Steroids and Fat Gain.

Many people say that steroids will have basically no effect on fat gain or fatloss. Now im not saying that this is or isnt true…im just merely trying to research more as usual and have a question answered. From my understanding…the more testosterone…the more protein synthesis…now lets say someones taking test at like 500mg a week…they have supraphysiological levels of testosterone in their body.

They are bulking and eating a surplus of food…with all that test…wont all that food go to new muscle mass? What im trying to say is…if that person were natural and eating 5000 calories a day…their body can only use so much of it to build muscle and the other left over calories are stored as fat…but with steroids wouldnt you use up all the food to build muscle and none would be stored as fat? I really dont understand…

though the nutrient partitioning effects of steroids will allow one to consume more calories calories without fat gain. this is not to say that eating over your maintenance will not lead to fat gain. it just makes that maintenance level higher.

as for eating under maintenance calories while on the sauce, many report rapid fatloss, especially with non-aromatizing compounds ( so test with arimidex, letrozole, etc., anavar, winny, masteron, even boldenone - which does aromatize somewhat).

even without steroids, nutrient partitioning can be influenced greatly with diet and supps alone:

  1. food sources: unprocessed foods such as animal protein, fruits, veggies, oils, nuts and seeds at every meal except workout

  2. timing 1: splitting meals into 5-8 similar sized portions as opposed to eating the same food in 3 sittings alone is a powerful partitioning factor

  3. timing 2: consuming carbohydrates surrounding training and in the morning and fat at other times as the energy source in addition to protein at each meal

  4. supps: fish oil, creatine, BCAAs, HOT-ROX, etc

i realize most of this is old news, but that’s all there is to it, adding the sauce is simply like adding another layer that affects the partitioning (in a big way of course).

with diet and supps you are trying to give your body more optimal raw materials in hopes that you can shift your metabolism to muscle gain and fatloss, while with steroids you are flipping a master switch, but it still is not enough to make up for all dietary indiscretions, just makes them less obvious.

I wish more people would watch the type of foods they are eating when on.
Steriods does not give you a carte blanche, if you eat more cals than the body can use even when using it will be stored as body fat…LEE PRIEST in the off season for example. As a post outlined, eat clean and watch the nutrient timing and fat gain will be non issue…
K.

A good dosing of anabolic steroids does allow more calories for no or very slow fat gain (for example aiming for half a pound added fat per week, which wastes very little time later in terms of dieting off, vs unnecessarily gaining 2 or 3 lb fat per week or something like that) or better fat loss and muscle retention on a low calorie diet.

Your basic theory is right, the main limitation being that if muscle, for whatever reason, isn’t going to be rapidly grown at this time, then while the first part of excess past regular maintenance calories probably
won’t go to fat, if going quite substantially over usual maintenance it will.

E.g., while 1000 calories per day over usual maintenance is a good figure for a serious stack and planning to gain muscle rapidly (in those cases where this is in fact working out), it could result in big fat gain if for some reason muscle just wasn’t going to be gained at that time.

ubl0 and kerwyn are also spot on on all points.