Unanswered Joepaul39 needsadvice-Continue bulking or switch to cut? (Pics included)

[JoePaul39]

Three weeks into a bulk cycle that includes DMZ, test, S23, LGD and a couple other compounds. Have 5 weeks left. Feel I may be getting too fat. Below is a pic of me three weeks ago on day 1 of my cycle and a pic of me today. What do you think I should do, immediately switch to a cut for the last 5 weeks, continue bulking another week or 2 then cut, or finish the cycle as a bulk?

 

[Nac]

Bust ass on your shoulders and tris, dude.

 

[BBiceps]

I would suggest a hardcore cut, especially with all that gear. “Bulking” is overrated if you’re not a competitive bodybuilder and you have long way to go to be that.

 

[Mathb33]

if I was in your shoes I’d drop down to 12-13% BF so you really know where you’re at and then I’d start a lean bulk with slow but steady Progress. I know this idea probably sucks but in the long run it’s really the best option!

 

[NoAddedHmones]

Whats up with the amount of gear though man?

 

[BBiceps]

Whats up with the amount of gear though man?

Yeah, I don’t know who said this cycle would be a good idea...

 

[hairygrandpa]

IMHO, you need more muscles on your frame -and less tit/hip tire fat. I would either recomping -or cutting.

Who recommended a cycle like this?

 

[Whisky]

I seem to recall @MrKleen73 once saying that the majority of us should really be recomping on nearly every cycle.....personally I agree, unless competing a flat out bulk has limited value especially.

 

[JoePaul39]

Thanks for the input everyone. Gonna take everyone’s advice and switch to a cut.. Probably insane to have even considered to continue bulking.

 

[jrock645]

Thanks for the input everyone. Gonna take everyone’s advice and switch to a cut.. Probably insane to have even considered to continue bulking.

Live and learn. All part of the journey.

 

[Borashi]

Cut my brother. Get ripped,stay hungry, slay that iron. Only you stand in the way of your own goals. Let's get it.

 

[hairygrandpa]

Thanks for the input everyone. Gonna take everyone’s advice and switch to a cut.. Probably insane to have even considered to continue bulking.

We all fight the titi-hipfat demon constantly, go steady and disciplined, you will reach your goals -but not with cycles like that.

 

[khall1974]

I will never bulk again...maybe bump up cals 500 to 700 more. At 44 it is easy to put on and hard ad hell to take off. My goal is to stay lean all year and get stronger.

 

[hairygrandpa]

I will never bulk again...maybe bump up cals 500 to 700 more. At 44 it is easy to put on and hard ad hell to take off. My goal is to stay lean all year and get stronger.

"goal is to stay lean all year and get stronger". And eat what you want all day!

 

[khall1974]

"goal is to stay lean all year and get stronger". And eat what you want all day!

Word!!!!

 

[khall1974]

The hard part is dialing in your diet to keep your gains while off cycle.

 

[JoePaul39]

We all fight the titi-hipfat demon constantly, go steady and disciplined, you will reach your goals -but not with cycles like that.

I was eating at a bulk of 5000 calories a day. I don’t want to recomp because I am too fat. Considering I am on a lot of gear how low do you think I can cut to in terms of calories per day and not lose much muscle? I was thinking of going to either 2000 or 2500 for the remaining 5 weeks of the cycle. I am 5
foot 10, 218 pounds, and am at roughly 22 and a half percent body fat.

 

[JoePaul39]

I would suggest a hardcore cut, especially with all that gear. “Bulking” is overrated if you’re not a competitive bodybuilder and you have long way to go to be that.

How low would you suggest in light of the fact that I am on all this gear for a “hardcore cut” as you call it? Got 5 weeks left in the cycle.

 

[hairygrandpa]

I was eating at a bulk of 5000 calories a day. I don’t want to recomp because I am too fat. Considering I am on a lot of gear how low do you think I can cut to in terms of calories per day and not lose much muscle? I was thinking of going to either 2000 or 2500 for the remaining 5 weeks of the cycle. I am 5
foot 10, 218 pounds, and am at roughly 22 and a half percent body fat.

I may be alone with my opinion on that -but, you can go as low as you want, if you use a bunch of PED's.
Did a "water only fast" for 6 days and did not loose any muscles. Even if you loose a bit, you put it right on when resuming a normal diet. The fear of loosing muscles is overrated, especially when on gear.

 

[hairygrandpa]

Thing is, when your cycle is over you WILL look smaller. Nothing you can do about it -but don't confuse it with muscle loss. Its only glycogen loss.

 

[JoePaul39]

I may be alone with my opinion on that -but, you can go as low as you want, if you use a bunch of PED's.
Did a "water only fast" for 6 days and did not loose any muscles. Even if you loose a bit, you put it right on when resuming a normal diet. The fear of loosing muscles is overrated, especially when on gear.

Thanks! I trust your advice as you are a veteran and I am familiar with your story on how you came a long way to tour transformation. I am going to try 2000 calories. If I get to hungry may bump it up
to 2500 though.

 

[JoePaul39]

Thing is, when your cycle is over you WILL look smaller. Nothing you can do about it -but don't confuse it with muscle loss. Its only glycogen loss.

I know. To be expected with DMZ especially.

 

[hairygrandpa]

Thanks! I trust your advice as you are a veteran and I am familiar with your story on how you came a long way to tour transformation. I am going to try 2000 calories. If I get to hungry may bump it up
to 2500 though.

Thank you. I'm far from knowing it all. If you are familiar with my errors too: Cycles like yours now, LOL. The one thing I really did well was to go slow, I mean constant fiddling with diets and recomping, instead of starving myself down. You are way more advanced , physique wise, than I was back then. My guess is: One year and you look great. Keep grinding brother!

 

[JoePaul39]

Ya, slow and study wins the race. On that advice I think I am going to start at 2500 calories a day rather than 2000. Not because I worried about losing muscle at 2000, but rather because at 2000 I would be more prone to getting hunger pains and end up binging and setting myself up to fail. Will start at 2500 and evaluate after a week if I need to adjust in either direction. Thanks for your help.

 

[Mathb33]

"goal is to stay lean all year and get stronger". And eat what you want all day!

 

[Matthersby]

Ya, slow and study wins the race. On that advice I think I am going to start at 2500 calories a day rather than 2000. Not because I worried about losing muscle at 2000, but rather because at 2000 I would be more prone to getting hunger pains and end up binging and setting myself up to fail. Will start at 2500 and evaluate after a week if I need to adjust in either direction. Thanks for your help.

Consider this too:
In 2016 I could eat 5500 cals a day.
But continued losing body fat as I steadily gained muscle.
2 reasons for this, instead of eating barely enough calories to rebuild my muscle and rebuild it bigger, I ate more than enough calories to build muscle, but WALKED 8 hours a day for my job. I also never skipped workouts, did HIIT type training(change of T-shirt needed type training where you do 1:45 workout in 55min)
2nd reason is drugs.
Test never below 250, Trest cruise, fast acting insulin, and potent Oral Dht’s.

You could take the recomp approach and ENSURE you are building muscle but do so much activity, that your body will be anabolic but forced to peel muscle off from drugs and energy expenditure.
I don’t care if it’s old school bodybuilding thinking, IIFYM and calories in vs calories out aside, you can do more when your carbs are yams, brown rice, and veggies than if you just ate your days carbs in Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Drugs will make things possible that aren’t. And if you want badly enough to be ripped and put more muscle on concurrently, it’s just a matter of how tenacious you are about it. It can be done, I’ve seen it.

 

[hairygrandpa]

Consider this too:
In 2016 I could eat 5500 cals a day.
But continued losing body fat as I steadily gained muscle.
2 reasons for this, instead of eating barely enough calories to rebuild my muscle and rebuild it bigger, I ate more than enough calories to build muscle, but WALKED 8 hours a day for my job. I also never skipped workouts, did HIIT type training(change of T-shirt needed type training where you do 1:45 workout in 55min)
2nd reason is drugs.
Test never below 250, Trest cruise, fast acting insulin, and potent Oral Dht’s.

You could take the recomp approach and ENSURE you are building muscle but do so much activity, that your body will be anabolic but forced to peel muscle off from drugs and energy expenditure.
I don’t care if it’s old school bodybuilding thinking, IIFYM and calories in vs calories out aside, you can do more when your carbs are yams, brown rice, and veggies than if you just ate your days carbs in Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Drugs will make things possible that aren’t. And if you want badly enough to be ripped and put more muscle on concurrently, it’s just a matter of how tenacious you are about it. It can be done, I’ve seen it.

I ate less calories to avoid long walks or HIIT. Restricted carbs to a minimum of about 100-150gr/day and introduced intermittent fasting. Same outcome -but should do more cardio for heart health in future.
Cruising on 250mg/w ; 50mg/d proviron ; 10mg cialis e3d ; low dose insulin pre workout. Works like a charm.
Apparently, @Matthersby and I came independently to a similar approach that gives results, without the need of sh1tloads of gear.

 

[BBiceps]

How low would you suggest in light of the fact that I am on all this gear for a “hardcore cut” as you call it? Got 5 weeks left in the cycle.

If I were you I wouldn’t be so focused on calorie intake, I would go next to zero carbs, high protein&moderate fat with morning cardio/walks on fasted and lift at night. Keep carbs around heavy lifting and do some lifestyle changes to dial in a better year around diet. In the long run you’ll be much happier.

 

[MrKleen73]

How much has your body changed since you cut back on calories? What have the results of these suggestions been?

 

[JoePaul39]

How much has your body changed since you cut back on calories? What have the results of these suggestions been?

Lost 10 pounds and 2 percent body fat in 2 weeks. Some of the weight loss is not fat though and definitely glycogen loss from the DMZ due to cutting daily calories in half and drastically cutting carbs. A little under 3 weeks left in the cut. Eating approximately 2700 calories a day.

 

[MrKleen73]

Nice, I was going to suggest bumping to 2500 just to keep gaining a little lbm while leaning up. You won't lose too much faster @ 2000 but won't make any gains. So 2700 sounds like it should be great for your goals. Next time try bumping by about 10% of total calories a day first. Will be enough to add solid muscle mass while not adding much if any fat. Then bump up gradually 3-5% at a time from there if needed.

 

[JoePaul39]

Nice, I was going to suggest bumping to 2500 just to keep gaining a little lbm while leaning up. You won't lose too much faster @ 2000 but won't make any gains. So 2700 sounds like it should be great for your goals. Next time try bumping by about 10% of total calories a day first. Will be enough to add solid muscle mass while not adding much if any fat. Then bump up gradually 3-5% at a time from there if needed.

Ya i started too low at 2000 calories a day with only about 100 grams. The fatigue and hunger was unbearable and I felt I was losing so much too fast that I risked losing muscle so I bumped up both calories and clean carbs. Figured even though I am cutting since I am on DMZ I could eat more carbs and still lose fat so long as I maintained a deficit. If you go straight down to 2000 you really leave yourself no place to go after that.

 

[DS3317]

Ya i started too low at 2000 calories a day with only about 100 grams. The fatigue and hunger was unbearable and I felt I was losing so much too fast that I risked losing muscle so I bumped up both calories and clean carbs. Figured even though I am cutting since I am on DMZ I could eat more carbs and still lose fat so long as I maintained a deficit. If you go straight down to 2000 you really leave yourself no place to go after that.

You’re not going to lose much muscle if your protein is high enough with anabolics. The problem is most people think they lost muscle when they actually didn’t have that much to begin with. I don’t mind suffering when I lose fat it almost feels rewarding. If you go down to 2000 you can go lower. Get the fat off as quick as possible then slowly add in carbs week to week. Keep a log of diet and lifts.
Look up bulselmo diet. You’re not gonna screw yourself up even going 1600calories a day.
When you’re pretty shredded then lift progressively heavy and get strong as **** so you actually have a good base.