My TRT/fat loss log

[TheBigKahuna901]

Quick update everyone!

Apologies for the infrequent updates, the last couple weeks have been crazy busy, got my home gym repainted finally and did a few other projects, didn’t even realize it’s been over a week since I posted. Anyways I managed to get myself down to 251.6 but the weight loss is definitely stalling. Been hitting 1600-1800 cals a day, 250-280g protein, and lifting almost every day with 20 minutes cardio. The fatigue was setting in so I took a cheat meal last night and feel loads better today thankfully! Also upped my TRT dose to 150mg MWF, the more frequent dosing seems to be helping a lot more with troughs and overall energy/drive. Hoping to get into the 240’s next week, then probably take a maintenance break for a few months and attempt to recomp. No progress pics at the moment but I’ll try and grab some tonight after my arm workout!

 

[TheBigKahuna901]

You look great man, nice job!!

Thanks man I appreciate it!!

 

[TheBigKahuna901]

Hey! Just wanted to update again and get some opinions from you all.

So I weighed in at 251 this morning, slashed my calories to around 1600 per day after doing a brief refeed over the weekend. I’d really like to get to 245 or even 240 before doing a maintenance period but curious if you guys think now would be the right time to switch back to maintenance? Or even 2500 cals just a minor deficit for a little while?

I was also considering running more of a “cut stack” like Test P and Mast P at 150:50 or even 200:100, I know I’ve seen some threads on adding Mast or Primo during a cut (iirc Scruff used primo during his cut) and was curious if any of you guys have experience with either or would recommend one over the other.

Still hoping to get to 249.9 by Sunday so hopefully I’ll be updating with good news then!

 

[phenominal34]

Hey! Just wanted to update again and get some opinions from you all.

So I weighed in at 251 this morning, slashed my calories to around 1600 per day after doing a brief refeed over the weekend. I’d really like to get to 245 or even 240 before doing a maintenance period but curious if you guys think now would be the right time to switch back to maintenance? Or even 2500 cals just a minor deficit for a little while?

I was also considering running more of a “cut stack” like Test P and Mast P at 150:50 or even 200:100, I know I’ve seen some threads on adding Mast or Primo during a cut (iirc Scruff used primo during his cut) and was curious if any of you guys have experience with either or would recommend one over the other.

Still hoping to get to 249.9 by Sunday so hopefully I’ll be updating with good news then!

June 14th 251.6
June 20th 251

Constructive criticism pal, you’re doing something wrong or not telling us everything. With your low calories and exercising you should be losing a lot more than .6lbs a week at your weight still.

What’s your 20 mins of cardio ? I’d suggest incline of 5, walk 3mph on treadmill for 45 mins.

Also circuit training with weights. Get a jump rope too !!! You’ll see the scale move.

Keep at it tho, following and cheering for ya

 

[TheBigKahuna901]

June 14th 251.6
June 20th 251

Constructive criticism pal, you’re doing something wrong or not telling us everything. With your low calories and exercising you should be losing a lot more than .6lbs a week at your weight still.

What’s your 20 mins of cardio ? I’d suggest incline of 5, walk 3mph on treadmill for 45 mins.

Also circuit training with weights. Get a jump rope too !!! You’ll see the scale move.

Keep at it tho, following and cheering for ya

Yeah the only things I can think of are: I ran back up closer to maintenance over the weekend, and went a little over on carbohydrates one day (normally having 30-50g, on Sunday I had 176g of carbs, was still under on calories) so I’m hoping that might be the reason I haven’t lost a whole lot this week? Frustrating to see the scale move this little though especially on such a huge deficit. Other than that I can’t think of anything, everything I eat is weighed and tracked (condiments and toppings included).

As far as cardio I have a fan bike that I use, typically shoot for around 3 miles a day on that and 9 miles on cardio day keeping my heart rate around 130-150bpm. I do circuit training right now and I like that a lot, typically I’ll superset the same muscle group and then hit the bike for a minute then rest for a minute (ex. Incline chest flys to 1 rep from failure, incline DB bench to failure, one minute bike one minute rest). I don’t have a jump rope though that’s a really good idea! I’ll pick one up!

Also I was 250.2 this morning, hoping I can squeeze out a shit before work and hit my 249 goal lol. Thanks for the advice!

 

[Eddie.]

Hey! Just wanted to update again and get some opinions from you all.

So I weighed in at 251 this morning, slashed my calories to around 1600 per day after doing a brief refeed over the weekend. I’d really like to get to 245 or even 240 before doing a maintenance period but curious if you guys think now would be the right time to switch back to maintenance? Or even 2500 cals just a minor deficit for a little while?

I was also considering running more of a “cut stack” like Test P and Mast P at 150:50 or even 200:100, I know I’ve seen some threads on adding Mast or Primo during a cut (iirc Scruff used primo during his cut) and was curious if any of you guys have experience with either or would recommend one over the other.

Still hoping to get to 249.9 by Sunday so hopefully I’ll be updating with good news then!

This big of a deficit is not something you can sustain for a long time, anything less 2000kcal for a non competitive bber for me it's too much, unless you're 160 pounds and you wanna go 150, but at your weight it's ok for a final push, for couple weeks but not any further.

There's no meaning after a point..so now your thyroid hormones are probably downregulated, where are you going after this? At 1350kcal? In my opinion it's time to pull the plug and start reversing your diet.

Build up your metabolism again so you can fire away from higher calories and then go to a deficit.

I know it sucks, first hand..as i've already told you when you made the thread and also because i'm in the exact same spot as we speak. I'm on 2350kcal for over a month and i've lost 2 maybe 3 pounds, with sometimes 3 cardio session a day, plus AAS, plus fat burners. I have 2 weeks left and thinking to go down to 2000 all in all just in case i can lose some more but that's it for now. I wish i had better results in terms of bodyfat loss but it is what it is..next time you'll start from a better spot, one day you'll reach your final goal, it's not the end of the world if it goes a little further, what it means the most is you are determined to change your life.

 

[TheBigKahuna901]

This big of a deficit is not something you can sustain for a long time, anything less 2000kcal for a non competitive bber for me it's too much, unless you're 160 pounds and you wanna go 150, but at your weight it's ok for a final push, for couple weeks but not any further.

There's no meaning after a point..so now your thyroid hormones are probably downregulated, where are you going after this? At 1350kcal? In my opinion it's time to pull the plug and start reversing your diet.

Build up your metabolism again so you can fire away from higher calories and then go to a deficit.

I know it sucks, first hand..as i've already told you when you made the thread and also because i'm in the exact same spot as we speak. I'm on 2350kcal for over a month and i've lost 2 maybe 3 pounds, with sometimes 3 cardio session a day, plus AAS, plus fat burners. I have 2 weeks left and thinking to go down to 2000 all in all just in case i can lose some more but that's it for now. I wish i had better results in terms of bodyfat loss but it is what it is..next time you'll start from a better spot, one day you'll reach your final goal, it's not the end of the world if it goes a little further, what it means the most is you are determined to change your life.

Fair enough! I agree the sub 2000 cals is not sustainable long term, I’ll probably continue on until the end of this month, see how much I can lose and then bump the cals back up either to maintenance (~3100 cals) or just run a slight deficit at 2700. I’m hoping at my body fat I can recomp if I’m closer to maintenance and continue some fat loss at least even if it’s .2lbs a week or something.

I agree it’s tough to pull the plug and reverse diet but like you said it is what it is at some point and it’s not worth cutting the cals any further, there’s pretty much zero wiggle room in my current diet after getting proteins and fats in. And sustainability is much more important.

Thank you for the advice again, I really do appreciate it. I’m still hoping I can get to 249.9 this week, I’ll be sure to keep you guys updated with some progress pics!

 

[Eddie.]

You're welcome brother.

and then bump the cals back up either to maintenance (~3100 cals) or just run a slight deficit at 2700.

Be careful, this is not gonna work. Even if you find your actual maintenance (although every day is totally different) 200 above or below, you won't notice a thing. There's no point to be in a deficit even if it's a slight one, in your case i would rather be 200 above than below, because that's the only way to speed up your metabolism and let you going.

Just make sure to not hop on 3100 straight away, better do this in 3 weeks. First week add 500, second 500 and third 500. I'm 99% sure the first couple weeks you'll see some drop in weight too from your metabolism firing back. First few days might have a slight increase from carbs and water but then most possibly some loss will continue.

 

[TheBigKahuna901]

You're welcome brother.



Be careful, this is not gonna work. Even if you find your actual maintenance (although every day is totally different) 200 above or below, you won't notice a thing. There's no point to be in a deficit even if it's a slight one, in your case i would rather be 200 above than below, because that's the only way to speed up your metabolism and let you going.

Just make sure to not hop on 3100 straight away, better do this in 3 weeks. First week add 500, second 500 and third 500. I'm 99% sure the first couple weeks you'll see some drop in weight too from your metabolism firing back. First few days might have a slight increase from carbs and water but then most possibly some loss will continue.

Okay for sure I definitely will make a point to be at or slightly above maintenance then and make sure to increase the cals slowly. That would be sweet to see a drop in weight as I go back up in calories. I know the number on the scale isn’t most important but still nice to see lol. I watched the Mike Israetel video you mentioned in a previous reply about dieting so I’m thinking shoot for a 10-12 week maintenance phase once July comes around and hopefully get back to cutting after that.

Thanks again for the advice

 

[phenominal34]

Drop the bike, incline treadmill is where it’s at 45 mins !!! Stick to it and watch the scale drop daily.

 

[TheBigKahuna901]

Drop the bike, incline treadmill is where it’s at 45 mins !!! Stick to it and watch the scale drop daily.

Ugh I would love to haha I like the incline treadmill weirdly enough. Might have to look at going back to my old gym I guess. Currently lifting at my home gym and all I have is a bike which is nice, but it’s no incline treadmill or stair master

 

[TheBigKahuna901]

Well the weight loss has continued thankfully, weighed in at 249.2 Sunday morning. Here’s my most recent progress pics, super excited to be in the 240’s. I haven’t weighed this little since early 2020, and this is probably the most muscle I’ve ever had. Hoping I can continue my final push till the end of this month, and then take a maintenance phase and let my body recover a little.

Anyone have any experience with recomping? Any advised macro ratio or routine? I know it’s not as effective as straight cutting or bulking, but it’s tough mentally to switch to a maintenance phase and potentially halt progress when the cut is going this well. I guess just looking for a little advice on the best way to recomp, I know it doesn’t work for everyone but I’d at least like to try.

 

[Eddie.]

Great progress dude!

 

[TheBigKahuna901]

Great progress dude!

Thanks man! I appreciate the kind words and advice more than you know. Also side note I saw your latest progress thread, holy smokes! That’s some seriously impressive progress and dedication!

 

[TheBigKahuna901]

Quick update! Made it to 247.2 in my final push, decided to pull the plug and run back up to maintenance for at least 4 weeks, most likely 8-12. I’m shooting for 2500cals the first week, and then up it by 250 as needed. I’m gonna aim for 250g protein a day, 70g fat and then the rest of my calories are going to carbohydrates so that will vary as my calories go up. Probably going to hold at the 150mg/wk Test E for now until I get bloodwork back, I would like to run up to 200 but want to see where all my health markers are sitting first. Hopefully I can maintain at just below 250, or even put on a few pounds of muscle at this weight. Here’s my latest progress pics, probably the skinniest I’ll be for a while tried getting some good angles of my trap pump but no luck so excuse the rough posing haha

 

[TheBigKahuna901]

Just wanted to quickly update everyone! Maintenance is going well so far, holding at around 249-250 eating around 2500 calories a day. Workout performance is much better, most of my compound lifts are up about 15 pounds and my isolated movements are up between 5-10 pounds. My weight is still trending slightly downward after the initial water weight I put on so I'm hoping to up the calories to around 2750 this week, get around 270g protein, 270g carbs, 65g fats.

Planning to increase the intensity and duration of my lifts as I increase the calories. I've found the workouts I was doing aren't taxing enough now that my calories are up so I designed a PPLxArnold Split to increase the volume and hopefully bring some of my more lacking areas up to par. If anyone has any critiques I'd love to hear them, always looking for ways to improve my workouts. My biggest concern with this plan is overtraining, if I get to that point I will adjust the plan accordingly but as of right now it hasn't been an issue.

Note: All lifts are to failure, reps are just target ranges. All sets are working sets, does not include warmup sets which I do before every heavy compound lift. Shooting for 8-16 sets per muscle group per week, heavier on the chest since mine is fairly lacking compared to the rest of my body. 2-3 minute rest periods, 20-30 minutes cardio either in the morning or post workout.
Push-
Incline Chest Flyes
super set with
Incline DB Press- 3x8-12 reps (shooting for failure around 6-8 on bench)
Front Delt Raise- 3x10
Lateral Raise- 3x10
Triceps Push Down- 3x10-12 reps
French Press- 3x10-12 reps.

Pull-
Lat Pull Down- 3x8-12 reps
Row Variation (normally barbell or low cable row)- 3x8-12 reps
Upright Rows
superset with
Barbell Shrugs- 3x8-12 reps
Spider Curls- 3x8-12 reps
Barbell Curls- 3x8-12 reps
Rear Delt Flyes- 4x8-12 reps

Legs-
Barbell Squat- 4x10 reps
Leg Extensions- 4x10 reps
Calf Raises- 4x10 reps
Leg Curls- 4x10 reps

Chest/Back-
Pec Dec- 3x8-12 reps
DB Bench Press- 3x8-12 reps
Chest Dips- 3xBW to failure
High Cable Row- 3x8-12 reps
Lat Prayers- 3x8-12 reps
Barbell Shrugs- 4x8-12 reps

Shoulders/Arms-
Military Press 3x8-12 reps
Lateral Raise- 3x8-12 reps
Cable Face Pull- 3x8-12 reps
Preacher Curl- 3x8-12 reps
Incline Hammer Curl- 3x8-12 reps
Triceps Push Down- 3x8-12 reps
Overhead DB Triceps Press- 3x8-12 reps

Legs-
Deadlift- 4x10 reps
RDL- 4x10 reps
Leg Extensions- 4x10 reps
Calf Raises- 4x10 reps

 

[Vajfan]

First off, glad you overcame everything and started taking your health seriously. Secondly, I had no idea what HPPD was so I had to google it and holy shit, I can almost guarantee I suffered from that for about 6-7 years (laced weed in early 2000s). I had no idea HPPD was a thing. I just delt with it on my own and tried to forget about it. Either way, keep killing it and thank you for sharing your story because again, I had no idea about that diagnosis!

 

[TheBigKahuna901]

First off, glad you overcame everything and started taking your health seriously. Secondly, I had no idea what HPPD was so I had to google it and holy shit, I can almost guarantee I suffered from that for about 6-7 years (laced weed in early 2000s). I had no idea HPPD was a thing. I just delt with it on my own and tried to forget about it. Either way, keep killing it and thank you for sharing your story because again, I had no idea about that diagnosis!

Thank you for the encouragement I really appreciate it! Yeah it’s crazy how common HPPD is but yet not many people know about it. It’s sad considering how debilitating it can be for a lot of people. I’m at year 5 since getting it and thankfully it’s toned down a ton in the last year or two, but the first 2-3 years were horrible, literally felt like I was on a low dose of acid 24/7 (I got mine from mushrooms and LSD use). The only cure is pretty much exactly what you did so kudos to you for figuring that out! So many people (myself included) just let it consume them and I think that makes it so much worse. I’m glad you were finally able to put a name to it and overcome it too, it’s crazy how common but not talked about HPPD is!

 

[JG91]

Awesome thread! Huge weight loss. Your close to 100 lbs!

One post I saw was you were considering adding more drugs to your trt. I don’t think you should. Just stay with trt and you shouldn’t have any negative sides and all the benefits until your lean enough.

You could add something like Tirzepatide. Awesome glp1 agonist I can’t praise enough for its appetite suppression.