I am wrapping up an experiment trying tren at higher bf% in a cut to see if I tolerate the compound. While I seemed to tolerate it well what I found is that the magic is the look it brings- it won’t slap meat on you in a defecit nor did it incinerate fat despite being sweatier and probably needs to be run high with plenty of food to shine in a bulk, which brings other problems.
What I saw at like 16-17% fat was that my scale weight increased by 5-7lbs and stayed there or even increased, while my look stagnated then after about 4 weeks started looking harder and leaner by the day. I’m wrapping up with about a week left, and the first couple weeks were spent titrating up from like 5mg, but I’ve been above 40/day for a good while, and finishing the last week now at 60/day.
It’s impossible that I didn’t continue losing at least the same .75-1lb/week of fat during the tren cycle because of my consistent diet and training but it’s masked from the scale and superficially magnified by the tren hardening.
So my takeaway isn’t that tren is too crazy and harsh unless you’re making $ onstage. It’s that using it for a cut or at higher bf% is not a good risk to reward. You won’t see the effect like you would if you started at low bodyfat. You won’t gain a ton of lean mass in a deficit. You can retain tissue just fine on a cut with a trt+ test cruise or really mild stack.
And also that in a cut you can regulate your water intake and have a decent idea of fat loss from biweekly scale averages. On tren even 5-10mg/day the scale noise from intracellular water and glycogen overwhelms that metric. I was 260 months ago and had cut to 253 before playing with tren. Today I look bigger and leaner but I’m back at 260/261. The tailor’s tape and mirror show continued fat loss, but the scale is a noisy mess, and I’m sure my “physique” will also be a noisy mess as I discontinue the tren, taking a while to balance back out to a true weight and look. I’m actually taking a break from the cut and going near maintenance cals for the next couple weeks to support heavy training on my last week on cycle and to support the transition off cycle before dropping back down to my 500cal deficit.
And all of these reasons why it’s not worth it are before I even get bloodwork- I’m sure my body didn’t love the poisoning.
Anyway my 2¢. And also plenty of folks have problems at less mg than I tried so there’s that too.
