Excatly.
Absolutely not, because you cannot gauge Test levels by visual assessment or body composition. Lean, muscular guys can have low T and fat guys can have normal or high T levels.
At your age, reduced libido would be one of the biggest flags to expect. Low energy, reduced mental clarity, and mood swings would also be towards the top of the list.
The symptoms you stated were: high body fat and little muscle mass (which are addressed with diet and training), slight gyno (which can be addressed by body fat), and some depression (which can have countless underlying causes).
In those 7 months, what were your starting and ending weights in the squat, deadlift, and bench? And what was your starting and ending bodyweight?
Thatâs perfect! Post the log and letâs see exactly what youâre eating. Youâll have your answer in 30 secs.
Being that Iâm one of them supernatural of sorts and can see posts ahead of time⊠Iâm seeing no log posted. I see a hope for a drug that once taken alleviates all of oneâs suffering with the addition of a six pack.
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But thats rare I would guess. One of the main symptoms of low T is increased bodyfat and low musclemass.
Dont have low energy, either mental charity. Unsure what u mean by mood swings, but all of us have those sometimes, I would guess.
Anyways, is it like everyone with low T have decreased sex-drive? Lets take a example. If I am out with the boys, and see a hot chick, my sex-drive increases asap, and am starting to approach the girl. Is that common in people with low T?
And how how often do people with low T masturbate? Is it like days or months?
I currently have TT levels at 97-146 ng/dL and while mental clarity is ok but not stellar my muscle mass and body fat is slipping more quickly. Everyone will encounter different symptoms when T is low, some will function fine mentally while others wonât.
The process towards low T can be a gradual process only affecting you lightly at first like low libido, once things have processed, new symptoms will mix in with the mild symptoms encountered in the beginning.
My brother has low T and functions fine, but has low energy, belly fat and poor exercise capacity.
He can get an erection no problem and libido might be impacted a little, but he is healthy and has an A1C <5.0. He could definitely benefit from TRT at 59 years old but so far has chosen not to, but I imagine in a few years he will change his mind once the symptoms progress.
We can go on all day long, without labs nothing is certain.
Instead of asking me questions about jerkinâ the gherkin, how about answering the questions about the specifics of your progress on Starting Strength? And, like Dex asked a few times, the specifics of your diet that somehow didnât produce results.
Itâs pretty clear that you want to be on TRT, but the fact is you donât need to because you havenât properly addressed more basic solutions to your situation.
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How is ur libido? Or sex-drive? Erection?
Itâs hit and miss sometimes, Iâve seen a very gradual reduction in erectile function over the last 5-6 months of being off TRT. Normally I have hyersexuality, I am a hyper T responder only needing 7mg daily (49mg weekly) which is a lot lower than most men on TRT.
I only need 400 ng/dL to feel optimal, 500 ng/dL is pushing it. I have low SHBG (mid teens) so this takes my TRT protocol is an entirely different direction than say a guy with mid-high SHBG.
I figure he has to start somewhere, he might as well get his feet wet.
He needs to get his feet wet in the produce section of whole foods.
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Another question; why did you get a spermiogram done a couple of years ago? Thatâs typically not done for men your age unless there was a reason to do so.
And did they only check for that (do you have the results?) or also for other stuff eg T or LH back then?
These arent necessarily symptoms of low T. They are, most of the time, symptoms of not training hard enough or eating properly. By all means continue to check whether you have other issues but in the mean time theres not reason not to start training harder.
Also all these questions trying to figure out whether you âmightâ have low T are pointless. If you think you might, go get tested.
What sports did you play growing up? Before you were ten and during your teens? How active where you growing up and recently?
On average, during your teens, how many hours a day did you spend watchign TV and playing games vs outside?
I only ask because to me you just look inactive and undertrained, and exactly like all the people I grew up with who were just generally inactive.
If this is the case it will take you more than a few months of starting to be active to build up a strength and fitness foundation to do things youâve never actually asked your body to do.
Lol this is EXACTLY what I was thinking, he may not (statistically speaking he probably doesnât) have klinefelters syndrome⊠but he SURE has the body type
Not all with Klinefelters syndrome are infertile
Low sex drive, lethargy, lack of lust for life, irritability, reduced muscle mass/abnormal body fat distribution (I was lean prior to TRT, perhaps 15%BF but ALL fat was stored around my hips), low seminal volume, ED (just thinking of some the symptoms I had). Symptomology from low T is very generalised and can differ from person to person, however there are a subset of symptoms that the majority with hypogonadism tend to experience
Testosterone deficiency does interfere with the ability to maintain muscle mass and where BF is stored/ how much is stored. Low T is heavily correlated with increased visceral adipose tissue, whether the one exists before the other or whether low T induces it isnât quite known, it appears currently (most recent literature) that they go hand in hand with one another (like a vicious cycle)
This was probably the brunt of what Iâd experienced, NO interest in sex⊠like at all (well, maybe Iâd jerk off like once a week to relieve stress), lethargic all the time (though chronic pain played/still plays a large role within this), even shittier concentration than I have now⊠but the worst of all was the shitty mood/attitude I had all the time, SOOOOOO pessimistic, everything just seemed dull/bleak. Doctors piled on more and more SSRI til I was on 60mg fluoxetine/day (CYP2d6 hypermetaboliser), Iâve found no benefit from such medication aside from a slight reduction within neuropathic pain⊠What I have found however is that SSRIâs fuck with my sex drive quite a bit.
mmmmmm no it doesnât (at least in my opinion), the only difference is (and it isnât only SHBG that binds up testosterone) that you may feel better at a lower TT (as FT may be higher to compensate), doesnât particularly mean you need a different dose though⊠thatâs not exactly how it works, response is individualistic⊠Theoretically if 7mg (of TNE or whatever) given to someone with an SHBG of 10 and albumin of⊠I donât know 4g/dL shoots his TT to 400 and FT t 20 or whatever and you give it to another male with an SHBG of 80 / albumin of 4 the same dose and said individual metabolises/eliminates T at the same rate and it shots up his TT too I donât know (not going to do exact calculations) say⊠800-900ng/dl, do you really think his FT will be lower? No⊠SHBG has very little to do with TRT
My shbg fluctuates heavily (should be noted impaired glucose tolerance/diabeties induces low SHBG), so itâs likely youâre chronically low readings arenât related to a genetic variable at all. My SHBG reads between 14-33, I shoot 1x/wk and feel fine despite having fairly large fluctuations in hormonal status throughout the week. So long as I donât dip below 650-700ng/dl I feel yeetfloopily. Between 5-650 I feel sub par, between 4-500 I feel sluggish, below 400 I feel horrible and below 200 I feel like absolute death (lowest Iâve ever been is EDIT: actually 126ng/dl)
While this is clearly true, his statement that its not a good test is also absolutely true. There are soft weak people with perfectly fine T levels, and there are lean muscular people with low T.
Iâve had clinically low T, enough that I could start prescription TRT, for years and I was still pretty lean and pretty muscular. That it interferes with those processes doesnt make those outcomes good indicators. While there are a lot of people with low T, and its a problem, there is also a rising problem with everyone who doesnât look how they want to immediately jumping to low T as a self diagnosis.
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They may be associated, but I wholeheartedly stand by the statement that you cannot look at someone and visually guesstimate Test levels.
There are so many reasons for low muscle mass and high bodyfat, even acknowledging peculiar fat distribution, that itâs absurd and irresponsible to look at someone at say âYeah, man, youâre probably low T.â
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The main symptom(95%) on people with Klinefelter is infertility and very, very small testicles. I dont have either of them, so I think we can remove that one.
Low testosterone though, thats something else.
I did it for fun only, just to check. And it was all good. But I dont know if low T-people have low spermiogram though.