I’ve seen lots regarding ADHD meds (and opiates) raising PRL. The rise in DA lowers PRL for a bit, and eventually it comes back up. I’ll see if I can find a few items on it. I remember Phentermine did this as well.
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Not worried, more curious to be honest. DHEA nearly doubled while not taking anything that would have increased DHEA 
Will be taking a weeklong break from current diet to help with compliance, but I think I will run 4-8 weeks Keto (until I start feeling the Keto Blues), then transition into Vertical Diet (which is could be over-reduced to Keto + rice).
Was considering lowering T dose a bit, may further consider this after speaking with the provider.
Thank you for the thoughtful input.
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I’d look into citrus bergamont for lipids. Helps that it is cheap and over the counter / available on Amazon. I am probably going to add this into my stack.
Research is varied in results (I am of the opinion that this is due to varying dosing, I’ve seen 150 mg to 1000 mg being used in studies). It seems at 1000 mg/day is quite effective. I found a 1000 mg supplement on Amazon for under $0.20 a day.
Bergamot and Cholesterol Research – Bergasterol, 100% Calabrian citrus bergamot juice
IMO, these are incredible results for a supplement.
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Lol no, but I’ll pat the chicken dry and coat it with flour after salt and garlic powder - then shake off the excess. It’s basically as dry as I can make it and only whatever flour sticks is what I use, which is quite thin in reality.
I could weigh it, and it would be a few grams per chicken breast.
I’ll certainly look into this, thank you!
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Looks like your A1C was 5.5, I wouldn’t worry at all about it. That’s completely fine. Instead of obsessing over carbs, just be sure to get them from fiber rich sources, or add a fiber supplement such as Metamucil to your diet. Looksl like studies say it works as well as some diabetes drugs. Especially when you are eating so few carbs, its important to get enough fiber so you keep crapping enough lol. Personally, I’d say you are probably OK eating significantly more than 100g/day carbs if you are getting 30-40g fiber per day, and you just eat your carbs along with those massive 200+g protein lol. Carbs are highly overdemonized, but mostly out of context. It’s fuel, and if you use it thats fine, but if you just consume a ton of it and are sedenetary, thats a problem.
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It’s not so much that I’m worried about it, moreso that it indicates insulin resistance - which inhibits muscle growth and fat loss. Clearly I haven’t had too many issues with muscle growth (not being arrogant, just that I’m on the right side of the distribution curve of muscle mass by a good bit), but leaning out has always been a struggle for me. Partially because I’m mentally a fatass that needs to eat all the time, and just thinking about dieting makes me hungry; moreso because I have a bad relationship with food where I’ll eat until I’m full, then keep eating.
In addition to this, though, is that being insulin resistant will royally screw up my plans on staying lean year-round. I’m not exactly fat right now, but I’d like to be 6-pack lean whether bulking or cutting.
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Again, even prediabetes isn’t until you get up into the 6% range. Let’s zoom out and look at this big picture: Your A1C is completely fine, your lipids are bad. If that’s the case, why would you eat MORE fat and LESS carbs? Sometimes it pays to not overthink things.
I’m the same way when it comes to hunger: I trained myself to overeat and bulk for sports as a teen, and I can EASILY consume far too much at ANY meal, and I get super hangry if I dont eat every 4 hours. That said, you are big dude and a beast in the weight room, fuel yourself accordingly. You may find any flagging performance, low libido, depressed mood is because your body is running too much on ketosis, which let’s all be honest: would you wannt to run your house permanently on a backup generator?
It looks like you are doing a great job of focusing on fat quality, so do the same with carbs. I’ll attach a super boring study below, but theres a part in the middle about moderate carb diets.
this excerpt is good as well:
A one-year randomized controlled study of 202 individuals with a body mass index (BMI) ≥28 and at least another metabolic disorder compared the effect of two dietary counseling-based interventions advocating either for a low-Glycemic load diet (30%-35% of calories from low-GI carbohydrates) or a low-fat diet (<30% of calories from fat) (61). Weight loss with each diet was equivalent (~4 kg). Both interventions similarly reduced triglycerides, C-reactive protein (CRP), and fasting insulin, and increased HDL-cholesterol. Yet, the reduction in waist and hip circumferences was greater with the low-fat diet
Look at that again, those were obese people WITH a metabolic condition, and they had EQUIVALENT weight loss, and GREATER reduction in waist and hip circumference eating more carbohydrates. You are a young gym beast, fuel your body thusly lol. A lot of old guys like me focus on eating better and more fats to keep T and hormone levels up. But you have TRT to do that for you.
Marcus Filly has a lot on this topic, RP diet, or I love Layne Norton for his insights. Coach Thib has a bunch of neurotyping stuff for diet too, and I’ve just begun experimenting with that on myself (type 1B). I would say check those out for topics on moderate carbs, or maybe a reverse diet to help out. A dude like you should probably be eating closer 3000cals per day with 200+ carbs. They’ve been demonized into oblivion, but as some of the other guys have said, think big picture: only fear carbs if you eat a ton of shitty ones, and sit around on your ass all day. get your fiber and protein with the carbs and you’ll be fine. If you want to move and lift and be a strong fuckin ox, then get your fuel man lol.
Last but not least: You are doing better than 99% of your peers and the general population, so keep that shit up man. Good work.
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Okay hold on, am I understanding this correctly that both Potatoes and Rice are considered high Glycemic Load foods - and that the goal would be to lower my Glycemic Load?
I’ve never once paid attention to glycemic index stuff because I never thought I’d need to lol
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GI really truly is only a valuable tool for diabetics. GL is a much better tool however overall, because it factors in GI along with AMOUNT eaten, so it actually has more general real world application. If you just browse through a GL chart, you can see how easy it is to eat 200-300g of carbs, but keep your daily GL under 100, which keeps your risk of insulin resistance and DM down. Since that’s a concern for you, this may be a better approach to your diet, and a way to eat more fuel, feel better, feel fuller, and reduce your worry, instead of trying to fuckin Metcon and hit PRs on 100g carbs a day…which just sucks donkey balls lol. As an older guy, just trying to offer some helpful tools and tips…because no one ever looks back and says " man, I wish I’d eaten more kale and coconut oil"
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Not sure keto + rice will do anything for your lipids. Natural fats are not bad IMO. Would try getting fats from natural sources, steaks, cream, eggs and salmon etc. Less oils.
Although this would be taking it more towards low-fat higher carbs I believe stopping frying your food in polyunsaturates can only be a good thing. Low fat and high carbs is better than a mixture. Not saying to go vegan or go keto but do pick a heavily biased one and give it a whirl.
This is definitely a valid point and often conventional thought concerning cardiovascular health. I assume your comment relates to resultant cholesterol increase as response to the extra dietary fat? Dietary fat and elevated cholesterol isn’t the issue in terms of mortality and heart attacks from what I’ve read and believe. Much of the research points towards high blood sugar induced insulin resistance and the resulting fat storage mechanisms. Cue the PubMed Ping Pong
.
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N=1, but the best lipids I’ve ever had were on Keto. Could be that I lost 20ish lbs though.
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Apologies if the layout of my reply was unclear. Have edited the post.
Could quite believe your lipids were good on Keto, or any quality high natural fat, low processed carb diet.
If insulin resistance is not the root cause of many of these metabolic issues it’s certainly close to it!
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Lol, no ping pong. I would agree and say the overall condition of Heart disease is multifactorial, and generally speaking, bad lipids profiles, inflammation, inactivity, IR and DM ALL contribute to/cause heart disease. Agree fats are not bad. But carbs are also not bad either.
If we just look at the basics of each macronutrient, per gram, it’s MUCH easier to overconsume fat/cholesterol. If you have too much chronically, it’s just easier to deposit in any areas of vascular damage that may be caused by DM, smoking, etc. While not causal, still associated. I think it’s actually much more difficult to overconsume carbohydrates, especially for active athletic people focusing on whole food sources, than many realize. From the scaremongering of the past 20 years, too many strength athletes are coming a carb intake for for a 90lb teenage girl.
I think the QUALITY of both is key as well. Consuming less saturated fat is best, and consuming fiber rich, lower GL carbs, is probably best practice as well. But all of this needs to be done in the overall picture of proper AMOUNT/caloric intake. Hence my hesitancy to lean towards more dietary fats. Chronically overconsuming energy leads to increased bodyweight, and then usually the aforementioned DM and CVD. I don’t think ANY type of fat or carb is “bad” independent of amount and overall diet/lifestyle.
Layne Norton just published some pretty good actual real people fun reading on the subject of you are interested, but good discussion fellas!
Glad it worked for you! I would just venture a guess that overall caloric intake was well under control, especially since you lost 20#. If your body is actually using the fats for fuel, hard for too much to build up in the blood. Nice work man.
Just curious: how was your gym performance while doing it?
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It sucks for gym performance. Losing weight in general sucks for that, but keto might have been worse.
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Thanks for the detailed reply, a good topic for discussion this one!
Definitely
Fat has the higher energy density yes but 3000cals/day of proper keto at < 20g/day of net carbs is more difficult to eat than 3000cals/day of classic bro diet in my experience. I’m sure anyone who’s ran Keto for a while can attest to this.
@Andrewgen_Receptors seems pretty active and probably eats a “better” diet than most of the western world yet has markers of insulin resistance. This is an interesting one and maybe comes down to the beloved “everyone is different” explanation. Find what works for us individually.
There has been a lot of scaremongering, against sugar though not so much carbs. For context, let’s remember that carbs are the one macronutrient we can happily thrive without. I don’t think they are bad though. I do though often consider that their abundance is quite recent compared to human development.
Not sure this is clear yet. The research I linked reports the contrary, if from dairy at least.
The paper linked below convincingly presents the effects of blood sugar levels increasing cholesterol binding affinity to arterial walls. Interested in your thoughts on this?
Relative to simple carbs absolutely!
Do you feel caloric intake is affecting OPs lipids or Hemo A1C? It’s possible, large meals of simple carbs like rice or pasta 5 times per day could rollercoaster insulin.
Each to their own… I read the article in full. It was immediately alarming that the writer uses quite a number of the initial paragraphs to confirm his credibility. Large swathes of it are in first person, which when 10,000 words long, never reads well lol. The writer clutches some more to confirm his credibility, flashing his undergrad in a “hard science” (bio-chem) and subsequent nutrition PhD, setting the scene for the remaining article in a subtly manipulative manner.
Some good content in the article, I personally don’t think carbs make people fat or that the consumption of calories from carbs, protein or fat differ too significantly in terms of a persons gaining weight so not his target audience granted.
I did find this statement comical
“PS: There is little no evidence of sugar addiction in humans”
Guilty 
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Hey guys, I wanted to say that I read all of these posts but didn’t have much to respond to - so I gave them a ‘like’ as acknowledgement of having read them as they were posted.
In my results posted above, is there anything that stands out which might cause feelings of insecurity/jealousy? Unwarranted thoughts of infidelity on her part type. I imagine this would be Estrogen related, which I’ve had no other symptoms of being too high. We’re having sex 2-4x a week, which is a tremendous increase from a near-sexless (defined as <10x per year) marriage, yet these intrusive thoughts are getting to me.
I’m literally never the no/low confidence guy and this is my first time feeling this way on TRT (and as a whole). I took an AI yesterday to test a theory, and those thoughts have dulled down a good bit; unsure if placebo or actual effect.
I did some digging through various threads here and found a couple that related to stuff like this, but it was usually Tren or other compounds that often carry strong side-effects. Has anyone experienced or heard of people developing insecurites like this when on TRT/TOT? What causes it/how to fix it?
@anon18050987 I wanted to mention that I was offered to start up Deca, almost ordered it, then decided against it to avoid these issues - which you ironically pointed out in that other thread.
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The justification was “for prevention of” lol.
I’m aware of this, which is why I haven’t asked for the kitchen sink. Do I want more gains? Yes, but not at the cost of relative long-term health; as mentioned in my wife’s TRT log, the goal really is to find the line of where ‘too much’ is, and toe backwards from that. I’m also aware that this will inherently have issues as well, which is why ‘the line’ isn’t set in stone.
I try my best, but I often find myself too stubborn to learn from the mistakes of others and have to punch a wall a few times just to see if it will hurt.
Don’t … mess… with … Nandrolone. It will mess with your head way more than the fluctuating hormones are already doing. Its a great mass builder but not so much a good permanent mass builder. My point is the low dose they will give you combined with the fact you can’t stay on it will only be ‘rental gainz’ for the sake of your sanity, health, and well being.
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