Cycle Summary
I've been really busy and kept forgetting to make a final post on this log. I finished my 9th week of the cycle last week. Towards the end of my cycle, I got A LOT more remarks on my physique. At work, it seemed like almost every day someone said to me "wow...do you work out a lot?" I ran low carb/carb cycled most of the time up until 2 weeks ago when I decided to not do the show I was planning to do. I took a week break from dieting so I went from a keto diet, to eating more freely, then going back to a 35c/40p/25f split the last week.
Here is a general summary!
-Maintained my size as I did cardio and decreased my calories over the weeks from 1800 to 1500. Towards the last 3 weeks of the cycle, I gained a little more size as I increased my dosage from 10mg to 25mg every day.
-Visible increase in hardness
-Usually as I eat in a deficit week after week, my strength drops drastically. The var allowed me to either maintain my strength, and also increased my numbers for the big 3. My deadlift went from 295 to 325, 195x5 squats became easy when 155x5 used to be difficult, and I was benching 135 for my working sets whereas before I could only do maybe 135x2.
-Irritation and aggravation definitely increased, but this was also due to my diet. I snapped at people a lot.
-Water retention. Worse on some days than others. When I ran keto, I didn't hold as much water obviously.
-I would get so insanely pumped some days in the gym that it would hurt to lift, especially my shoulders. Running became impossible because my calves would get way too pumped.
And then post-cycle observations:
-I definitely dropped water weight over the week
-I didn't taper down at all and just ended it at 25mg. I really had no problems with acne during the cycle but post cycle, my face started breaking out a lot more. I'm guessing this is just my hormones leveling back out again.
-I haven't experienced any depression or anything I read about at all. I still feel pretty good, already excited for my next cycle lol
-No noticeable decrease in strength. I've been training a little bit differently though, with more focus on endurance and circuit training.
I think that's about all I can think about...Overall, I maintained/gained a little size even through my diet where I decreased my calories and increased cardio over the weeks. I enjoyed my cycle but I wish I had started at a higher dosage from the beginning. 10mg a day didn't really produce anything noticeable for me and it was only after I bumped it to 25mg that I really started noticing. Next cycle, I plan to start at a higher dosage, probably around 20mg a day.
