High Body Fat After First Cycle - Advice Needed

Pharma / TRT
1

So I’m currently 6 days into PCT after my first ever cycle. I was running test enanthate at 600mg/week with Arimidex 0.25mg EOD and hCG 500iu/week. I initially planned to do 10 weeks but unfortunately I had to cut it short as my vials ran out earlier than expected, making it an 8.5 week bulk going from 79.5kg to 88kg.

While I experienced some pretty big increases in strength and some decent size gains, I noticed my body fat got a lot higher than I would have liked. At the moment I’d estimate myself around high teens/low 20’s. I’m at the point where I don’t feel very comfortable with my current level of body fat and I’d like to go on a cut. My research is telling me that cutting during PCT or even shortly after PCT would result in me losing most of the gains from the cycle due to low test levels. I also have a beach holiday coming up on the 28th and obviously I don’t want to be walking around shirtless at 20% body fat.

What I’m wondering is would it be best to stick to my PCT, gradually taper calories down each week and hope to lose a few % leading up to the holiday, or go back on test and start cutting until I get down to a body fat level I’m happy with?

2

In my opinion a huge reason that so many people lose significant amounts of their gains after their cycle is because they are afraid of body fat.

I personally increase my calories when I start PCT, and I don’t even worry about bodyfat (I am not a bodybuilder though).
The absolute last thing I would personally do is to reduce my calories during PCT - unless you want MAJOR losses in size and strength, quite possibly to less than where you were before your cycle.

I don’t have any particular suggestions for you if you are set on cutting during your PCT other than that I would not even think of doing it myself.

EDIT: My common sense says this:
In a state of unnaturally high anabolism, you needed X calories to maintain the size and strength you had when you were at the end of your cycle.
If you stay at X calories once you return to a state of natural anabolism, it won’t be enough.
You will need X+n calories to maintain your gains at your naturally lower state of anabolism.
Now you want to use LESS than X calories while you are in PCT, an unnaturally low state of anabolism. (??!!)

3

[quote]cnic wrote:
So I’m currently 6 days into PCT after my first ever cycle. I was running test enanthate at 600mg/week with Arimidex 0.25mg EOD and hCG 500iu/week. I initially planned to do 10 weeks but unfortunately I had to cut it short as my vials ran out earlier than expected, making it an 8.5 week bulk going from 79.5kg to 88kg.

While I experienced some pretty big increases in strength and some decent size gains, I noticed my body fat got a lot higher than I would have liked. At the moment I’d estimate myself around high teens/low 20’s. I’m at the point where I don’t feel very comfortable with my current level of body fat and I’d like to go on a cut. My research is telling me that cutting during PCT or even shortly after PCT would result in me losing most of the gains from the cycle due to low test levels. I also have a beach holiday coming up on the 28th and obviously I don’t want to be walking around shirtless at 20% body fat.

What I’m wondering is would it be best to stick to my PCT, gradually taper calories down each week and hope to lose a few % leading up to the holiday, or go back on test and start cutting until I get down to a body fat level I’m happy with?
[/quote]

how much did you increase your calories on cycle? what’s your current diet?

4

[quote]Andy.Now wrote:
In my opinion a huge reason that so many people lose significant amounts of their gains after their cycle is because they are afraid of body fat.

I personally increase my calories when I start PCT, and I don’t even worry about bodyfat (I am not a bodybuilder though).
The absolute last thing I would personally do is to reduce my calories during PCT - unless you want MAJOR losses in size and strength, quite possibly to less than where you were before your cycle.

I don’t have any particular suggestions for you if you are set on cutting during your PCT other than that I would not even think of doing it myself.

EDIT: My common sense says this:
In a state of unnaturally high anabolism, you needed X calories to maintain the size and strength you had when you were at the end of your cycle.
If you stay at X calories once you return to a state of natural anabolism, it won’t be enough.
You will need X+n calories to maintain your gains at your naturally lower state of anabolism.
Now you want to use LESS than X calories while you are in PCT, an unnaturally low state of anabolism. (??!!)[/quote]

Thanks for the reply.

That’s kind of what I was thinking too from reading around. However, I was also under the impression that if you weren’t that close to your genetic potential, it would be easier to maintain most of what you put on during a cycle?

I wouldn’t necessarily be cutting during PCT, rather just dropping my calories closer to maintenance for the remainder of PCT to stop any more fat being put on. I’m just wondering that if I were to reduce my calories slightly below maintenance in a few weeks time, once the first four weeks of PCT ends, I could potentially drop a bit of fat leading up to my vacation.

[quote]cycobushmaster wrote:

how much did you increase your calories on cycle? what’s your current diet?
[/quote]

I was eating around 2300-2400 calories before my cycle after finishing up a short cut.

Once I was on cycle I bumped them up quite a lot to around 3800-4200, and then I reduced it to 3600-3800 for the majority of cycle after I noticed too much fat gain. I did have a few weeks where I was eating 4000 calories but 3600-3800 would be the average.

Currently I’m eating around 3300-3400 calories which I think is just above my maintenance.

5

i’d just keep your calories close to maintenance and see if the fat comes off.

you shouldn’t magically lose all your gains, as long as you aren’t overtraining, eating clean and PCT is working in bringing your test back up. (if you bump your calories up more in PCT, you’re gonna gain fat, especially if you’re already gaining fat…)

to be honest, i wonder if some of the bloat is estrogen, and not fat. if you weren’t lean to begin with, you can aromatize more estrogen than someone who’s leaner. also, HCG (while good for keeping testes active) can also increase estrogen aromatization. even though you used A-dex on cycle, that’s more of a starting dose…

^any idea of it’s estrogen, or are you sure it’s basically fat?

6

[quote]cycobushmaster wrote:
i’d just keep your calories close to maintenance and see if the fat comes off.

you shouldn’t magically lose all your gains, as long as you aren’t overtraining, eating clean and PCT is working in bringing your test back up. (if you bump your calories up more in PCT, you’re gonna gain fat, especially if you’re already gaining fat…)

to be honest, i wonder if some of the bloat is estrogen, and not fat. if you weren’t lean to begin with, you can aromatize more estrogen than someone who’s leaner. also, HCG (while good for keeping testes active) can also increase estrogen aromatization. even though you used A-dex on cycle, that’s more of a starting dose…

^any idea of it’s estrogen, or are you sure it’s basically fat?[/quote]

You’re probably right about the estrogen. I weighed myself this morning and I’m down 2kg in weight and down half an inch on my waist. From that I’m guessing there might have been a lot of water weight/bloat which is adding to the problem.

I think I’ll keep my calories around 3300-3400 for a few weeks and keep an eye on my weight/fat gain then. Thanks for the help.

7

The solution to this problem is better dieting while on cycle. It’s a difficult issue to advise on due to the many contributing factors in one’s metabolic makeup… but my suggestion…

Change your calories. Eat cleaner. Make it a way of life so that during your next cycle you’ll make leaner gains you can keep through proper pct and nutrition

8

[quote]Tr3ngod wrote:
The solution to this problem is better dieting while on cycle. It’s a difficult issue to advise on due to the many contributing factors in one’s metabolic makeup… but my suggestion…

Change your calories. Eat cleaner. Make it a way of life so that during your next cycle you’ll make leaner gains you can keep through proper pct and nutrition[/quote]

i think you missed his response, as he said that he lost of ton of water, likely due to estrogen.