reasonable second cycle if you are set on doing a stack. I tend to push for the new guys running only test for the first few cycles, I am an older brother, uncle and my girlfriends son/step son is in highschool baseball so I think my protection instinct spills over into my AAS advice. Even with that if you can still gain on just test then why push yourself further down the road if not needed. If you plan on running numerous cycles, even if you are telling yourself just 2-3 and that’s it, you will run more cycles and we can really only go up in this world. More mgs, more compounds, longers cycles, just more. So if your are ready to start that then yes your test and EQ looks good. I am not trying to scare or persuade you I just feel it’s necessary to put my input into context while making sure I at least try to get you to think about this step in the larger context of years of cycling.

Dosage on test and eq looks okay. Now this next part is more important health wise with deca but EQ also has a very long ester. I would run the test at least two weeks past the end of the EQ. If you stop both at the same time you will have to wait three weeks for PCT to start. If you run test two weeks past the EQ then you only have to wait two weeks to start PCT.

I would run the EQ at least 12 weeks but 13-15 is better. Before you decide remember that you should run the test 2 weeks past the EQ.

Like studhammer said don’t just pick an arimidex dose and run it. I would start the cycle without any AI and if you do get serious signs of high estrogen then I would start with 0.5mgs on injection days. Stay at that dose for two weeks, if the signs go away then stay at that dose, if not increase dose slightly and wait two weeks at that new dose, reassess. A lot of new guys tend to think arimidex is supposed to instantly overnight get rid of any signs of high estrogen, but it doesn’t work that way. It takes a few days to take effect then another couple for any signs to subside. So don’t get into a panic and just start increasing your dose every other day, it takes time. Again like studhammer pointed out we need estrogen especially if we want to gain. The key is to not have too much and not to have too little.

I would really urge you to wait until you show signs of high estrogen before starting the arimidex. Think about it if you just pick a dose and start at the beginning of the cycle you could easily be taking too much but you would never know because you will not be able to see at what dose do the signs of high estrogen start going away. If you wait until you have signs then slowly start with a light dose once you see the signs go away you should be at a good dose where you are just keeping the estrogen from being high enough to have side effects of high estrogen. Short of getting multiple blood panels done during the cycle I don’t know of another way to dial in an AI dose so that it isn’t too much or too little. And fyi if you just barely have signs of high estrogen or if your signs go down at a given dose of AI but there is still a tiny bit of a sign showing, just leave it alone provided you are not growing gyno. Those slight signs are not permanent and without a way for you to measure out tenths of a mg accurately chances are if you will end up taking too high of a dose and you will crash your estrogen. You need to know the signs of high AND low estrogen before you start any sort of AI use period.

I am not sure what the “perfect PCT” protocol is. I will say you obviously are like me and react to clomid, so don’t use it! I remember it was my first PCT and I caught myself crying at a commercial like a pregnant woman. I stopped using the clomid and switched to Nolvadex and all was fixed, no more crying fits at commercials.
Just use Nolvadex for PCT. Take 40mgs a day for two weeks then 20mgs a day for two weeks. EQ is a test based compound and besides it’s long ester it isn’t particularly extra suppressive like tren and others.

The TUDCA isn’t necessarily necessary since you are not taking a toxic oral. I don’t think it will host you just to take it but you shouldn’t “need” it on this cycle.

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Should I run Nolva at 20mg/day from the very start or wait for signs of Gyno?

If I run nolva during cycle can I still run it for PCT?

On cycle all the Nolvadex will do is bind to the estrogen sensitive tissue under your nipples. With that being the case I personally would wait to see if you get some sort of gyno symptoms. Also I would try 10mgs EOD at first, then every day then 20mgs. If 10 can get it done then there is no sense using more.

Yes you can still use it for PCT.

If you do use Nolvadex on cycle then don’t worry about the arimidex. Me personally early on in my cycles I just seem to aromatize test by just looking at my bottle so I had to use arimidex or aromasin or I would have ended up looking like the Michelin man. Nolvadex will only block estrogen from binding to your breast tissue on cycle. If you can do that and remain comfortable with the other signs that is if you get any then yeah the Nolvadex is the more fool proof method so you don’t accidentally crash your estrogen. Read up on what happens when we have very low or no estrogen in the male body, it’s just as bad as having too much. Nolvadex or arimidex is a personal choice depending on what all your body does on cycle with five times the high end of natural Testosterone production in it for 10-15 weeks. A lot of guys never bother with either and never have issues, you as a new guy i would urge you to at least have some arimidex on hand just incase you get all the side effects of high estrogen when on cycle. You dont have to use it but if you end up needing it you will be very grateful that all you had to do was open your cabinet.

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@now_i_care

what do you recommend for PCT? some guys say HCG Is a must, others say you can do without.

Guys recommene hcg you did a long cycle and testicular atrophy is quite noticeable. The reasoning is that the atrophy itself will hinder full recovery producing testosterone naturally, even if the nolvadex/clomid gets the HPTA back on from the top (brain to testes). If you take hcg on cycle for a few weeks before pct begins, any atrophy should have reversed by the time your pct begins, so the physical health of the testes should not be an issue to your recovery.

I read somewhere it’s a good idea to donate blood when running EQ.

Is this something I should do? If so
Is timing important?
Which weeks should I donate if so…

You will most likely obliterate your e2 on this plan. Do some poking around and you’ll find that not only does EQ not cause a rise in e2 but it in fact lowers it for most guys. The non-sciency reason is that EQ breaks down into a metabolite of a powerful AI. We have scores of blood work that show guys using EQ with crashed e2 even while on no AI. I would drop the adex entirely and forget about the Nolva. You shouldn’t need either. Have them on hand, but don’t take them until you have blood work confirming high e2.

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For someone who chimes in on other peoples threads like they know what they are talking about when it comes to cycling… Sounds like you dont know what the hell your doing. Your experience with only 2 cycles under your belt sounds like a nightmare.

??

I’ve literally never chimed in on anyone’s thread, and I only have one cycle “under my belt”.

I’m aware that I don’t know what I’m doing and that’s why I’m asking for advice.

If I needed advice on making a sweet peanut butter and jelly I’ll definitely hit you up though bud.

Thank you to everyone actually gave meaningful advice. I’m going to drop the adex and dose as needed, and have nolva on hand.

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500 Mg of test cyp, 250mg e3.5 days.

Eat and lift.

Take AI if needed.

End of discussion.

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For probably most cycles all you need is Nolvadex for PCT. However there is nothing wrong with peace of mind via Nolvadex and Clomid. Just follow the general rule of two standard doses for two weeks and one standard dose for two weeks for a total of four week. If you run both then obviously it’s one dose of each for two weeks then half a dose of each for two weeks. 20mgs is standard Nolvadex dose and 50mg for a standard clomid.

HCG is really more on cycle support for preventing shutdown, more important to those guys worrying about long term fertility. The new school method is usage throughout the cycle where old school is blast that stuff for 2-4 weeks give or take right before PCT.

As it has been covered the HCG helps with reversing testicle atrophy.
Just remember that PCT is ultimately performed to get our bodies to produce their own “HCG” via the HPTA loop so use during PCT can and probably will hinder recovery.

As far as dosage for the different HCG methods, idk so go search and ask, hopefully someone with more HCG experience than myself will answer. I do periodically run HCG but I blast amd cruise so the HCG ia more about using it to get my body “closer” to a natural but fed by synthetic state. I do notice that I feel a bit more pep on it along with it seems to help burn a bit more fat. The fat burning is probably the placebo effect, I expect it so I eat better abd thus loose more fat.

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EQ does raise the red blood cell count. It’s a personal choice if you feel okay donating blood with synthetic test and eq in it. The amounts in it probably won’t hurt anyone but still it’s an adulterant of kinds.

If your red blood cell goes high enough your blood can be thicker. The flip side to that is your endurance goes crazy high. That drug epo that Lance Armstrong was busted for does the same thing, raises red blood cells. More red blood cells means it can carry more oxygen and thus better endurance. I think it might also help shuttle the lactic acid out of the muscle more efficiently but I’m not sure.

If you do t have crazy blood pressure on EQ then I wouldn’t worry about it. If you do then maybe that blood donation might be a good idea provided it’s from the thicker blood because of the red blood cells and not water retention from high estrogen.

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Ignore that guy he’s borderline retarded

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Don’t listen to him, he’s dumber than a sack of hammers and is only here to start trouble.

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Are you guys saying don’t listen to mr.kaption or are you telling mr.kaption not to listen to me?

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I believe they are talking about the peanut butter and jelly guy that can’t do pull ups.

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Everyone should listen to you. Full stop. It’s the other doofus who is just carpet bombing the thread with his nonsense.

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We have an antique here. Cant believe you’re still around.

SB