Thread: First cycle in the books

Background: I've been working out for almost 20 years. I've been in great shape and I've been in bad shape. I never considered using gear because I never had a goal I couldn't hit without it. That is until I got on the wrong side of 30. Maybe it's the age or the lack of time or the bad diet/workout influence I live with. For whatever ever reason, it had been hard to stay where I want to be. I would get in shape, and then out again. For the last few years I can't keep from getting injured which isn't helping. At the end of June 09 I was in good, not great shape and broke my wrist which slowed the workouts down. Before that was fully recovered I strained the other wrist and severely sprained an ankle. I was coaching football at the time, so I had no chance to heal until the season was over in Dec. I was semi-healthy for a few months and started to slowly get back in shape. Then at the end of May, I tore all the ligaments keeping my thumb in place and had surgery. I was falling apart. I felt like I had low T. My libido sucked, my energy sucked and my gym workout sucked. So to hell with it, I got some gear! I know I was too fat to start. Workout/diet knowledge and ability weren’t a problem so I thought I’d take my chances with estrogen. I was sure with my current condition my shape would improve rapidly.

Cycle:

Test E:
125 2xwk for 2 weeks
250mg 2xwk for 9 weeks
T3 ramped up to 100mg took for 6wks
Clen 2 weeks on ramped to 120mg, 1 week off on Benadryl 6 total on.

Weight: starting 222, finished 217

BF%: starting 26%, finished 9.8% (little disclaimer. I believe my calipers are consistent but not correct. I’m not down to 9.8%, but I believe I’ve lost 16%)

LBM: starting 163, ending 196 (see caliper disclaimer above also, I was in a detrained state due to surgery which I wasn’t able to lift at all for several weeks and not with my dominant hand for a few more. That means much of my LBM gains were just recovering what I had lost)

Strength: dramatic increase, I may post work out stats later.

Diet: Anabolic diet by Llewellyn, but could have eaten better carbs when loading.

I didn’t have many issues with sides from the test. The one issue I had may be caused by the main problem I had during the cycle. I tried taking aromasin 12.5mg ED starting two weeks before a wedding I was in to help with bloat (although with my fatness I didn’t notice much). As it turns out I’m allergic to aromasin or at least something in the tab. One Friday morning I woke up with itch hives all down my sides and inside of my thighs. I took some Benadryl and it got better. Same crap Saturday morning. Saturday night was a terrible night. I was like a cracked out zombie scratching myself almost to the point of bleeding. I think I freaked my wife out. At about 3 A.M. she noticed I wasn’t in bed and came looking for me. I was seriously using kitchen utensils to scratch like a junky on the verge of freaking out. I was going so hard it could count as cardio. Finally at about 5am I tried to OD on Benadryl which knocked me out. I stopped taking anything I had except test and went to the doctor. He gave me a week of prednisone which barely keeps the itch at bay. When the week was up the hives made a full comeback and I was given a long lasting cortisone shot. I freaking hate these. I’ve had two before for seasonal allergies. The last one was about 3 years ago, with no diet/exercise change I put on 20lbs of blubber within a few weeks. I really didn’t want this crap during my first cycle, but hell, anything is better than staying up all night trying to figure out just how hard you can scratch without drawing blood. This solved my problem and with trial and error over the next few weeks I found it was the aromasin. I check weight and BF every morning. I didn’t gain any fat with the cortisone this time, but it stonewalled my gains for 3 of the last 5 weeks of my cycle. I made little to no progress at that time. I also broke out with acne for the first time shortly after that shot. 4 weeks later I have all the same zits. They don’t want to leave! I may cut them out soon!
Other things I learned on my first cycle:
1. I should have been doing this years ago. I felt great.
2. Super libido is only fun if your wife isn’t super pregnant and never in the mood. I want to hump non-stop all day and all night and all I get mercy loving about once a week that has all the quality of a blow-up doll. I’m surprised my forearms aren’t bigger.
3. I’m still freaking injury prone. I started curls too soon after surgery, overcompensated with my good arm and injured it. I couldn’t do curls for the first several weeks and it hurt to do anything with my arms.
4. I like T3 it seems to work great, but damn I was almost happy when it was out I was so tired of waking up in wet sheets from sweating! It was also good timing that we had 3 weeks of +100 degree temps where I’m at.
5. I thought clen was also nice. Shakes made me look trippy in a meeting or two, but nothing bad. I did find out the hard way I need to ramp up each time after a break. I had been taking 80mg in the morning and 40 later in the day with no sides. I went off for 1 week then took 80mg in the morning and felt like my head was going to explode for the next 12 hours.
6. This crap is addictive. I don’t want to come off. I will be doing this for many years to come.

I didn’t end up in as good of shape has I had hoped, but I did make great improvements. I think I would have hit my personal goals if the whole allergy/cortisone crap hadn’t messed me up several weeks.

I have a couple pics. Really I took crappy pics, the improvement was much more drastic than this shows. Maybe I should have taken some from the side or something. I still have a long way to go, but I'm on the right path. As for abs...mine do not like to show up. Years ago I was going to be shirtless in front of a stadium full of college girls, so I was extra motivated to get ripped. I had never had a 6-pack so that was the goal. I always had 2, but never 6. At one point, I had road-map arms, veins popping all over my chest and traps, ripped serratus anterior and blubber around my belly button and love handles. At 8% lab tested BF I still had that fat. It was all I could do to finally get down to the 6-pack