Cycle Log: First Cycle, Big man-Small doses. Advice/Suggestions welcomed

[frofrank]

Hello Gentlemen! Been around here for a couple of months while in preparation for this moment and I have to say you guys are the best, can't believe how much I've learned and even made a friend or two along the way. Any advice, suggestions, yell at me whatever all is welcome I'm here to learn.

Background
I'm 27 y/o, I've played football and wrestled my whole life so i have 13+ years of training experience. However I was an offensive lineman so have been big and fat my whole life, as of February 2025 I made a change and went from 375 pounds down to current weight of 250 pounds. I started off the weight loss journey naturally through diet and exercise but introduced Reta around 320 pounds(July) and then HGH around thanksgiving just trying to preserve muscle loss through this massive cut.

My Goal
I'm not a competitor, just someone who enjoys the gym and enjoys being the biggest guy in the room. So you'll see throughout this log I do things moderately as to not compromise too much health for appearances.

Training
3 days PPL, rest day, PPL. Nothing fancy, just what I enjoy the most currently. My training all my life was sport and strength related doing mostly low rep Olympic lifts now I just do what i find fun and the best for hypertrophy. Fasted 30 minute stairmaster 5 days of the week in the morning, evening weightlifting followed by an addional 2 miles inclined walking.

Food
I know I'll get shit for this but I'm not someone who weighs out my meals and puts everything into myfitnesspal. What I do mostly is eat like a dog and eat the same meals over and over so I track once and eye ball from then on. I try to make the diet as simple as I can as consistentcy clean and outworkring the bad has shown me great results over tracking every little thing
Current Calorie goal of 2400, Protein 240g, filling the rest in with carbs where I can

Starting Cycle
8mg Reta (4mg biweekly)
4iu GH nightly
240mg Testosterone Enanthate weekly(45/30/30/30/45/30/30)
500IU HCG(250iu biweekly)
All Subcutaneus atm

Start date 1/9/2026- 6'3 Weight 250lbs, 17.3% BF(inbody)
The plan is to use these small doses to help speed along my cut so I can get to a lower BF where my body will likely aromatize less then increase dose and invite small dose orals towards the end of the cycle.

Supplementation
6g fish oil/2300mg tumeric/ 2 multis/5000IU D3k2/500mg Tudca/1200mg NAC/1200mg Citrus Bergamot/420mg Magnesium/3g Astagalus root

Pre Workout (not a fan of caffeine)
10mgCialis/3000mg L Carnitine/50mg Zinc before lift
20mg NAD+ injectable/25mg ephedrine before fasted cardio

Hair Protocol
Currently using 5mg oral Minoxidill and topical nightly, Dut on hand but dont think its needed yet.

I have my pre-cycle bloodwork done I can put in the replies if needed.

Looking forward to sharing and talking with you all as I get lean and mean.

 

[IndividualMan]

just pin the test EOD, daily injects give too much deadspace loss in the syringe (even if you got "lossless"
The ephedrine is a bit much. albuterol might be a suitable alternative regarding the fat burn. I would use that at 4mg (tabs, not inhaler) instead of ephedrine, unless you love the stim feeling.
Reta is a bit high, but if you dont get any irritation of your digestive tract thats great.

L-carn should also be great as an inject pre cardio, or pre lift, just not at 3000mg. thats around 5mls of injection volume. crazy work if you can actually handle that volume.

Depending on bloodwork I would think about adding Var or another injectable.
(mast P if you stick to daily injections, EQ if you get sick of them eventually)
again, this heavily depends on bloodwork and sides (hairloss mainly for the mast).
just remember any liver stress will slow fatloss.

overall great protocol, please post bloods, and dont feel pressured to take more drugs just because taking more is a possibility.

 

[frofrank]

just pin the test EOD, daily injects give too much deadspace loss in the syringe (even if you got "lossless"

I'll try out EOD once I see how my body feels on daily.

The ephedrine is a bit much. albuterol might be a suitable alternative regarding the fat burn. I would use that at 4mg (tabs, not inhaler) instead of ephedrine, unless you love the stim feeling.
Reta is a bit high, but if you dont get any irritation of your digestive tract thats great.

The ephedrine is something new I've been trying, not a necessity for sure just trying whatever I can to speed up fat loss but ill look into the tablet albuterol. I feel good at the 8mg reta, tried 12mg didn't like that 8mg seems to be a good spot.

Depending on bloodwork I would think about adding Var or another injectable.
(mast P if you stick to daily injections, EQ if you get sick of them eventually)
again, this heavily depends on bloodwork and sides (hairloss mainly for the mast).
just remember any liver stress will slow fatloss.

Sounds good! 6.25mg var was the next addition I have on mind. Just want to see how my body feels from the test/HCG first so I know when I add other fun stuff in I can pinpoint better. I have anavar, anadrol, dbol, winstrol and primo on hand for this or future cycles.

 

[frofrank]

Pre Cycle Bloodwork
Just on the 8mg reta and 4IU gh here.

 

[IndividualMan]

I'll try out EOD once I see how my body feels on daily.

The ephedrine is something new I've been trying, not a necessity for sure just trying whatever I can to speed up fat loss but ill look into the tablet albuterol. I feel good at the 8mg reta, tried 12mg didn't like that 8mg seems to be a good spot.

Sounds good! 6.25mg var was the next addition I have on mind. Just want to see how my body feels from the test/HCG first so I know when I add other fun stuff in I can pinpoint better. I have anavar, anadrol, dbol, winstrol and primo on hand for this or future cycles.

whole array of orals. I like it.
sadly, the Winstrol and Adrol only shine once you are rather lean, so those you will have to try a bit down the road to see them in their full glory.
Dbol hits like a truck, even at 5-10 mgs/day. doesnt really build much muscle tho.
Anavar imo shines around 50mg/day. 6.25 for longer periods of time also works, sure, but short bursts of high dosages are where you really get the most out of it. (I would rather do 10 sessions over 2 weeks @50 mg than splitting those 500 total mgs over 50 days (or closer to 70 days in your case)

The albuterol hits similar receptors (liek ephedrine) it is just more selective and hits the heart less. similar to clen but shorter half life and doesnt cause the same uh-oh moments when you accidentally overdose yourself.

Bloodwork seems good overall. good job. do the same panel again ~6 weeks into your cycle, and keep an eye on your blood pressure.

 

[frofrank]

whole array of orals. I like it.
Anavar imo shines around 50mg/day. 6.25 for longer periods of time also works, sure, but short bursts of high dosages are where you really get the most out of it. (I would rather do 10 sessions over 2 weeks @50 mg than splitting those 500 total mgs over 50 days (or closer to 70 days in your case)

Got all the orals except var for free from a promo, can't say no to that! Good to know, i was planning on titrating up to 25mg so ill piece together what that would look like. Friends wedding in Cancun at the end of May so that's when I want to be my shining point of everything.

Will do regarding bloods and getting a BP monitor tomorrow as well.

 

[Mfras]

Nice work man you’re getting after it and bloodwork looks good. Keep an eye on hematocrit as test dose goes up.

Only advice I can give is to watch out for the cutting mini cycle on high cruise test. Yes it’s probably fine, no it won’t hurt you to run for months. But be aware that after a couple months the recomp will slow down and the high cruise will just be the new normal. As someone like you who wants to grow old but isn’t afraid to moderately leverage compounds I did the same thing- lost a ton of weight on TRT, then upped the cruise dose to 300 test cyp along with GH to try and continue that sweet recomp as I got deeper into finishing my cut.

After a few months I went back to a160mg trt dose. 300 got me from 210 fat free mass around 270lbs down to 250lbs and 213 ffm. I still feel great on just the lower dose, it should be protecting muscle along with my lifting split, and when the cut is over I’ll bring food back up over a couple months and check bloods- hoping I’ll be fresh and healthy for a juicy lean mass bulking blast this summer at a planned 12%bf. Currently in the high 240s so already tickling 14% but shit moves slow at lower bf when you’ve been cutting forever- 6-10lbs left before I end the cut.

Hope this helps and best to ya

 

[frofrank]

Hope this helps and best to ya

Appreciate the insight and support! Sounds like you're doing exactly what I am as well. That is the plan I'm hoping to use this 240mg for as long as I can, fingers crossed the bloods look good when I pull them here in a month. Ill probably end the cut with some Anavar or Primo to recomp for a wedding I'm attending and then just TRT over the summer to let my body cool down.

Have you kept the GH in? It seems to have worked well for me the one month I had it in by itself so I'd like to think it'll be a year round compound at 4iu isn't crazy.

Cant wait to bring food back up, feel like Ive been running on fumes for a year straight

 

[Mfras]

Appreciate the insight and support! Sounds like you're doing exactly what I am as well. That is the plan I'm hoping to use this 240mg for as long as I can, fingers crossed the bloods look good when I pull them here in a month. Ill probably end the cut with some Anavar or Primo to recomp for a wedding I'm attending and then just TRT over the summer to let my body cool down.

Have you kept the GH in? It seems to have worked well for me the one month I had it in by itself so I'd like to think it'll be a year round compound at 4iu isn't crazy.

Cant wait to bring food back up, feel like Ive been running on fumes for a year straight

Yeah you should be fine health wise on under 300 test but like I said after a few months the cycle effect loses its sparkle and you’d be well served to freshen up on modest trt- that way you can do 4-500 later and it will hit- you won’t have to escalate the dose just to feel something and health sides will be minimized as well as AI needs.

I did 2 months of tesamorelin last fall- went good but expensive. Switched to generic GH and no sides up to 6.6iu- gonna check igf-1 z-score in a few weeks you wanna keep it under 3.0 to insure you don’t grow your organs hands feet or get ogre face. (Learned that here!) Everybody’s different but more food or more e2 =higher z-score so I’ll have to re check after the cut’s done and food comes back in. 4iu is a nice high cruise for most but check your bloodwork. My plan is to stay on a safe dose kinda forever but also push it some to compliment blasts. I haven’t seen anything dramatic- nails hair & skin for sure but the recovery and growth are subtle. I think the benefits are a little underwhelming with IUs pushed too hard unless you’re getting nuts and doing insulin and pushing food super hard along with intense aas stacks. Might do 8-10 with a blast but 6-7 is probably getting most of the possible bennys already.

Primo is nice but not cost effective at doses that we’d need to feel something. Being a bigger dude I get fuckall from anavar- makes more sense health wise to just pin more actual gear. Primo it’s a cost thing but I’d rather just use aromasin and up the test to 4-500 instead of paying $150 or more a vial if you can even find it. I think anavar might be killer for little super lean dudes or women and some bigger lifters that are super lean and stay on a higher dose probably get some visual pop off it.

 

[Mfras]

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Oh I missed you already have the primo! Go ahead and have fun but be aware a lot of folks use it for an anabolic AI- it could tank your e2 if you get the ratio wrong, which is different for everybody but not as tricky as EQ- I never used either as an AI they don’t make sense for my wallet for primo or goals/sides for eq. And primo is ‘safe’ but also pretty mild you might have to run it highish to get anything off it.

 

[frofrank]

Might do 8-10 with a blast but 6-7 is probably getting most of the possible bennys already.

Yeah I'm thinking something similar during my planned blast. those ius get expensive real quick though I feel that. Ill be sure to check out igf on the next bloods ive been running gh for 2+ months at that point should reflect well.

Being a bigger dude I get fuckall from anavar- makes more sense health wise to just pin more actual gear. Primo it’s a cost thing but I’d rather just use aromasin and up the test to 4-500 instead of paying $150 or more a vial if you can even find it. I think anavar might be killer for little super lean dudes or women and some bigger lifters that are super lean and stay on a higher dose probably get some visual pop off it.

Really? I've done 25mg preworkout var on two separate occasions just to experiment and they were both really good workouts. I'm curious on the effects of low dose long periods and high dose short cycles like @IndividualMan mentioned above. Could see both being great.

Regarding the primo I'd look around more, I was able to get 5 vials on a new years promotion for about $45 a vial. That makes it worth trying to me, wouldn't at those crazy prices it gets up to.

Oh I missed you already have the primo! Go ahead and have fun but be aware a lot of folks use it for an anabolic AI- it could tank your e2 if you get the ratio wrong, which is different for everybody

Going to try the classic 3:2 ratio since I have E-300 and P-100 makes it easiest. think thats what my first blast will be 300 test 200 primo for half gram of gear total should feel good. Like you said its tough though being a bigger guy, hoping I get as much out of it as these smaller fellas.