What are the best options for LOWT and obesity?

[couldthisbeit]

I am trying to understand the science behind all of these steroids and options. I've been reading on HGH, cypionate, propionate, etc. Right now, I have low T and that I need to address. Is cypionate the best option to be looking at to get my body to function like it should for now? I figure with being so overweight I need to just get on a decent regimen for the next couple of years so I can live life like a ma should. I have been a big fat kid my whole life with gynecomastia and that has held me back in so many areas and I would give anything to fix it. So, now that I am working to get my levels adjusted and working right I want to make sure I am doing everything I can to optimize the affects and reap the benefits. I am working on trying to change my diet and also getting to the gym 3-5x a week to mainly focus on cardio and maybe weights twice a week. Also looking at joining a boxing gym next month. What else do I need to focus on or work on to get the best results possible. I am really looking forward to getting rid of the depression and low libido that comes with Low T. I worry about posts where I read "Started testosterone replacement therapy (TRT), but I feel no difference", but I have to remind myself for every one of those posts there are probably 2 or 3 success stories that just don't post on their results. I guess having had low t for so long I don't know what I'm missing and don't fully know what to expect. I won't get a chacne to order my cyp until tomorrow, but I'll be doing that and HCG. I'm only going to be starting on 100mg a week, is this enough for a guy my size starting off, will I notice any difference? From what I understand it may take 3 months or so before I start to notice the differences, which is discouraging but comes with the territory I guess.

Sorry for the rambling, just looking for some help and am quite anxious and somewhat excited to get started and make some changes and hopefully be normal.

 

[halfwit]

The fact that you're taking care of your hormones will help tremendously, but you do need to make several permanent lifestyle changes. This means you need to learn how to properly eat first and foremost. Diet is the most important aspect of making such a drastic change to your body and lifestyle. This doesn't mean you should go on a retarded grapefruit diet or the new popsicle diet (seriously) which will do NOTHING for you in the long term. I would start spending time in the diet section here and learn as much as you possibly can. If you want to even go the next step with that, you could always hire 3J to write a really good diet plan up for you. Believe me when I say this is the most crucial part as I used to eat like utter crap but still was working out 6 days a week and not seeing the results I desired.

I would recommend sticking to resistance training first and foremost with cardio being a smaller part of the picture here. Building muscle tissue will help you to burn more calories not only when in the gym, but when you're doing everything else OUTSIDE the gym as well. You'll burn more calories even while sleeping when you have more lean body mass! Take your time though, it sounds like you've been sedentary for some time and you will need to build up those connective tissues such as tendons/ligaments. Everyone wants to go gung-ho immediately when they have this new inspiration and desire, but it's also a quick ticket to injury if your body just isn't ready for the extra strain yet. Not to mention, that hard and intermediate goals when starting out will quickly burn you out, killing your plans completely. Join a local gym and start off small, don't feel bad if you're lifting very little weight and finding yourself tired after a relatively short amount of time. We all start at the bottom and have to work our way up. This is a fact of life.

The ester of the testosterone will have very little impact on how your testosterone levels advance as it ultimately only dictates how often you will be injecting. Propionate is a very short ester and is not often chosen for testosterone replacement therapy (TRT) purposes because it requires very frequent injections. I would stick with cypionate and inject twice a week. I saw your other thread, and while I do think you will require more than 100mg/wk of testosterone, your doc is doing what he feels is best and starting you off small to see how you react. Be aware though, as you have a higher body fat percentage, you will likely aromatize more - meaning you will likely need an aromatase inhibitor (AI) to help control the creation of estrogen, most notably estradiol which will increase as your testosterone increases. I hope your doctor knows of this relationship with testosterone, and is able to help you keep your estradiol (E2) in check. I wonder if you're thinking of Human Chorionic Gonadotropin (HCG) as HGH isn't usually part of a testosterone replacement therapy (TRT) protocol at your age and is quite expensive. Human Chorionic Gonadotropin (HCG) is primarily used to mimic the LH (luteinizing hormone) which tells your testes to "stay awake", keeping them from atrophying as well as "tricking" your body into the continued production of other hormones that are not necessarily produced by the testes, but require LH to have continued production. An example of these hormones would be DHEA and pregnenolone. I personally supplement with DHEA and pregnenolone and have foregone the Human Chorionic Gonadotropin (HCG) treatment as atrophy doesn't bother me at all and my doctor does not feel Human Chorionic Gonadotropin (HCG) is something he is comfortable with prescribing. Your doc may have a different viewpoint on this, and by all means you very well could benefit from Human Chorionic Gonadotropin (HCG) as well as testosterone.

TRT does take time to see results, most notably the first couple months are spent (for the majority) fine tuning your protocol and getting you dialed into the appropriate amount of hormones/AI/HCG so you feel great. You also need to keep in mind that as the effects of low-T take time to develop, undoing those side effects can take time as well. I know it took me almost a year to feel significantly better as I had gone with low-T for a very long time and suffered the majority of the side effects of such deficiency. Just be patient, you'll see the light at the end of the tunnel in due time.

My .02c

 

[couldthisbeit]

The fact that you're taking care of your hormones will help tremendously, but you do need to make several permanent lifestyle changes. This means you need to learn how to properly eat first and foremost. Diet is the most important aspect of making such a drastic change to your body and lifestyle. This doesn't mean you should go on a retarded grapefruit diet or the new popsicle diet (seriously) which will do NOTHING for you in the long term. I would start spending time in the diet section here and learn as much as you possibly can. If you want to even go the next step with that, you could always hire 3J to write a really good diet plan up for you. Believe me when I say this is the most crucial part as I used to eat like utter crap but still was working out 6 days a week and not seeing the results I desired.

I would recommend sticking to resistance training first and foremost with cardio being a smaller part of the picture here. Building muscle tissue will help you to burn more calories not only when in the gym, but when you're doing everything else OUTSIDE the gym as well. You'll burn more calories even while sleeping when you have more lean body mass! Take your time though, it sounds like you've been sedentary for some time and you will need to build up those connective tissues such as tendons/ligaments. Everyone wants to go gung-ho immediately when they have this new inspiration and desire, but it's also a quick ticket to injury if your body just isn't ready for the extra strain yet. Not to mention, that hard and intermediate goals when starting out will quickly burn you out, killing your plans completely. Join a local gym and start off small, don't feel bad if you're lifting very little weight and finding yourself tired after a relatively short amount of time. We all start at the bottom and have to work our way up. This is a fact of life.

The ester of the testosterone will have very little impact on how your testosterone levels advance as it ultimately only dictates how often you will be injecting. Propionate is a very short ester and is not often chosen for testosterone replacement therapy (TRT) purposes because it requires very frequent injections. I would stick with cypionate and inject twice a week. I saw your other thread, and while I do think you will require more than 100mg/wk of testosterone, your doc is doing what he feels is best and starting you off small to see how you react. Be aware though, as you have a higher body fat percentage, you will likely aromatize more - meaning you will likely need an aromatase inhibitor (AI) to help control the creation of estrogen, most notably estradiol which will increase as your testosterone increases. I hope your doctor knows of this relationship with testosterone, and is able to help you keep your estradiol (E2) in check. I wonder if you're thinking of Human Chorionic Gonadotropin (HCG) as HGH isn't usually part of a testosterone replacement therapy (TRT) protocol at your age and is quite expensive. Human Chorionic Gonadotropin (HCG) is primarily used to mimic the LH (luteinizing hormone) which tells your testes to "stay awake", keeping them from atrophying as well as "tricking" your body into the continued production of other hormones that are not necessarily produced by the testes, but require LH to have continued production. An example of these hormones would be DHEA and pregnenolone. I personally supplement with DHEA and pregnenolone and have foregone the Human Chorionic Gonadotropin (HCG) treatment as atrophy doesn't bother me at all and my doctor does not feel Human Chorionic Gonadotropin (HCG) is something he is comfortable with prescribing. Your doc may have a different viewpoint on this, and by all means you very well could benefit from Human Chorionic Gonadotropin (HCG) as well as testosterone.

TRT does take time to see results, most notably the first couple months are spent (for the majority) fine tuning your protocol and getting you dialed into the appropriate amount of hormones/AI/HCG so you feel great. You also need to keep in mind that as the effects of low-T take time to develop, undoing those side effects can take time as well. I know it took me almost a year to feel significantly better as I had gone with low-T for a very long time and suffered the majority of the side effects of such deficiency. Just be patient, you'll see the light at the end of the tunnel in due time.

My .02c

Thank you so much for your reply. A lot of information to take in. I hadn't considered focusing mainly on weights to build and increase muscle, I was just thinking cardio cardio cardio. I see you share the thought about 100mg not being enough. I just don't know what to do to hint at that, especially when some people don't notice any differences at all. So, it could be that it isn't working for me, yet or it's to small of a dose and just seems like that will be time wasted when I could have been progressing more. I'm going to try to unwind myself and not get so excited lol. Almost trying to prepare myself for disappointment.
Thanks again.

 

[Megatron28]

Have you had your testosterone levels tested yet? Do you know what you are at? Estradiol would be another good one to know along with LH and FSH.

 

[couldthisbeit]

Have you had your testosterone levels tested yet? Do you know what you are at? Estradiol would be another good one to know along with LH and FSH.

Yea I'm from the other thread you posted on, lol you have been responding to me there.

 

[halfwit]

Thank you so much for your reply. A lot of information to take in. I hadn't considered focusing mainly on weights to build and increase muscle, I was just thinking cardio cardio cardio. I see you share the thought about 100mg not being enough. I just don't know what to do to hint at that, especially when some people don't notice any differences at all. So, it could be that it isn't working for me, yet or it's to small of a dose and just seems like that will be time wasted when I could have been progressing more. I'm going to try to unwind myself and not get so excited lol. Almost trying to prepare myself for disappointment.
Thanks again.

Your doc should retest your serum testosterone levels in about a month to see how the treatment is going. I went from 100mg to 150mg to 200mg to 250mg while getting dialed in. It's annoying at best and very frustrating knowing that you're going to need a bigger dose, but you have to let them do it their way. Just buckle up for the ride and you'll get through in due time, I promise.

Yeah, it's surprising how much our society thinks cardio is the way to lose weight. I honestly think that's why there are so many "skinny fat" people running around that have next to zero muscle tone yet a noticeable amount of body fat on them. They're told to crash diet (eats muscle) followed by a cardio routine that also eats muscle as they're not eating right. Eating just a couple hundred calories under your maintenance value coupled with resistance training is the sure-fire way to go. It kills me to see the majority of folks in my gym on the treadmills/bikes/ellipticals when they really need to be pushing that iron around. Oh well, at least I don't have to wait for a free bench usually.