Maximum recommended rate of weight loss on AAS?

[fatass97]

Hi all.
I'm quite fat nowadays, looking back at old pictures when I could see my 6-pack when sucking in my gut got me sorta feeling a midlife crisis at 25.

Year 8 onwards of natty training had my strength not progressing whatsoever or even regressing, unless I stuffed my face with stupid amounts of calories, went from approx. 10-15% bf to 25-30% bf within a year. Tried to cut but within 2 weeks my strength went to shit (like 20% strength decrease across the board for S/B/D). Decided it was unsustainable to keep powerbulking to 90% bf & hop on the sauce train instead, but sorta forgot that I was/am still morbidly obese, which is probably no bueno.

Male, 5ft8" (173cm) tall, 92.1kg this morning, I'm guessing around 20-30% body fat.
Sucking in & flexing my gut while standing, in the morning before food/water, top 2 abs are clearly defined, middle 2 abs can barely be seen, bottom 2 abs have long since went the way of the dodo.
Looking to drop to around 10-15% bf and improve my cardio back to reasonable levels while losing minimal muscle. Doing some bodyweight pushups, dips & pullups to try and maintain strength since gyms are closed now.

I'm trying to figure out how much weight I can realistically lose without cannibalizing my strength gains. The ballpark figures I see on google are like 2-3lbs a week initially, which probably will be reduced the leaner I get. But I'm reasonably certain those guidelines do not factor in the usage of anabolic steroids. Now my reasoning is that since AAS boosts nitrogen retention, increases IGF-1, metabolism etc. there would be a higher threshold for reasonably achievable weight loss goals while preserving existing lean mass.

With this in mind, I would like to seek y'all experience & opinion on how much weight I should drop in a week, preferably based on past cycle results.
I have var, test & some winny (stanozolol) on hand. Saving the winny for future cycles since I'm fat as all hell and probably won't see shit from using it now anyway.

 

[fatass97]

Also the reason I decided to suddenly start cutting instead of maintaining weight is on a GP visit last week, my blood pressure was taken at 148/80.
This was a huge shocker since my BP was always on the low side (118/60 or so a few years ago), never really considered my BP would ever get out of control until now.
Should mention I am drinking a gallon of water, taking 8g fish oil daily (4g EPA 2g DHA) & a multivitamin, haven't touched alcohol for months (except deez alcohol swabs for pinning, heh)

 

[OmL]

Best cut I ever did was a simple 175mg test U a week, stayed on a caloric deficit but remained high protein and I did moderate to high weight with low rep sets. If you need the rest of the gear on a cut then the problem is you. No hate here man, I’m just saying. If you actually wanna lose fat then it’s pretty simple.

 

[fatass97]

Best cut I ever did was a simple 175mg test U a week, stayed on a caloric deficit but remained high protein and I did moderate to high weight with low rep sets. If you need the rest of the gear on a cut then the problem is you. No hate here man, I’m just saying. If you actually wanna lose fat then it’s pretty simple.

Ayy thanks, I know that cutting can be done with or without gear. Have crash dieted to 10% bf in the past but the price was losing a lot of strength on compound movements. What I actually wish to know is with the addition of gear, how much faster can I lose weight while minimizing muscle & strength loss.

 

[TrenTrenTren]

I'm a big fan, and I have great personal experience with keto and carb cycling diets. In my humble opinion, these lifestyle changes work better than any cycle of a "cutting" steroid for maintaining muscle mass and eviscerating visceral fat.

Steroids help you cheat, yeah. But they will never replace the most anabolic/fat burning supplement you can take: food.

If you're a "fatass" as you say, the last thing I would be worried about is gear. Let's get your body fat percentage into the teens before you think about any kind of gear. That would be my first thought.

 

[Jbagel132]

Losing 5% of your bodyweight per month is a reasonable and effective weight loss goal. Also, get your waist circumference down. If it’s 40” or above, that’s when health problems (such as the high BP you mentioned), statistically occur.

 

[Reaper Harbinger]

The more anabolics you use the steeper the deficit can be. There is no set ratio. However I'd recommend cutting on somewhat cruise doses (150-250mg) at a moderate deficit (500-750kcal). Blast only when bulking. Save your organs.

 

[MFAAS]

I will say it outright: at your weight 2-3 lbs per week seems like it would too much to be sustainable. It's going to be miserable and you will lose strength, even with anabolics. Crash dieting just isn't good and usually doesn't end the way you want it to long term.

The standard recommendation in the scientific community for sustainable weight loss targets is 0.5% to 1% of body weight per week. So let's just round your weight to 200 lbs. That means you could lose up to 2 lbs per week, but 1 lb, maybe 1.5 lbs, would definitely be safer.

Check out the post I wrote about weight loss and how the body works

Faster weight loss is going to mean many things:
- more muscle loss (yes, anabolics will mitigate this, but you still will lose muscle and strength)
- it will be more difficult psychologically. Once your body realizes it's losing weight so fast, it will fight back. You're going to experience more hunger and continuing that diet is going to get harder and harder.
- You are also more likely to experience hormonal disruptions (not just test/e2, but things like cortisol, DHEA, leptin/ghrelin, insulin, all kinds of bodily systems can be impacted, etc.)

Slower weight loss will ALWAYS be more sustainable. If you are looking for long term weight loss, slow and steady wins every time. If you read my post linked above you will understand why. The body is going to FIGHT against you losing weight, and it will fight harder the more weight you lose, and it will not STOP fighting until you gain that weight back (and often times people end up gaining back even more than they started with).

Your body is a thermostat and it WANTS to be 92.1 kg. Your bones sense how much you weigh and control your hormones to make you hungrier or not. There's a very complex system at play.

The best thing you can do is this:
- Cut out processed foods. I'm not saying to go paleo or anything, but just don't even purchase the protein bars or candy or ice cream or pizzas or cereal or soda, etc. Just buy fruits, veggies, meats, and good grains. If you don't have unhealthy foods around in your house, then you won't eat them--plain and simple. You aren't gonna drive all the way to the store to go buy some crap food, you are just gonna eat what's available.
- Again, I can't stress how incredibly important it is to just STOP BUYING crappy foods. This is THE NUMBER 1 easiest way to lose weight: just don't have crappy foods around, tempting you all day.
- Cut out or limit alcohol as much as possible. If you use marijuana and it causes you to overeat, cut that out too or limit is as much as possible
- Cut out fast food and severely limit any kind of eating out at restaurants. Restaurants always give you too much food and it is packed with sodium and more fats than needed, etc. Even a salad can be deceivingly unhealthy.
- Cook on weekends and meal prep/meal plan for the week.
- Eat 1 or slightly more gram per pound of protein (2.2 grams per kg)
- Lift on your normal lifting schedule, decrease frequency or play with variables to decrease load if, as you start losing weight, you feel your recovery isn't as good as it used to be.

If you're looking to lose weight fast, start out with a 500 calorie per day deficit. That should have you losing about 1 pound per week. Note that if you are also cutting out processed and sugary/high sodium foods, you may see more weight loss due to less water retention as well.

Personally, I cycle deficit days, so some days I might have a 700 calorie deficit, then the next only 300. I always have all my deficit days on weekdays, then on weekends I eat right at maintenance. I still lose 1 lb per week, but there is a good amount of science that shows having that mental break on weekends where you eat at maintenance really helps with long term weight loss. I use MyFitnessPal to set daily calorie goals and track all this.

Add in some cardio, preferably daily or 5-6 times per week. I don't know your age, but I would suspect a 20 mins to a half hour with your heart rate around 120-135 would perfect.

As you lose weight, you can up the cardio, or alter cardio. You don't HAVE to do the treadmill/elliptical. You can do 20 mins on the elliptical in the morning, then go for a hike in the afternoon. Mix it up so you don't hate it.

Take it slow, I know you want to lose weight, but if you want to lose that weight FOREVER, you wanna take it slow. It will be the only way you can lose that weight sustainable and keep it off.

Feel free to ask more questions! Best of luck!!

 

[NLM36]

the post above kinda nails it.
is your goal weight loss or fatloss? One is a side effect of the other but with fatloss weight loss is an sideeffect.
I don’t like using the scale as a gauge.
So you weigh around 203lbs. Your estimated lean body mass is around 140.
What i would do is eat above maintenance for 140lbs, so around 2400-2500cals a day. 250-300grams of that protein. The rest of the cals fill in with ever food you like.
you can actually gain muscle while doing this. So say by the end of your fat loss phase you were at 150-160lbs of lean mass you actually gained 10-20lbs of muscle.
youll need to train hard and intense.
I recommend reading everything you can on DC training or Yates blood and guts. And sticking with it indefinitly.

 

[Cdave.aol]

the post above kinda nails it.
is your goal weight loss or fatloss? One is a side effect of the other but with fatloss weight loss is an sideeffect.
I don’t like using the scale as a gauge.
So you weigh around 203lbs. Your estimated lean body mass is around 140.
What i would do is eat above maintenance for 140lbs, so around 2400-2500cals a day. 250-300grams of that protein. The rest of the cals fill in with ever food you like.
you can actually gain muscle while doing this. So say by the end of your fat loss phase you were at 150-160lbs of lean mass you actually gained 10-20lbs of muscle.
youll need to train hard and intense.
I recommend reading everything you can on DC training or Yates blood and guts. And sticking with it indefinitly.

The high protein intake would really make a difference?

 

[Ferenor]

the post above kinda nails it.
is your goal weight loss or fatloss? One is a side effect of the other but with fatloss weight loss is an sideeffect.
I don’t like using the scale as a gauge.
So you weigh around 203lbs. Your estimated lean body mass is around 140.
What i would do is eat above maintenance for 140lbs, so around 2400-2500cals a day. 250-300grams of that protein. The rest of the cals fill in with ever food you like.
you can actually gain muscle while doing this. So say by the end of your fat loss phase you were at 150-160lbs of lean mass you actually gained 10-20lbs of muscle.
youll need to train hard and intense.
I recommend reading everything you can on DC training or Yates blood and guts. And sticking with it indefinitly.

+1 for the high intensity training. It definitely works. I'm cutting currently and seeing even 1 rep increase from the last week makes it less miserable.

 

[NLM36]

+1 for the high intensity training. It definitely works. I'm cutting currently and seeing even 1 rep increase from the last week makes it less miserable.

It’s how I’ve trained the majority of the time since I started lifting. everytime I tried a higher volume lower intensity routine where movements changed week to week I regressed.

 

[NLM36]

The high protein intake would really make a difference?

Yes. Protein does not get stored as fat and the higher the protein the more muscle you retain and can build. Anabolics increase protein synthesis as well so why not take advantage of that. if you’re protein intake isn’t high then youre wasting your time.
it is the most important macro

 

[Cdave.aol]

Yes. Protein does not get stored as fat and the higher the protein the more muscle you retain and can build. Anabolics increase protein synthesis as well so why not take advantage of that. if you’re protein intake isn’t high then youre wasting your time.
it is the most important macro

Would you say it takes the priority over carbs?

 

[NLM36]

Would you say it takes the priority over carbs?

Yes. That’s why I suggest to subtract your protein from your calories first and just fill in the rest with whatever you want

 

[Cdave.aol]

Yes. That’s why I suggest to subtract your protein from your calories first and just fill in the rest with whatever you want

I might just try this once i increase my test dose to 600mg. This would be my first time going over 500 so I’m interested to see what would happen just simply eating at maintenance with higher protein intake. Last few months I’ve been slacking off with 150-170 g a day, sometimes much less than that. Watching too many YouTube guys saying it’s overrated

 

[NLM36]

I might just try this once i increase my test dose to 600mg. This would be my first time going over 500 so I’m interested to see what would happen just simply eating at maintenance with higher protein intake. Last few months I’ve been slacking off with 150-170 g a day, sometimes much less than that. Watching too many YouTube guys saying it’s overrated

Start now. Don’t keep spinning your wheels. don’t wait on the drugs to start doing things better.

 

[Cdave.aol]

Start now. Don’t keep spinning your wheels. don’t wait on the drugs to start doing things better.

I definitely will.

 

[rfan2020]

you can lose it slow and diet forever, or lose it fast and diet much shorter.

low volume training, lots of cardio, most of your calories from protein

I doubt you have as much muscle as you think with that BF so your going to look way smaller if your serous about cutting

what would I do? bw x10 in calories, mostly protein, low volume training, lots of cardio

Or you can lose 1lb a week and play it conservative worrying about loosing muscle and diet for a long time and be exhausted at the end

 

[NLM36]

you can lose it slow and diet forever, or lose it fast and diet much shorter.

low volume training, lots of cardio, most of your calories from protein

I doubt you have as much muscle as you think with that BF so your going to look way smaller if your serous about cutting

what would I do? bw x10 in calories, mostly protein, low volume training, lots of cardio

Or you can lose 1lb a week and play it conservative worrying about loosing muscle and diet for a long time and be exhausted at the end

Great shitty backwards advice.