I am 4 weeks into my first cycle and have some questions.
I am 33 years old - have been training consistently for 10 years and at 5 foot 7 inches tall currently weigh 187 pounds. I guess my bf to be about 12-13% right now.
The cycle is Testosterone cypionate 500 - at a twice weekly (Monday and Thursday) dose of 250mg each shot.
I plan to continue this until the end of week 6 and then switch to 250mg of T once per week and 500mg once per week of stanozolol.
The thing is that since starting the cycle I have in 4 weeks only put on 2.2pounds. That seems to be awfully low to me.
My diet is good (I think)
Meal 1 - 1 cup oats and 1/2 cup milk (4am)
Peri-workout - Surge Workout Fuel
Post workout (7:30am) - Surge Recovery
8:30am - 3 boiled eggs
11:00am - 200grams chicken or other lean meat, 150 grams brown rice, 200 grams vegetables
2:00pm - same as 11:00am meal
4:00pm - handful of almonds/walnuts
6:00pm - same as 11:00am
9:00pm - Metabolic Drive shake.
I would have thought I would have put on some more size and weight than what I have.
Any hints or ideas?
I forgot to add that this is my first ever cycle and that the T is coming from a very good source - so there is no issue with it being legit.
What I have noticed is that my recovery is through the roof. Leg workouts that woudl have me limping for 4-5 days see me mildly sore for 1 maybe 2 days later then I am fully recovered.
I think you made a typo when you wrote ‘500mg of stanozolol once per week’.
Did you mean 50mg everday?
And some people take long to respond to enanthate and cypionate. This would be even more likely if you didn’t frontload. But even after 4 weeks you should have gained some water weight at least. It sounds like you just aren’t eating enough.
im defiantly no expert on hormones, steroids or any of that as i have never tried it, but im pretty sure that weight gain is just about always (a few exceptions) about calories in VS calories out, so if you want to gain more weight with the same workout plan then you simply just need to eat a little more. this doesn’t really change if your on gear.
Im sure the weight that you did gain has a higher % of muscle then you would have gained with out the T!
You’re eating way too little. Like, severely undereating.
I would add in as many calories as you can para-workout. I would have a serving of Surge preworkout, along with your SWF and post workout Surge, too. On top of that, your post workout meal needs to be way more than just three boiled eggs.
Think “barbacoa burrito with three soft tacos from chipotle” for your post workout meal.
How much more should I be eating? Thought I was eating heaps![/quote]
I don’t take anything but like everyone else said, you aren’t eating enough.
At 5’11" I’m 175-178lbs(skinny skinny) and I typically eat 12 eggs, 2 potatoes, 4-6 tbsp of natural peanut butter, few slices of cheese, 1/2 cup of oatmeal, steak and ground beef with the potatoes for the day…sometimes more sometimes less but you get the idea. You weight more and shorter than me(have more muscle) and you are taking Test…you should be eating A LOT.
I also agree that you are eating like Karen Carpenter on a meth binge. I see no cheeseburgers, burritos, ribeye steaks, chili, or pop tarts on your list. In all seriousness, you should probably be eating literally twice the amount of “real food” you have listed. rrjc’s advice was good, take it. If you are not willing to do this because you are too afraid of getting “fat” then you have no business using AAS.
That is pretty damn close to my cutting diet, except I am eating more.
I would suggest that if you did not have your diet sorted before you started your cycle you are wasting your time. In fact, if you got your diet right you would have put on much more without any of the 'roids.
I would assume that you have no idea of how many calories you are consuming, and how much of that is protein, carbs and fat. If you get that sorted, find out your maintenance calories, write up a clean bulking diet using those figures (add at least 500 calories per day over your maintenance, 1000 or more if you don’t mind a bit of fat added to your frame) then you will start to make progress.
Then in about 5 years or so when you know how your body works, how diet affects it and know how to really put in some serious iron work, then maybe you can look at adding some juice, if you think you need it.
With what you are taking, and your size I would recommend somewhere in the 3700-4200 calorie range/daily.
Don’t be afrais to get some dirty calories in there. Unless you are rich, it is pretty tough to get 4200 calories of clean food per day.
On my first Test-E cycle the weight didn’t really start to become significant until week 5. From Week 5 to 7-8, I gained weight like crazy and then it slowed to a crawl weeks 8-10 (which is why I’m running short cycles from now on). I didn’t frontload, and if I ever run a long ester again I definitely would. I didn’t play close attention to your diet, but for me carbs seemed to play a major role in my weight gain.
Upping my carbs definitely seemed to have an immediate effect on accelerating my weight gain. I got excited and upped my carbs way too much, though, because I put on a good amount of fat so be careful. On my next cycle I am definitely going to log my calories and keep better track of my macros as I think it will really pay off.
Sometimes when bulking, it’s easy to get into the mindset that you just need to eat a lot of food and keeping at least a rough estimate of calories/macros isn’t that important, but that’s a mistake in my opinion.
I disagree with people who think gaining a significant amount of fat on a bulking cycle doesn’t matter much. Any fat I gain I’ll want to lose, which means one of two things: 1. Running a “natural” cutting cycle, which also means almost certainly a loss of gains as well (the boat I’m in now).
Running a cutting cycle with AAS, you might not lose any gains this way but it’s a cycle that could have instead been used for packing on lean mass if you never gained that fat in the first place.
Upping my carbs definitely seemed to have an immediate effect on accelerating my weight gain. I got excited and upped my carbs way too much, though, because I put on a good amount of fat so be careful. On my next cycle I am definitely going to log my calories and keep better track of my macros as I think it will really pay off.
Sometimes when bulking, it’s easy to get into the mindset that you just need to eat a lot of food and keeping at least a rough estimate of calories/macros isn’t that important, but that’s a mistake in my opinion.
I disagree with people who think gaining a significant amount of fat on a bulking cycle doesn’t matter much. Any fat I gain I’ll want to lose, which means one of two things: 1. Running a “natural” cutting cycle, which also means almost certainly a loss of gains as well (the boat I’m in now).
Running a cutting cycle with AAS, you might not lose any gains this way but it’s a cycle that could have instead been used for packing on lean mass if you never gained that fat in the first place.[/quote]
My current total caloric intake for a day is about 3,430 calories.
Prior to starting my cycle I ate very low carbs and about 2,800 calories per day. Essentially the only carbs I did get was from green leafy vegetables and the oats for breakfast.
So I am taking in 450 grams of rice per day which is an extra 606 calories.
My diet currently consists of 117 grams of fat (31%), 322 grams of carbs (38%) and 253.5 grams of protein (31%).
I will increase my calories by a further 500 per day and see where that leads me.
My current total caloric intake for a day is about 3,430 calories.
Prior to starting my cycle I ate very low carbs and about 2,800 calories per day. Essentially the only carbs I did get was from green leafy vegetables and the oats for breakfast.
So I am taking in 450 grams of rice per day which is an extra 606 calories.
My diet currently consists of 117 grams of fat (31%), 322 grams of carbs (38%) and 253.5 grams of protein (31%).
I will increase my calories by a further 500 per day and see where that leads me.
[/quote]
You can utilize more protein on cycle than you can off. So make a good portion of that 500 calories from protein. It will pay off.
My current total caloric intake for a day is about 3,430 calories.
Prior to starting my cycle I ate very low carbs and about 2,800 calories per day. Essentially the only carbs I did get was from green leafy vegetables and the oats for breakfast.
So I am taking in 450 grams of rice per day which is an extra 606 calories.
My diet currently consists of 117 grams of fat (31%), 322 grams of carbs (38%) and 253.5 grams of protein (31%).
I will increase my calories by a further 500 per day and see where that leads me.
You can utilize more protein on cycle than you can off. So make a good portion of that 500 calories from protein. It will pay off. [/quote]
Yes. Before I ever started cycling I had “stalled out” for months and then I increased my lean mass by more then 5lbs in a couple of months just by upping protein by 150g/day.