BillB's TRT recomp results. Advice welcome pls.

[billbobby]

Disclaimer: I am not a vet or pro like some of the outstanding contributors on this board. Just mid-40's yr old who really enjoys challenges and trying to be as disciplined as I can. Sharing this log in interest of this community and also to get some valuable feedback from you guys on next steps.

Background: Have been on TRT for 1.5yr. Dose has been 200 mg/week test cyp (until recently when doc decided to take to 100 mg/week – jury still out on there). The 1st 6-9 months were awesome. Decreased brain fog. General sense of well being. And steady gains at gym. Had been busting my ass at gym and eating heavy (3k cal/day) – but min cardio. Finally got about where I wanted to on strength and decent size but not defined……so I decided to do a recomp and change up diet and routine:
Diet: ~2500 cal day (decently clean ~200 g protein, 175g carb on 4 days a week and low carb 3 days a week). With one day cheat re-feed. Again, this is not super disciplined but vast improvement on where I had been. Kept track with phone app.
Training: chest/cardio, arms/cardio, back/shoulders/cardio, legs – ususally 1-2 days off per week with outside gym activity.

Results: I am pretty happy so far but wanting advice on next steps to achieve next goal. I tracked weight daily (AM weigh in) and also did 2 points Dexa (with the help of manager, we did a linear extrapolation to my start date to add a virtual 3rd point). See chart. Summary:

Start (point A, Day 0): 219lb, 22.2% BF (145.5 lean mass)
Mid (point B, Day 77): 206lb, 19.7% BF (148.5 lean mass)
End (point C, Day 179): 199lb, 17.4% BF (152 lean mass)

So overall in my 6 mo run, I lost ~5% BF but gained ~7lbs lean. I am so excited from this! I aimed to keep lean mass but reduce fat but really happy to exceed:

Next steps: My goal is to get to 10-12% BF and keep lean mass.
#1) Would appreciate any tweaks to accelerate my progress and
#2) after that (at ~12% BF) looking for advice on a cycle which will fit into my new TRT doc visit (which sux cause they moved to every 10 week so cannot do anything long term – so looking for a short cycle suggestion.) I know this is not best but again – not in competition or anything like that but would like to add 5-10lbs more lean.
Thanks for reading. This board has been really great thus far. - BillB

 

[billbobby]

Oh, height = 6ft

 

[Wesley Sniper]

Those are some pretty impressive results right there brother! My only concern is with the 2500 calories per day and the protein/carb macros you provided. That leaves about 1000 calories unaccounted for. Since you didn't mention fats, does that mean you're consuming roughly 110gm of fat per day to hit your caloric intake? Also, protein seems a bit low for your body weight. I consume 210gm protein ED and I currently weigh 177lbs


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[ironlifter36]

Hey BillB, you have made tremendous progress! Curious as to why Doc cut your TRT dose in half? Were your levels high?

As Wesley mentioned, need more info on your current macros to see where they are at. Personally, I prefer to keep my fats low (50-60g), set my protein at a fixed figure and then use carbs as my variable. This is what I prefer, but everyone is different. The road gets narrower the leaner you get, meaning the margin for error will become less and less. As you continue to cut down, you will have to continue reducing your calories in order to keep the weight coming off at a reasonable rate. If you are looking to get to 12%, then you have about 5.5% Body fat to lose which, at your present weight, is about 11 lbs of actual fat. You should probably aim for 185lbs to account for water/glycogen loss. 11lbs can be done in 10-12 weeks, but you will have to tighten up and reel it in a bit more on the nutrition. Cheat day needs to be replaced with a cheat meal.

As far as 10 weeks between bloods, hmm, definitely a short ester however that time frame is awfully tight given you need 2-3 weeks to clear your system, some may say 4 to be safe.

 

[billbobby]

Thanks guys, forgot to add in fats. Wes, right..ave around 100 +/-g. Funny thing, typing all this in, it becomes kinda clear diet needs to tighten I guess you can see I was
not hitting higher protein as I was not as discplined on type of protein!

Iron, thanks. I think given where I am at, leaning up protein and def moving from cheat day->meal would help and will start that.

And TRT dose cut. Pretty goofy. So he started me at 200/week which is high. As I would do checkups, I would suggest we give it a little longer
at current dose to be sure etc. Went in for bloods one time, 3 days after injection, and levels were 1295ng/dl..... Then he finally said they need to reduce.
I tried to split difference to 150 but he "wants to see how 100/week goes"...200 mg/week put me at 800+ which was probably too high
for TRT. Guess I responded well to test cyp.

 

[Wesley Sniper]

Thanks guys, forgot to add in fats. Wes, right..ave around 100 +/-g. Funny thing, typing all this in, it becomes kinda clear diet needs to tighten I guess you can see I was
not hitting higher protein as I was not as discplined on type of protein!

Iron, thanks. I think given where I am at, leaning up protein and def moving from cheat day->meal would help and will start that.

And TRT dose cut. Pretty goofy. So he started me at 200/week which is high. As I would do checkups, I would suggest we give it a little longer
at current dose to be sure etc. Went in for bloods one time, 3 days after injection, and levels were 1295ng/dl..... Then he finally said they need to reduce.
I tried to split difference to 150 but he "wants to see how 100/week goes"...200 mg/week put me at 800+ which was probably too high
for TRT. Guess I responded well to test cyp.

200mg PW would be pushing it for a TRT dose. I'm currently on a blast, but I cruise on a TRT dose of 125mg PW of cyp which keeps me in the 500 range


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