Dang! 4 kids, under 35 & pumping iron like the big boys! You go girl!
Couple questions - how tall are you? Do you know your bodyfat %? Trying to get an idea of your current physique. Also what are your total calories. I tend more towards lower carb / higher fat myself, but I also don't lean out fast. I generally recommend ~30-35 g protein in each meal, I eat 5-6 meals myself.
The basic stuff I recommend for var newbs:
- ideally if you can start at 5 mg - 2.5 mg in the AM, 2.5 mg in the PM (~ 12 hrs apart) for the first 2 weeks
--- the reason is Var takes about 10-14 days to sort of hit full saturation - by that time, at a low dose, you know how you respond to it - if you get bunk stuff or if it has been substituted w/ something else from your source (its the black market - never know what you're going to get, unless you somehow got a nice script for a pharma brand (forgot the name of it) that comes in 2.5 mg tabs. You're more likely to get 10 mg tabs or cap, and hopefully you're not working w/ 40mg tabs / caps. Those are targeted at guys become much harder to split accurately.
-- if the above isn't possible, at least try to split whatever you have, into half in the AM & half in the PM (refer: anavar half-life -~9 hrs). If this isn't possible, then do 10mg (or 5 mg to start if you can) / day.
If you run into any weird sides, like you suddenly gain a boatload of water weight, stop the cycle. You probably have dbols instead of var. Generally you're going to be OK, but it has happened that people substitute things. You may also have something under or over dosed (more likely under than overdosed - e.g. you paid for 10 mg tabs, but the content is maybe 60% pure. Who knows.) You may have to fiddle w/ the dosage to find the sweet spot, depending on whatever it is that you got.
- After 10-14 days if you were able to start at a lower dose, up to 10 mg at 2 weeks & keep that as your regular daily dosage.
-- I'd recommend running 8-12 weeks. Shorter runs are sort of a waste of time for the cost & stress on your body.
Supplement w/ acidophilis or a decent probiotic - any AAS or "hormone modifier" (e.g. both steroids & estrogen suppressors) can promote yeast infections.
Sides you can experience:
- acne / oily skin
- increased clitoral sensitivity
- some people experience water retention - not a lot, but some. This isn't necessarily a bad thing - the thing is that if you're running a cycle to get a particular result, that result takes time to come, and doesnt' always come w/o a price. Especially women get hung up on not immediatley feeling "lean" on a cycle - are you more concerned about what you have to go thru to get to that goal, or getting to the goal? Also water isn't necessarily a bad thing if you're looking to be lifting very heavy and grow a lot - water helps protect the joints when they're under suddently increased weight loads. But use your common sense -like noted above - if you immediately start gaining a huge amount of water, your stuff could be Dbol - stop that immediately - it is much, much more androgenic than anavar and not really what you want to deal with. If it is just minor water retention, then you can look at things like reducing your carbs a bit (e.g. carb cycle), drink more water, etc.
- interrupted period - any AAS or "estrogen suppressor" can be seen as a "foreign substance" by the body and menstrual flow may stop for a while, e.g. after a month on the cycle, for a month or two after the cycle clears (var takes about 3 weeks to clear your system once you stop)
- Much less likely - headaches (related to blood pressure) or bloody nose, voice change (very very unlikely)
That's most of the important stuff. More is never better, but if you aren't noticing things like increased clitoral sensitivity by the 10 -14 day mark, you may have bunk or underdosed stuff. You can try increasing the dosage to see if that changes things. Otherwise maybe keep running it if you notice anything different (E.g. increase in strength, etc.)
A general caveat about cycles - you should be able to lift more and recover faster from the increase in lifting volume & intensity but not all the links in the chain of your body lifting those weights will have adapted to the weights as fast as the muscles - meaning joints, ligaments & tendons. At your age, you'll probably find you can muscle thru anything & recover easily - but just give some consideration to your joints - I can tell you the wear & tear will start showing up as you get into your 40s in the form of tendonitis, so just because you feel strong doesn't necessarily mean you need to go balls out quickly w/ the weights. You want to get strong, not build your ego.
Also when you stop the cycle and it begins to clear, you'll notice that you can't lift as much and things start to hurt / not recover as quickly - again give consideration to your body and what it is capable of -htat's why it is called a CYCLE - you can't run steroids forever - you can run them in phases and then give appropriate recovery post cycle (e.g. adjust your lifting to what your body can support w/o the steroids) and when "off" , optimize your diet to support the "gains". You'll lose some of it when you come "off", but again, it's not a "maintenance" state - you will retain a % of the results, but then take the time to let your body come to support the results w/ diet & targeted training.
The general rule of thumb for cycles is time off = time on - if you ran an 8 week cycle, go off 8 weeks before starting again. There's no big rush to keep running steroid cycles. There are internal costs such as stress to the system of having this foreign susbtance in your system - this can include blood pressure, lipids & cholestorol. Its the journey, not the destination, as they say. Also as you continue running cycles and possible use more aggressive compounds, the sides are cummulative and the more androgenic sides can become part of your existence. This can include facial hair growth, voice change, depending on compounds you may use - increased hairloss, etc.
More isn't better. Longer cycle at lower dose is better than shorter cycle at higher dose. If you get cycle advice from guys, note that the way they cycle is different from what is approrpriate for women because of the difference in the dominant sex hormone - so basicallly, don't get steroid advice from guys unless you KNOW they have experience working w/ women other than advanced female bodybuilders.
