I am wondering the experiences of others who go their hormones optimized, as far as body composition.
Brief history of me – I had always been able to lean out and achieve ideal leanness once I turned the switch of dialing in on my diet/exercise. In the last year or 2, I’m carrying more weight than I ever have, and am not able to shed it off like I have been able to in the past, despite the same very structured and tracked diet/exercise.
My labs have shown low free-t, high SHBG, low E2, and underperforming thyroid. I am now on a treatment plan for this.
My questions – Did others being on treatment for hormone optimization see a large difference in change in body composition? How long did it take? Are there are documented before and afters of people before and after hormone optimization? And if my hormones have been unideal for years, may I expect to get even BETTER results than what I was able to achieve previously (even before I was having lesser symptoms)?
I’ve notice body comp changes rather fast without doing anything, at the 3 week mark I notice changes. My muscles are starting to take their proper shapes and curves, fingers, wrists, elbows and hips are losing fatty tissue at the 3 week mark, muscles are firmer. Veins are popping out through the skin by week 6. SHBG is on the lower end, pre-TRT midrange.
Progress for me is very fast and am sensitive to androgens, I only need a Total T of 500 and Free T 20 to see major improvements. Thyroid is fast at 47 years old, all men in my family are skinny, tall and muscular if you so desire.
Yes. I am in the best shape of my life right now. Had (have) high SHBG and it was thieving my gains hard. It took a good year of grinding before I felt confident again. Feel amazing right now.
@anon10035199 What was your SHBG prior to starting T therapy? Has the T helped it go down or do you just overcome high levels with your T? How frequently and how much do you inject?
Been working out for a long time, but steady and hard for the last two years. The before picture above was the best I could get with decent diet and exercise before TRT. Now as bad as that before pic looks, I had actually got down to that (196lbs) from starting at around 212-215 lbs. The after is after many more food selection changes, a lot smarter working out, and optimizing TRT. Been on TRT since Sept 2018. The after pic is around 177-182 lbs.
TRT is NOT going to magically change your body. Only hard work and proper diet will do that. What TRT does do is allow your body to take advantage of that work and diet.
This going to depend highly on what your numbers looked like before you started having symptoms. I’ve said it a thousand times and I’ll tell every person who is under the age of 25 that I meet. Get your hormone blood tests NOW, before you have any issues whatsoever. Find out where you’re at normally, that way you know what you’re shooting for later in life if you decide to do TRT.
Most wont. I didn’t and for that I inherited the reward of having to figure out where my levels need to be to make me feel the best. Not fun. I still don’t consider myself to have “arrived” but I’m closer now than I was in September! Lol
In eight months I’ve lost 25 lbs of fat and gained 13 lbs of muscle…pretty dramatic results. Hoping to lose another 10 lbs of fat and gain 10-15 lbs of muscle in the next 8-12 months.
Yup I quickly gained strength and endurance back. I also noticed i recover super fast. It used to take me 3-4 days after a hard leg day and now I can go back at it the next day if I wanted to. Bloody amazing… that in itself makes muscle development much quicker.
Thank you very much for your kind words. If some of the other guys that replied here posted some pics of themselves, you would probably really be blown away!
When I first checked it, it was in the 50-60’s then I started TRT, and also Lisinopril for high BP (after starting TRT), Lisinopril jacked me up to 70’s, figured that out and stopped, and now im back down.
ON TRT I have tested between 37-55, usually in the higher 50 range, unfortunately. I don’t think TRT has really helped lower it, but I do just use enough to compensate for it.
I use to inject SUB Q and I think it was one of my biggest mistakes (bedsides messing with my E2) I didn’t really feel it on SubQ, and only started really “feeling it” when I switched to IM.
That’s freakin’ awesome brother!! You’ve been in this game a lot longer than I have so I can only imagine how much different you probably look now than when you started!
Awesome work guys. I appreciate you sharing this with me. It’s really encouraging. Like some of you have mentioned - my diet and exercise has been on point for quite some time, yet there seems to be a ceiling that I simply can’t get past. Seeing some guys go through the same thing, to ultimately be relieved of it once they’re hormones got optimized is very cool to see.
Just remember to keep patience on your side brother. Just like 10lbs of muscle doesn’t come in one or two sessions, hormone optimization doesn’t come with one or two injections. It takes time and lots of it.
Also, not to be Debbie Downer here, but be prepared for the fact that with TRT, sometimes it gets worse before it gets better.
Agreed with what was mentioned about the timeline for feeling better.
It was probably three months before I really started feeling like my old self. Dosage has been increasing the whole time I’ve been on but the anecdotal evidence seems to affirm it takes a while to see and feel the effects.
Does 100mg a week get you into high normal ranges for free T? I’m 6 weeks in, 80mg twice a week subq. First labs Thursday. Interested to see what that does to my levels and my high SHBG (64)
