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Building Back Up

Hyde said:
How do you feel? Still alternating 7 & 8mg each morning?

Nothing looking worrisome that I can see. Platelets are on the low end, but pretty optimal otherwise.
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Yes, still alternating. I’m still waiting on the testosterone and e2 results, but this is where I am…

Sleeping well (for me, 6-7 hours), restful.
Anxiety fairly controlled.
Water retention low-mid.
Achy, mildly weakened.
Mood fine (unless kcal too low).
Libido fair.

I can feel every old injury I’ve ever had. Training recovery is slow (constant mild muscle aches/soreness). I’m going to guess my free test is right near the middle, or slightly above middle, unlike when I’m feeling strong in the gym and great recovery/no aches at 8mg daily. We’ll see.
 
GreenMachineX said:
Yes, still alternating. I’m still waiting on the testosterone and e2 results, but this is where I am…

Sleeping well (for me, 6-7 hours), restful.
Anxiety fairly controlled.
Water retention low-mid.
Achy, mildly weakened.
Mood fine (unless kcal too low).
Libido fair.

I can feel every old injury I’ve ever had. Training recovery is slow (constant mild muscle aches/soreness). I’m going to guess my free test is right near the middle, or slightly above middle, unlike when I’m feeling strong in the gym and great recovery/no aches at 8mg daily. We’ll see.
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If you take 8 daily, does anything take a hit besides some elevation of hemoglobin/crit?

Perhaps DHEA could possibly be an option if you just need a bit more water/padding but don’t want to go to 8mg daily? You get more estrogen primarily, but also some neurosteroid drive on positivity & mental faculties slightly (without increasing blood thickness). This assuming DHEA isn’t already top of range.

Could just put a small squirt of XPG DHEA on the top of one of your feet/shin each morning, alternating sides.
 
GreenMachineX said:
Sleeping well (for me, 6-7 hours), restful.
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do you see any difference with the change in the seasons? DST kinda screws with me because my normal 8:30pm routine bed time has been pushed to 9:30 (hard to go to sleep when its still full daylight out) but the alarm clock at 4:30am is harder now ironically lol.
 
Hyde said:
If you take 8 daily, does anything take a hit besides some elevation of hemoglobin/crit?

Perhaps DHEA could possibly be an option if you just need a bit more water/padding but don’t want to go to 8mg daily? You get more estrogen primarily, but also some neurosteroid drive on positivity & mental faculties slightly (without increasing blood thickness). This assuming DHEA isn’t already top of range.

Could just put a small squirt of XPG DHEA on the top of one of your feet/shin each morning, alternating sides.
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I’m not sure if 8mg daily messes with my sleep anymore, but a couple months ago I would’ve said sleep. I’ve never done 8mg daily with calories this high (only 200-300kcal deficit usually now), so I don’t know what would happen really. 500kcal deficit plus 8mg daily means BAD sleep.

I bought the oral DHEA caps, or maybe it was sublingual, like you recommended a few months ago, but haven’t mustered up the juevos yet. That’s back on the menu now, just need to man up. Previously, dhea gave me awful brain fog/lightheadedness, but, many other things are improved now so it may be time. My dhea levels are confirmed low also.

Edit: I also reflux water alternating 7/8mg daily or anything below. I rarely notice it with food, and very rarely acid reflux, but at 8mg daily it never happens.
 
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Dustin07 said:
do you see any difference with the change in the seasons? DST kinda screws with me because my normal 8:30pm routine bed time has been pushed to 9:30 (hard to go to sleep when its still full daylight out) but the alarm clock at 4:30am is harder now ironically lol.
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Nah. Going to sleep is usually fine no matter what outside looks like, it’s just waking up too early. Unless, like I described above, if 8mg daily, and 500kcal deficit, I start crashing at 8pm, and if I fall asleep on the couch and wake back up at 9 or so, I’ll be stuck awake until 12am, then up at 4am anyway.
 
oh yeah thats a rough cycle. I could see waking up at say 3:30am and just making it a normal routine for whatever. coffee, bible reading etc. but being up in that weird time between midnight and 2am is no bueno. My folks are in a hardcore routine. usually up like 3-3:30am and bed between 7-8pm lol. not much can stand between them and that routine. during winter, early to bed is easy for me, but right now we have some long days.
 
Dustin07 said:
oh yeah thats a rough cycle. I could see waking up at say 3:30am and just making it a normal routine for whatever. coffee, bible reading etc. but being up in that weird time between midnight and 2am is no bueno. My folks are in a hardcore routine. usually up like 3-3:30am and bed between 7-8pm lol. not much can stand between them and that routine. during winter, early to bed is easy for me, but right now we have some long days.
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Yeah, at our age, real life prevents a 8pm bed time. In addition, going to bed at 8pm then waking up at 3am wouldn’t solve the rest of “wired and tired” feeling that goes with it. It’s not a natural rhythm if you know what I mean.

Edited: stupid autocorrect. I meant going to bed earlier would NOT solve wired and tired.
 
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GreenMachineX said:
Yeah, at our age, real life prevents a 8pm bed time. In addition, going to bed at 8pm then waking up at 3am would solve the rest of “wired and tired” feeling that goes with it. It’s not a natural rhythm if you know what I mean.
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yup I get it. winter time here its dark by 4pm so going to bed between 8-8:30 is easy for me. in the spring, the sun is cresting about the time I wake up anyways so its the perfect rhythm. but then we get into daylight savings time. nights get longer before the mornings get earlier and it gets harder to sync up for me. I do love long days, I just wish we didn't do DST.
 
Dustin07 said:
yup I get it. winter time here its dark by 4pm so going to bed between 8-8:30 is easy for me. in the spring, the sun is cresting about the time I wake up anyways so its the perfect rhythm. but then we get into daylight savings time. nights get longer before the mornings get earlier and it gets harder to sync up for me. I do love long days, I just wish we didn't do DST.
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Check edit. Autocorrect fails.
 
I feel for you, my sleep gets rough only on occasion, but it really wears on you when it does. When my neck was waking me up nightly things got pretty rough and it was so hard to maintain a positive attitude, and or feel motivated for anything.
 
GreenMachineX said:
Check edit. Autocorrect fails.
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MrKleen73 said:
I feel for you, my sleep gets rough only on occasion, but it really wears on you when it does. When my neck was waking me up nightly things got pretty rough and it was so hard to maintain a positive attitude, and or feel motivated for anything.
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I think its normal for modern society, I can't speak for you guys, but for me, lifestyle plays a big roll. spend all day sorta taxing the brain with legit fast paced multitasking in a high tech world, then by the time you get home and you 'should' be tired, you haven't done the primal tasks that make us legitimately tired. I get more like that Mon-Fri when life is mostly computer work.

Sat/Sun when I spend the day beating my body down with farm work, shoveling yard after yard of soil etc, I'm exhausted, have a big meal, and sleep like a baby. its a totally different kind of tired from hard manual labor vs all day whitecollar bs. Its healthier I think... also harder in a way, IDK. Like who TF chooses this in a day and age where uber can bring me food while I play video games? lol
 
MrKleen73 said:
I feel for you, my sleep gets rough only on occasion, but it really wears on you when it does. When my neck was waking me up nightly things got pretty rough and it was so hard to maintain a positive attitude, and or feel motivated for anything.
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Yes, exactly.
Dustin07 said:
I think its normal for modern society, I can't speak for you guys, but for me, lifestyle plays a big roll. spend all day sorta taxing the brain with legit fast paced multitasking in a high tech world, then by the time you get home and you 'should' be tired, you haven't done the primal tasks that make us legitimately tired. I get more like that Mon-Fri when life is mostly computer work.

Sat/Sun when I spend the day beating my body down with farm work, shoveling yard after yard of soil etc, I'm exhausted, have a big meal, and sleep like a baby. its a totally different kind of tired from hard manual labor vs all day whitecollar bs. Its healthier I think... also harder in a way, IDK. Like who TF chooses this in a day and age where uber can bring me food while I play video games? lol
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lol
That has worked on occasion, but the catch for me is I really have to eat to match the kcal I’ve burned when doing that, or else I just create a larger deficit which aggravates the issue.
 
yeah also true. and its even harder mon-fri after work. brain tired, body not. forcing the body to break down further so it can sleep correctly when brain already shutting down is hard and tbh I think it almost is creating an a.d.d. habit for me. its worked well for the past 8 months except when I do have days where I feel caught up and realize I have a couple hours of free time, I'm at a loss for what to do and TV now seems boring so I need to start programming myself to use that time for reading most likely.
 
Weight: 208.8

Feel like garbage. Still trying to stay close to 300kcal from what my Fitbit says I burned, but yesterday 400kcal deficit feels like trash today.
 
GreenMachineX said:
Weight: 208.8

Feel like garbage. Still trying to stay close to 300kcal from what my Fitbit says I burned, but yesterday 400kcal deficit feels like trash today.
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there was a scene in futurama where Fry tells Bender something along the lines "Bender! You haven't had enough alcohol, or maybe you've had too much, I can't remember how it works with you".

Makes me think of the randomness to your PEM (which seems less frequent these days), sorta reminds me of hangover symptoms or something.

Found it lol

 
GreenMachineX said:
Weight: 208.8

Bench 4 x 5/5/5/4 x 240
NG Pull-up 6/6/6/6
ISO Hammer OHP 3 x 8/8/7 x 210
DB Lateral Raise 4 sets

Missed that last set of bench by 1 rep!!!! I should not have taken the full 3mg lunesta last night. After a few days of 1.5mg and getting used to that, 3mg was a blitz and still dragging. Although, my sleep was pretty rough even with the, so the benefits of better sleep with 3mg > hitting that 1 last rep, right? Even so, progress on everything, while weight goes down. Maybe I’ve found the perfect middle ground for test dose and daily kcal.

I’ve been alternating 7mg and 8mg daily test cyp, but using a new slin pin that actually measures the half so I can get a legit 7mg and not guesstimate.

Kcal have been 2900-3k usually. Averaging 6k steps.
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Same weight as this workout.

Bench 4x6x225
T-Bar Rows 3x8x90
ISO-Lateral Shoulder Press 3x8x210
NG Pull-ups 3/3/3
Standard Pullups 3
Crossbody Lateral Raise 3 sets
Cable Pressdowns 3 sets

Ugh.

I can tell the new syringe measured to 7mg exactly is lowering test/e2 too low. I’ll have to rethink this.
 
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So take more testosterone.

I think the whole TRT marketing focus on “optimization” has too many men misled into this idea that there’s a perfect protocol that makes you feel great all the time with zero downsides, side effects or compromises. That’s not how hormones work. It’s a lot of best effort, experimentation, and compromises ultimately.
 
Hyde said:
So take more testosterone.

I think the whole TRT marketing focus on “optimization” has too many men misled into this idea that there’s a perfect protocol that makes you feel great all the time with zero downsides, side effects or compromises. That’s not how hormones work. It’s a lot of best effort, experimentation, and compromises ultimately.
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Good point. Yeah, I’ll be incrementally increasing.
 
Got some results back. Doesn’t explain the achiness.
IMG_6170.webp
 
I don't know enough about interpreting these results, but in addition to hemoglobin being high out of range, you're borderline for high hematocrit too. All of that to say, you have thicker blood concentration probably - which you may need to be more focused on hyper hydration.

Do you track any of that (eg, water consumption) vs days you feel PEM, etc?
 
Segansational said:
I don't know enough about interpreting these results, but in addition to hemoglobin being high out of range, you're borderline for high hematocrit too. All of that to say, you have thicker blood concentration probably - which you may need to be more focused on hyper hydration.

Do you track any of that (eg, water consumption) vs days you feel PEM, etc?
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Nah, those labs are great for me. Actually, when my HCT was 57 and 19.5 HGB I felt good overall (test dose was way too high though). I was properly hydrated for the current results.

I’m starting to pay attention to salt though more…I may need way more then I’m getting usually.
 
Segansational said:
I don't know enough about interpreting these results, but in addition to hemoglobin being high out of range, you're borderline for high hematocrit too. All of that to say, you have thicker blood concentration probably - which you may need to be more focused on hyper hydration.

Do you track any of that (eg, water consumption) vs days you feel PEM, etc?
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Hematocrit is often essentially triple whatever the hemoglobin level is (for healthy blood). It’s like having high creatinine is basically a guarantee for reduced eGFR score. They go hand in hand, not compounding issues.

GreenMachineX said:
Nah, those labs are great for me. Actually, when my HCT was 57 and 19.5 HGB I felt good overall (test dose was way too high though). I was properly hydrated for the current results.

I’m starting to pay attention to salt though more…I may need way more then I’m getting usually.
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I am very pro salt, but I always tell everyone to add some & experiment titrating up. You may need way more, but start with 1/4tsp table salt (600mg sodium).

Also, watch your iodine. If you already get enough, get non-iodized salt so you don’t overdose that every day.
 
Hyde said:
So take more testosterone.

I think the whole TRT marketing focus on “optimization” has too many men misled into this idea that there’s a perfect protocol that makes you feel great all the time with zero downsides, side effects or compromises. That’s not how hormones work. It’s a lot of best effort, experimentation, and compromises ultimately.
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Agreed, people can get way to deep into the minutia. Do you fell good? Yes, is your bloodwork bad or getting worse? No, outside of the expected increase in Hemoglobin / HCT. If lower dose does not feel good but also does not raise Hemobglobin / HCT then you need the higher dose for what you are trying to achieve (better quality of life), address the higher HCT via hydration, or blood donation as long as ferritin levels are good. It is really simple if you don't let yourself get caught up in the minutia.
 
I just keep a gallon of salted crystal lite in the fridge at all times, which I pounded through this weekend. and lately I'll just eat a packet or a couple of salt at work and wash it down with my water preWO.

I do like having those gatorade zeros available when my wife gets a good deal on them at costco but just straight salt or the salted crystal lite has served me pretty well.
 
Dustin07 said:
I just keep a gallon of salted crystal lite in the fridge at all times, which I pounded through this weekend. and lately I'll just eat a packet or a couple of salt at work and wash it down with my water preWO.

I do like having those gatorade zeros available when my wife gets a good deal on them at costco but just straight salt or the salted crystal lite has served me pretty well.
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Crystal Lite is so good; I never think about it but it is definitely an awesome way to get more water in & make electrolytes tasty.

Justin Harris said you should try to flavor your intra decently, because people drink more if things taste good. That stuck with me and I’ve found it to be true. I use SNS Creatine HCL right now in it & have no problem drinking 64oz of room temp water with grams of sodium in it.
 
Hyde said:
I use SNS Creatine HCL right now in it & have no problem drinking 64oz of room temp water with grams of sodium in it.
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that stuff is so good and you can honestly dillute it a lot to make a large portion of water taste good. Its rare that I do a recommended 8-12oz with a serving of anything like that or preWO. I usually fill a whole 24oz shaker and get that extra flavored water in.
 
Hyde said:
Crystal Lite is so good; I never think about it but it is definitely an awesome way to get more water in & make electrolytes tasty.

Justin Harris said you should try to flavor your intra decently, because people drink more if things taste good. That stuck with me and I’ve found it to be true. I use SNS Creatine HCL right now in it & have no problem drinking 64oz of room temp water with grams of sodium in it.
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Grams of sodium?! How many total per day?
 
GreenMachineX said:
lol it’s my memory. I’ve went through this very log a few times and have had the same epiphanies several times lol
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Tiger’s Milk mushroom; I take it every morning for at least the last 1.5 years. It’s a Nerve Growth Factor mimetic that can repair and build new brain cells, allowing better learning & rewiring. Plus protects the brain from oxidative stress & promotes neural longevity.

Anyway, I probably take in 7+ grams per day on most days. Definitely on training days, because I add 1,800-3,000 periWO. Then I’m keto Monday-Friday so I need much more to stay hydrated, and on the weekends I probably get nearly as much just from junk food. 2 packs of ramen is 4g alone.
 
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