Nice to see you back.
We have same doc now btw 
Thanks.
What kind of workouts and diet do you use?
Short answer:
I tried a lot of things. I found 3 things that work for me:
- Reduced my calories
- Precise macronutrient ratio
- Compound lifts and Micro-loading
More details:
Soâ?¦ my diet and exercise have evolved.
I’ve had four diet/exercise plans:
PLAN #1: September - November
In September, when I started, I really had no diet plan, other than “eat healthy” and “eat a lot”.
My workout was 5 days a week, and I had a rotating schedule:
Chest/Triceps/Shoulder day
Back/Biceps day
Leg Day
Cardio Day
I would do 3 sets of 8-10 reps of each exercise, 3 exercises per body part.
I did ok. I did put on some muscle.
PLAN #2: November - January
In November I met a trainer at my gym. He was my height (5’6") but hugely muscled and ripped.
He suggested I switch to very low weights, to failure (20+ reps), until my muscles BURNED.
He also recommended a diet based on the book “The Metabolic Typing Diet”
This book basically says you should eat according to your specific metabolism, which is genetic.
There’s a 63-question questionnaire, and based on this, the book recommends a diet.
The book recommended I eat a diet rich in fat and protein.
THIS DIET RAISED MY CHOLESTEROL TO UNHEALTHY LEVELS.
My breakfasts were:
3 whole eggs, fried in butter
3 sausage links
1 cup sweet potatoes
1 cup whole milk
My lunches were:
1 cup quinoa with butter
2 chicken thighs
Snacks:
full fat cheese
almonds
Dinners were: whatever.
I did manage to gain 9 pounds of muscle on this diet/workout plan.
However, the gains abruptly stopped in January, and I knew I had to switch it up again.
Also, did I mention MY FREAKING CHOLESTEROL.
PLAN #3: January - April
I changed the diet right away, eliminating the cheese, the milk, the butter, and the sausage.
I kept the quinoa and sweet potatoes as my carbs, adding brown rice.
I kept chicken thighs as a protein, introduced canned salmon (which is surprisingly good) and lean ground turkey.
I changed my workout plan to STARTING STRENGTH by Mark Rippetoe.
This is a very back-to-basics workout from a highly detailed (and slightly pedantic) book.
The workout is:
Low Back Barbell Squats
Bench Press
Barbell Shoulder Press
Deadlifts
Several warmup sets, beginning with no weight, working up to your working weight. 3 work sets of 5, and that’s it.
You’re supposed to increase your weight every workout until you can’t, then increase your weight every week.
It’s 3 days a week.
On this diet and this workout, my weight and body fat stayed consistent for 4 months.
The lack of progress was disheartening. I had been getting stronger, so I thought I had been building muscle.
There also came a point, sometime in March, when I could no longer increase my lifts.
I went from 17% to 18% body fat during this time. I still had a soft, pudgy belly and wasn’t happy about it.
PLAN #4: April to right now
Around this time, I switched gyms. I met a guy in my gym who was just about exactly my size, but super-ripped. He looked like solid muscle.
He told me he weighed 130 pounds.
Mindâ?¦ blown.
It was at this point that I realized I would have to stop trying to gain, and start trying to drop fat if I wanted to look good.
I altered my Starting Strength workout to my current one:
4 or 5 days / week.
I kept the barbell squats (which I love), and the bench press.
I do seated rows instead of deadlifts, and I do shoulder presses with dumbbells instead of barbells.
I also have a cardio day, just 30-40 minutes on the treadmill.
To make consistent gains I’ve turned to a practice called micro-loading, which works really well for me.
Basically, I increase my lifts by 1 pound, each workout.
I bought baseball bat weights from Amazon. They are 1/2 lb and they fit perfectly on an Olympic barbell.
On Monday I was squatting 171, today I squatted 172. Next weekâ?¦ yep, I’ll hit 173.
Before micro-loading, I couldn’t move past 150.
For my diet, first I tried something that DID NOT WORK FOR ME.
The diet is called LeanGains, and it is intermittent fasting - eat for 8 hours per day, fast for 16 hours per day.
I did lose weight but it made me feel lightheaded and grumpy.
There was a part of LeanGains that eventually put me on the right track.
It was an online calories/macronutrients calculator.
You enter your weight, height, age, lifestyle (sedentaryâ?¦ always just put sedentary) and fitness goal (bulk/cut/maintain) and this thing spits out your calories, protein, fat and carb goals per day.
To keep track of my calories and macronutrients, I started logging all of my food with an AMAZING app called My Fitness Pal.
My Fitness Pal is super easy to use, you can set custom goals, and it has an enormous food library.
You enter what you ate, it logs your calories and macros.
I’m still using My Fitness Pal and it’s been a HUGE contributor to my success.
When I figured out LeanGains wasn’t working for me, I also found a better online calculator, this one: IIFYM Calculator - Best Macro Calculator | IIFYM.com
This calculator goes with a diet called “If It Fits Your Macros” - basically eat anything you want as long as it falls within your protein, fat and carb limits.
I’m not doing that exactly.
I stick to the same few carbs (sweet potatoes, quinoa, brown rice) and proteins (chicken, shrimp, salmon, turkey, cottage cheese, greek yogurt).
But I will have some candy or ice cream every now and then, and I’ll just eat fewer carbs that day. No big deal.
In May I used the IIFYM calculator to figure out that I should be eating about 1800 cals a day to lose fat.
My macro ratio is 45% protein, 35% fat and 25% carbs.
Most days I don’t eat any carbs on purpose. Just the few carbs in all the other foods can usually add up to my daily carb goal.
As I mentioned, since April I have lost 8 pounds of fat and lost no muscle, so yes, this one works, finally.
Throughout this process I’ve accidentally learned to bulk and cut.
This July I’m going to raise my calories, but try to keep the same ratio of protein/carbs/fat.
Hopefully I’ll start to put on muscle again, and in January, I’ll start cutting again.
I’m excited to see how much muscle I can pack on in TRT year 2.
I just posted a HUGE reply and it is gone.
EDIT: re-wrote it.
damn that sucks would’ve been nice to read.
As always Nate, great writing.
You look great!
Am I correct in reading that you lowered your T dose to
somewhere around 49-56mg per week ?
I am injecting 5 units, or .05 mL per day.
At 180 mg/mL, that’s about 9mg per day - times 7, that’s 63mg/week.
Sorry for my bad calculation earlier.
I have tried 4 units, I’ve tried 6… 5 is a comfortable level for me. Good mood, good results.
N
Awesome, I’ll try the diet once I can afford better quality food.
I’m also on ED dosing. I doubled my dose from what was prescribed because I felt nothing. I do 20mg ED HCG 220 EOD. Feel much better at a higher dose.
I got labs on my own and I got really good numbers 800 TT and 28 pg/ml FT. I was taking Adex 1mg a week in divided doses and have undetectable E levels. So either we are both over responders or ED T dosing has something to do with it, maybe even a combo of both.
I don’t feel any anger issues at all only when taking cabergoline for the adenoma. Felt angrier with low T. I’m dropping Adex completely for now.
My doctor has discontinued acceptance of my insurance plan, so I’m now looking for a new TRT doctor in West LA. If anyone has any recommendations, I’d appreciate them!
Tunapancake - just a note -I dropped the Adex for a while and my E2 levels shot sky-high.
I’ve been back on Adex for 2 months, 0.25mg twice a week, and I’m about to have my levels checked again.
I will have to go back to Dr. Y and pay out-of-pocket unfortunately, to get my results and have my prescription adjusted accordingly.
Thanks to anyone still reading - it’s been over a year since I began my TRT journey.
I haven’t been posting here in a while because, basically, I did it. It’s done.
I look and feel the way I’ve always wanted to look and feel.
Now I’m trying to do it all over again. I’m attempting to bulk up through the winter and start cutting in the spring.
Hopefully I can pack on another 5 to 10 punds of muscle. It seems impossible, but I’m going to try.
I’ve increased my calories to 2500+ per day and I’m doing the same workout I did last winter when I gained all the muscle.
It’s light weight with many many reps.
Another reason I’ve switched back to light weight is I’ve been having some strange back symptoms.
I’ve had tingling in my thoracic spine region and some in my leg as well.
An MRI revealed 4 or 5 slightly protruding discs, and I’ve decided to cool it with the heavy lifting for now.
I only ever gained 2 or 3 pounds of muscle from heavy lifting anyway: all my gains were made last year when I was lifting light.
I’ll leave you with a progress photo from August, when I finished my cut.
So, new stuff.
I have a new doctor for TRT. He’s a cardiologist and he’s just beginning to treat men with Bio-Identical Hormone Replacement.
He will not be my general physician - I still need to find one of those. This guy is just going to work with my on my TRT.
The first thing he wants me to do is change my dosage.
I started a thread about this here:
[quote]legnagelan wrote:
Did your voice change ?[/quote]
It’s interesting you should ask - this is something I thought about too, as testosterone is responsible for the thickening of the vocal cords during puberty.
No, my voice did not change. My vocal cords are finished growing.
Had I taken T at age 13 or 14, there certainly would have been a change.
It’s my understanding that transgender women becoming men will (with a much higher dose of T) experience a voice change.
I think that my voice deepened. So says the wife.
This depends on how much one was already virilized. In my case, light facial hair and no torso hair before TRT. TRT changed that.
So a virilized guy with strong male facial bone structure, full beard and body hair will probably not have his voice deepened if his T levels go low then goes on TRT. TRT increased my state of virilization and shaving seems like a lot of work as my beard is very dense.
Looking at the pix above, there is some virilization potential. This depends on TT levels and ample FT and favorable E2 levels.
Did your voice change ?
Did your voice change ?
hey, do you feel that it changed your voice ? did it make it deeper ?
I’m really glad that you guys replied, I never thought that I was going to have answers. Thank you. I started it 1 month ago, and the only reason why I started it was because I want to have a deeper voice, so far I haven’t had any change, which make me really really disappointed… I think I will give it one more month to see if I can see any change, if not I think I will drop it. Or would it take more time to note a change ? I’ve considered surgery but I don’t really want to do surgery 
My voice has been a huge problem for me my whole life, because I can listen to it and its really feminine.
How much did it take to you to see any change in your voice ? and how long for would it be changing ?
I’m sorry of listening that. I’m 25 years old, probably I’m too old too.
Some things take time. Have you posted any lab work that shows levels while taking T?