Has anyone used low-dose steroids during weight loss (>25%bf)to preserve muscle mass?

G

gettingbackintoit

New member
Has anyone used low-dose steroids during weight loss (>25%bf)to preserve muscle mass?

Background: This is my first post on this forum even though I used to lurk around here a lot. I used to be quite seriously into lifting from the ages of 16-23. My father passed away about two years ago and due to depression and other factors I turned to alcohol and gained a substantial amount of weight (I went from 190 a>260). I still worked out on occasion because I enjoy it, and managed to keep most of my muscle mass, however I obviously became fairly obese. I started losing weight a few months ago and am down to 225 lbs. I imagine I've lost a bit of muscle so 180lb or so is about what I'm looking to cut down to. Additionally I have been diagnosed with adult-onset hypogonadotropic hypogonadism which essentially means that my brain doesn't tell my testicles to produce enough testosterone. Because of this I was initially put on testosterone injections but was switched to clomiphene and anastrazole for long-term therapy. Bad news is that sucks, good news is I don't have to worry about the testosterone suppression aspect of steroid use.

Now on to my question: I'm currently eating a well-balanced diet and maintaining a 500 calorie deficit. I'm not interested in becoming as large as I was in my prime but I would like to try to maintain my muscle mass through weight loss and potentially even make some very minor gains. The only supplements I'm currently on are creatine, HMB and glucosamine chondroitin (+ the aforementioned SERM and aromatase inhibitor). I was considering adding a very low dose (20mg) of oral turinabol to this list and increasing my caloric deficit to between 750-1000 calories. Does anyone have experience from being in a somewhat similar situation (ie overweight) or advice to throw my way?

Thanks in advance
 
That isn't correct. You do have to worry about suppression of your natural testosterone production. Clomid and Anastrozole cannot overpower the shut down effects of Tbol. I highly recommend that you do not do this. You of all people should know what it feels like to be hypogonadal. Don't put yourself back in that state.

Why did you stop testosterone injections? Are you trying to restart your HPTA?
 
How's the clomid and arimidex working for you? I haven't really heard of many going in that direction, as it's usually SERMs first, then test injections after as the side effects from SERMs long-term tend to be a bit much for some. Also, if you don't produce testosterone in great enough quantities naturally, suppression from exogenous testosterone means nothing as you're replacing your endogenous production anyway.

Herein lies the problem with your suggestion; tbol is suppressive, and NOTHING can override your negative feedback loop - which is what you were trying to avoid by going the SERM route. Your testosterone production will be turned off, making the clomid useless while on the tbol. This would work if you were on injections, but not SERM treatment.

If you're happy with how things are now treatment wise, you're going to be hard pressed to find anything that doesn't interfere with the fact that you still rely on your testes to provide testosterone, and the muscle sparing benefits that your own testosterone production provides.

I'd check out 3J in the diet forum and bounce some ideas off of him to see if he can't help you with your diet. In fact, if you wanted to hire him, I'm sure he'd be able to help you progress with as little catabolism as possible as he's one of the best nutritionists there are.

My .02c :)

Edit: Baaaahhhh, beaten by the decepticon again! No fair, I had a 5 year old jumping on me! :crying:
 
Last edited:
halfwit said:
How's the clomid and arimidex working for you? I haven't really heard of many going in that direction, as it's usually SERMs first, then test injections after as the side effects from SERMs long-term tend to be a bit much for some. Also, if you don't produce testosterone in great enough quantities naturally, suppression from exogenous testosterone means nothing as you're replacing your endogenous production anyway.

Herein lies the problem with your suggestion; tbol is suppressive, and NOTHING can override your negative feedback loop - which is what you were trying to avoid by going the SERM route. Your testosterone production will be turned off, making the clomid useless while on the tbol. This would work if you were on injections, but not SERM treatment.

If you're happy with how things are now treatment wise, you're going to be hard pressed to find anything that doesn't interfere with the fact that you still rely on your testes to provide testosterone, and the muscle sparing benefits that your own testosterone production provides.

I'd check out 3J in the diet forum and bounce some ideas off of him to see if he can't help you with your diet. In fact, if you wanted to hire him, I'm sure he'd be able to help you progress with as little catabolism as possible as he's one of the best nutritionists there are.

My .02c :)

Edit: Baaaahhhh, beaten by the decepticon again! No fair, I had a 5 year old jumping on me! :crying:
Click to expand...

But you said it so much better than me!
 
The medical comm uses low dose steroids to avoid cata. but that s like in the case of AIdS or severe burns etc.

To try to stave off catab. by using an oral of all things is going to be counter productive to say the least. I just lost in excess of 25 pounds in 3.5 weeks do to incarceration on bunk shit and in 3 day s of steady ingestion of ALL things, all day, but never stuffed...am able to report an 6-8 pound " fill in" from a striated Fight club to a top heavy tennis player.

U want to lose fat-quit eating so much. U want to f up ur hpta-take an oral. U want to feel good ? Step outside and smell the grass instead of 23 men s unwashed asses.

This ain t hard to figger out; it s hard to nut up and do...
 
Megatron28 said:
That isn't correct. You do have to worry about suppression of your natural testosterone production. Clomid and Anastrozole cannot overpower the shut down effects of Tbol. I highly recommend that you do not do this. You of all people should know what it feels like to be hypogonadal. Don't put yourself back in that state.

Why did you stop testosterone injections? Are you trying to restart your HPTA?
Click to expand...

I stopped testosterone injections because being on long-term testosterone therapy starting at the age of 23 tends to have serious consequences (infertility, increased stroke risk, increased cardiovascular risk, certain cancers etc). Perhaps this is untrue if you are cycling testosterone like most on the forums, but the long-term effects in HRT are well documented.

halfwit said:
How's the clomid and arimidex working for you? I haven't really heard of many going in that direction, as it's usually SERMs first, then test injections after as the side effects from SERMs long-term tend to be a bit much for some. Also, if you don't produce testosterone in great enough quantities naturally, suppression from exogenous testosterone means nothing as you're replacing your endogenous production anyway.

Herein lies the problem with your suggestion; tbol is suppressive, and NOTHING can override your negative feedback loop ***8212; which is what you were trying to avoid by going the SERM route. Your testosterone production will be turned off, making the clomid useless while on the tbol. This would work if you were on injections, but not SERM treatment.

If you're happy with how things are now treatment wise, you're going to be hard pressed to find anything that doesn't interfere with the fact that you still rely on your testes to provide testosterone, and the muscle sparing benefits that your own testosterone production provides.

I'd check out 3J in the diet forum and bounce some ideas off of him to see if he can't help you with your diet. In fact, if you wanted to hire him, I'm sure he'd be able to help you progress with as little catabolism as possible as he's one of the best nutritionists there are.

My .02c :)

Edit: Baaaahhhh, beaten by the decepticon again! No fair, I had a 5 year old jumping on me! :crying:
Click to expand...

It's interesting that you both feel that the negative feedback loop from the tbol cannot be modulated by any means. Anabolic-androgenic steroids exert their HPG-axis suppression via androgenic regulated mechanisms ("Second, AAS suppress the male hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axis via their androgenic effects" Source). Turinabol is the least androgenic steroid available and there is little documented evidence of it suppressing the HPG-axis aside from anecdotal evidence on message boards.

Furthermore, HCG has been proven to prevent suppression in men receiving testosterone therapy (source), which would lead me to believe an increase in gonadotropin-releasing hormone->LH would also prevent the suppressive effects of any anabolic steroid as well. That being said, although SERMS and anastrazole boost levels of GNrH they do so by a different mechanism of action than HCG, so if the negative feedback loop of AAS are different than testosterone (eg via estrogenic feedback), I could certainly understand why those two medications wouldn't prevent HPG suppression. Since HCG would completely ignore any negative feedback (ie you are skipping the step in the feedback loop that says to make GNrH and injecting yourself with an analogue of it instead) perhaps that is the medication I should be looking into. I also do still have plenty of injectable test so that's another option.

I'm not sure where where you're getting that SERM therapy has worse side effects than testosterone therapy. I was on 100mg clomiphene citrate daily before I experienced any sides. The only side effect I experienced prior to that was something similar to hot flashes when I first started SERM therapy; those were gone by week 2. On 100mg I had strange vision phenomena (flickering, difficult to explain) and cut down to 50mg/day which is still a VERY high dose for a male. If you look at most studies of SERMs in treatment of hypogonadoropic hypogonadism you'll find that the side effect profile is nearly non-existent. I would argue that many on these boards over-exaggerate the side effects, most likely because they are on the medication for a short period of time and start it abruptly after ending a cycle. I suppose over-exaggerate is incorrect, what I'm trying to say is that if I were to base my view of clomiphene off of what I've read on this board I should be a blubbering PMSing mess right now. That's far from the case in reality.

Thanks for the advice though and I'll definitely take all of that into consideration. Currently I'm leaning towards 200mg test cyp/week and 10mg turinabol in the mornings and evenings. I think you're spot on about suppression in the case of clomiphene/anastrazole and I'm not sure how I let that slip my mind. I don't really feel like ordering HCG since I already have test although it may be a better alternative for my case. Or I could be a science project and get my T tested before and after starting tbol while taking clomiphene/anastrazole and see what happens. I have a feeling you're right I'm still curious. If anyone knows of any papers regarding the mechanism if any AAS in HPG-axis suppression please let me know! The wife is a pharmacist so I like to let her review the literature even if AAS aren't her forte.
 
The chances of you losing any real muscle mass when at that high a bf% is extremely low, if not zero, unless you do something really stupid diet/training wise.

Keep protein above 1g/lbm & maintain intensity in the gym and you will have nothing to worry about provided your bloodwork is all in order :)
 
I failed at formatting on my ipad. Here are the two sources

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2875348

press.endocrine.org/doi/abs/10.1210/jc.2004-0802
 
Mrrippedzilla said:
The chances of you losing any real muscle mass when at that high a bf% is extremely low, if not zero, unless you do something really stupid diet/training wise.

Keep protein above 1g/lbm & maintain intensity in the gym and you will have nothing to worry about provided your bloodwork is all in order :)
Click to expand...

I've always heard that muscle and fat tend to both be lost in a catabolic state regardless of BF%. If you can find any source documenting that that assertion please link it to me because it would save my liver and gluteus medius a beating. I know that anabolics are generally not recommended at a higher bf% for a few reasons (lipid profile, concurrent administration of testosterone being converted to estrogen by fat etc). However considering my lipid profile is A-ok (don't ask me, I guess I'm a nice healthy fat guy) and I'll be taking anastrazole if I start test, my primary concern is simply efficacy. If there is no benefit in taking turinabol it's obviously not worth the risk, but if I can spare even 4lb of muscle I'll take those risks in stride.
 
gettingbackintoit said:
I've always heard that muscle and fat tend to both be lost in a catabolic state regardless of BF%. If you can find any source documenting that that assertion please link it to me because it would save my liver and gluteus medius a beating. I know that anabolics are generally not recommended at a higher bf% for a few reasons (lipid profile, concurrent administration of testosterone being converted to estrogen by fat etc). However considering my lipid profile is A-ok (don't ask me, I guess I'm a nice healthy fat guy) and I'll be taking anastrazole if I start test, my primary concern is simply efficacy. If there is no benefit in taking turinabol it's obviously not worth the risk, but if I can spare even 4lb of muscle I'll take those risks in stride.
Click to expand...

First of all, its important to remember that LBM loss and muscle loss are not the same concept - LBM includes things like water & glycogen, which tend to go down when dieting regardless of bf%.

A simple explanation for why a higher bf% reduces the chances of muscle loss is simply the fact that you have plenty of fat available for your body to use & your body simply isn't concerned with the issue from a physiological perspective.
The leaner you get, the more your body becomes concerned about the availability of fat - this reaction is genetically driven (things like P ratio, body fat mass set point levels, etc play a role) and causes a chain reaction resulting in the downregulation of a variety of hormones such as leptin, thyroid, testosterone, insulin, etc. All of this combined puts you in a highly catabolic state that results in higher risks for muscle loss as you get leaner.

You will find plenty of dieting studies with obese individuals showing complete preservation of muscle mass, for example:

High-intensity exercise and carbohydrate-reduced energy-restricted diet in obese individuals. - PubMed - NCBI

Changes in weight loss, body composition and cardiovascular disease risk after altering macronutrient distributions during a regular exercise progr... - PubMed - NCBI

Here is a study showing how a negative energy balance in lean, but NOT obese, individuals inhibits the hypothalamo -pituitary -thyroid, -gonadotropic & somatotropic axes while activating the hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenal axis. All of these adaptations result in decreases in thyroid, GH, insulin, IGF-1 & test levels that increase the risk of muscle loss:

Role of the hypothalamus in the neuroendocrine regulation of body weight and composition during energy deficit. - PubMed - NCBI

I've coached naturals through bodybuilding prep dieting down to 5-6% with absolutely minimal muscle loss (dexa scan). Any muscle loss that did occur was rapidly restored 4-8 weeks post contest.
So provided your methods of losing fat are not stupid (you keep protein height and train), real muscle loss simply isn't going to be an issue at your bf% :)
 
Megatron28 said:
Increasing protein consumption as Zilla indicated and doing resistance training can ward off the effects even in caloric deficit. Zilla will surely have better research on the matter than I do, but here is one study you may want to check out. Just hop on Pubmed and I am sure you can find more research.

Effect of a hypocaloric diet, increased protein intake and resistance training on lean mass gains and fat mass loss in overweight police officers. - PubMed - NCBI
Click to expand...

Honestly I'm more interested that the casein group has a significant higher increase in lean mass than the whey group. I imagine that's probably due to casein taking much longer to digest and be absorbed into the body; whereas whey is absorbed quickly. The body would spend much less time in a catabolic state with a steady intake of protein. That's actually a very interesting and useful study, thank you. I had been doing some cardio in the morning before I had eaten... Oops.

I think my best bet is probably to stick with the HMB + creatine and try to eat a high protein diet with a caloric deficit of 500, then cycle afterwards if I feel I've lost too much muscle. Fuck now this is just a typical steroid thread
 
If you put the same energy and time you have spent researching this into dieting and exercising, I have no doubt that you will be successful.
 
sounds like you know everything... so why did you even bother to come on here asking for help from well respected vets???

BTW... Turinabol is NOT the least androgenic steroid available, Anavar and Primo are much less androgenic (infact with var and primo androgenic side are nearly nil)
 
gettingbackintoit said:
I stopped testosterone injections because being on long-term testosterone therapy starting at the age of 23 tends to have serious consequences (infertility, increased stroke risk, increased cardiovascular risk, certain cancers etc). Perhaps this is untrue if you are cycling testosterone like most on the forums, but the long-term effects in HRT are well documented.



It's interesting that you both feel that the negative feedback loop from the tbol cannot be modulated by any means. Anabolic-androgenic steroids exert their HPG-axis suppression via androgenic regulated mechanisms ("Second, AAS suppress the male hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axis via their androgenic effects" Source). Turinabol is the least androgenic steroid available and there is little documented evidence of it suppressing the HPG-axis aside from anecdotal evidence on message boards.

Furthermore, HCG has been proven to prevent suppression in men receiving testosterone therapy (source), which would lead me to believe an increase in gonadotropin-releasing hormone->LH would also prevent the suppressive effects of any anabolic steroid as well. That being said, although SERMS and anastrazole boost levels of GNrH they do so by a different mechanism of action than HCG, so if the negative feedback loop of AAS are different than testosterone (eg via estrogenic feedback), I could certainly understand why those two medications wouldn't prevent HPG suppression. Since HCG would completely ignore any negative feedback (ie you are skipping the step in the feedback loop that says to make GNrH and injecting yourself with an analogue of it instead) perhaps that is the medication I should be looking into. I also do still have plenty of injectable test so that's another option.

I'm not sure where where you're getting that SERM therapy has worse side effects than testosterone therapy. I was on 100mg clomiphene citrate daily before I experienced any sides. The only side effect I experienced prior to that was something similar to hot flashes when I first started SERM therapy; those were gone by week 2. On 100mg I had strange vision phenomena (flickering, difficult to explain) and cut down to 50mg/day which is still a VERY high dose for a male. If you look at most studies of SERMs in treatment of hypogonadoropic hypogonadism you'll find that the side effect profile is nearly non-existent. I would argue that many on these boards over-exaggerate the side effects, most likely because they are on the medication for a short period of time and start it abruptly after ending a cycle. I suppose over-exaggerate is incorrect, what I'm trying to say is that if I were to base my view of clomiphene off of what I've read on this board I should be a blubbering PMSing mess right now. That's far from the case in reality.

Thanks for the advice though and I'll definitely take all of that into consideration. Currently I'm leaning towards 200mg test cyp/week and 10mg turinabol in the mornings and evenings. I think you're spot on about suppression in the case of clomiphene/anastrazole and I'm not sure how I let that slip my mind. I don't really feel like ordering HCG since I already have test although it may be a better alternative for my case. Or I could be a science project and get my T tested before and after starting tbol while taking clomiphene/anastrazole and see what happens. I have a feeling you're right I'm still curious. If anyone knows of any papers regarding the mechanism if any AAS in HPG-axis suppression please let me know! The wife is a pharmacist so I like to let her review the literature even if AAS aren't her forte.
Click to expand...

Oh dear, here we go again.

1. What do you think engages the negative feedback loop of the HPTA? That's right, the detection of androgens. Turinabol IS androgenic, and therefore will turn off that spigot on your pituitary gland faster than you can say "anabolic-androgenic steroid!". Don't believe me? I invite you to spend some of that energy you've used on looking for studies that support your hypothesis on reading more studies regarding such topic - or even better, the TRT forums here about kids that take oral cycles and end up regretting it.

2. I really don't think you understand just how the HPTA works. By injecting a leutinizing hormone analogue, you allow other systems to function normally while the negative feedback loop is engaged. This doesn't magically allow you to have BOTH endogenous AND exogenous testosterone. LH is the signalling pathway that is shutdown, and estrogenic activity does not reverse it. If it did, you would have a negative estrogenic coefficient, which would cause a runaway effect if estradiol is allowed to continue being created. (I promise this doesn't happen)

3. China Wall covered the androgenic properties imo, so I'll leave that one be.

4. I've been around folks both online and in person that use SERMs for close to a decade now. While you may have been okay with the side effects, many are not so lucky. I'd paste the link to drugs.com and their side effects page, but you're certainly capable of this yourself.

Side effects from testosterone? Hmm.

Still thinking about it.

Ohh, you're right, red blood cell generation is increased. Good thing donating blood is so easy, and you're doing something great for those in need at the same time. Literally EVERYTHING else is attributed to estradiol, or poor protocol management. I'm feeling lazy tonight, so if you don't believe me there, the TRT forums have quite a few links with proof.

I hope my tone isn't too aggressive, I tend to be a tad cranky after doing both leg day and donating platelets the same day. :)
 
Point everyone here is missing is the molecular neuron atrophy is being compromised by the protons not binding to the cells causing molecule tears in the cerebral adams causing androgen neuron catastrophic down regulation. When the Adam follicles miss the receptors the organic matter collapses and neurons are not combined evenly through the cells.
 
49ER said:
Point everyone here is missing is the molecular neuron atrophy is being compromised by the protons not binding to the cells causing molecule tears in the cerebral adams causing androgen neuron catastrophic down regulation. When the Adam follicles miss the receptors the organic matter collapses and neurons are not combined evenly through the cells.
Click to expand...

Those damn Adam follicles! :wiggle:
 
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