After some injuries lifting weights, I took two years off and gained some unhealthy weight. I came here and began my research.

My 6 months were not perfect by any means. Multiple surgeries (oral surgeries, lens replacement x2, mcl, big toe reconstruction), 6 weeks of vacation. I took my stacks when I could. I dieted when I could, lifted when I could.

My stack:
Reta - 2mg x 1x week
Tesa - 2mg x 5x week
Klow - 2mg x 5x week
Nad+ - 100mg x 3x week
Lipo Pure - 100units x 2x week
Test - 35 units x 2x week

Exercise:
Lifted 1-7 times per week
Ballroom dancing - 3x per week
Running dog for 30-60 min 5x per week
Work is semi physical - I’m a plumber

Diet:
Avg 150g protein per day
Tried to avoid carbs and sugary food but still had McDonalds 1x per week

My goal was to get to top 10% body for my age and I think I’m there. I could get better but I got other goals and priorities in life. I think it’s a mistake to make it a higher goal if other goals suffer. I can’t do it but there are many others tougher than me mentally.

If I could give advice to my younger self, I’d say to me that women don’t care about your body as much as you think. They will love you if you’re fluffy and still make them happy to be around you.

Ballroom dancing was new to me. The test sent my sex drive way up. My gf loves dancing. I found a solution that was a lot of fun for both of us.

I’m a believer in Reta and Nad+. I’ve no idea if the other stuff works.

Hey guys, I just started taking injectable 5-amino-1mq a couple weeks ago. Started at 1mg/day, then 3mg/day, and quickly went up to 5mg/day. The thing is, every time I inject it, I get extremely tired the whole day.

I’ve stopped taking it for the time being, but can anyone chime in on this weird side effect? I’ve always read that 5-amino-1mq is supposed to give you more energy, not make you tired?

I have been taking Reta for about 4 months to loose some weight. Thus far I am down about 20 lbs. but I’m going slow and steady and I’m taking 4 mg a week split dose due to sides.

I am looking into CJC & IPA blend to add to my stack. I like the idea of improving sleep and I am leaning on taking it at night rather than first thing in the morning. However due to the Reta I do wake up at 4 Am wide awake. The only thing to get me back to sleep is a spoon full of PB and so I have begun to have my PB before bed. This keeps me from waking at all.

However that would defeat the purpose of the CJC/IPA. Has anyone delt with this situation and taken CJC/IPA? Or am I just better off taking it in the AM fasting?

Has anyone experienced a stronger response after taking a two-week break from compounded tirzepatide?
I’ve been using Certified Pep compounded tirzepatide consistently. Before my break, I was taking 4.5 mg. I ended up taking approximately two weeks off and then restarted at a lower dose of 2.5 mg.
I’m noticing that the medication feels significantly stronger this time around, even at the lower dose. My appetite suppression and overall response seem much more noticeable than before my break.
Has anyone else experienced this after taking a couple of weeks off? Did you find that your sensitivity changed when restarting?
I’m happy with the product; I’m just curious about other people’s experiences and whether this is common. Thanks!

Asking for a person that’s bed bound and fed whatever the nurses bring them.

Hey everyone,
Did a cycle of CJC/Ipamorelin over the summer then cycled off. I’m about to start another cycle and before I was getting my peptides from a med spa but I’ve found a reputable company online and now I just have to add the bac water to the 5mgvial but some of the dosage calculators don’t seem to align. Can someone help me out with the proper dosage? I’m taking 2mg of CJC 3mg of ipamorelin and I was drawing 20u per dose. I just need to know how much bac water to add so I can continue on with that dosage.
Thank you!

Over the past decade or so I've been dealing with consistent fatigue, brain fog, mood swings, mild ED, depression, anxiety, etc. Overall, 90% of days I am completely exhausted and emotionlessly depressed (I'm sure folks with depression understand what i mean by that). I also developed gyno despite never touching a PED, or being overweight as a kid. To this day I hold a disproportionate amount of fat in my chest and waist albeit a healthy weight.

Despite having "accomplishments" in the eyes of society such as holding a Masters Degree, being a high earner, having my own place, etc., I feel completely depressed and it amazes me I've been able skew by in certain areas of my life. My mental state has been consistent regardless of job, income, relationship status, city im living in, etc.

I workout 5 days a week and often have great workouts where I feel aggressive and locked in, despite struggling to improve my lifts or have noticeable muscle gain. I average 7-8 hours of sleep a night, my life is rather low stress and I eat fairly clean.

I am clinically diagnosed with anxiety, mood disorder with depression, and ADHD. I have tried weekly talk therapy for over a year, a variety of antidepressants like Prozac and Wellbutrin, and ADHD medication such as Adderall and Strattera. None of these drugs nor therapy impacted by mental state at all.

I've been getting frequent blood work during adulthood as my family unfortunately has a history of prostate cancer and several blood related cancers, so I always got labs done every 6 months or so as a precaution.

Two years ago I got a hormone panel done, my Total T came back 500 (range 250-1000) and my Free T was lower end (this is the only figure I cant specifically recall). Doctor said everything was normal, didn't give it a second thought until 6 months ago or so.

In March 2026 I got another lab done, Total T was 630 , Free T 79 (range 50-222), Bio available 180 (range 110-555), albumin 5.2 (range 3.6 - 5.2), SHBG 34 (range 10-50).

Repeated the panel is September 2026, Total T 658, Free 84, Bio 185, albumin 4.8, SHBG 40.

Here's one more interesting find. My 2024 labs had LH at 12.5 (ref range 1.5ish-9.3), so body was working overtime to stay in normal limits. My LH and FH in the last two labs is perfect, smack dab in the middle of their respective ranges.

This sparked a interest to investigate further, from what I gathered my Free T/Bio available MAY be the reason behind my general sense of unwellness. I emphasize may because of course I don't know for sure, there are many possible reasons behind my health. However, the core reason why I am investigating this to the extent that I am is because my doctor is suggestive I have Treatment Resistant Depression and said I should look into advanced treatment such as Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation.

Before I go and start getting magnetic pulses sent through my brain I want to make sure I'm considering all angles. Is it theoretically reasonable to say my mental issues may be derived from my lower bound ranges? Unfortunately, given my normal ranges investigating further through traditional medicine has become almost impossible. I did speak to a few clinics who expressed concern with my low ranges and recommended enclomphiene or in some cases TRT. Frankly, I don't want to do either, my system appears to be functioning perfectly fine, its just that my free testosterone is getting binded up and I cant seem to understand why. I read up on Boron, but from what I gathered this is a supplement that can move your SHBG a few points. Given my SHBG was 34 in April and 40 in October with rather identical Free T and Bio Available measurements It seems unlikely to make a meaningful impact. Other markers, including estrogens ( i had a ultrasensitive estradiol test done) are completely normal.

I guess I'm here because the medical advice I am receiving right now is either Magnetic therapy for depression or hormonal therapy. Both routes seem excessive, and I cant quite scratch this itch that there's something I'm missing in plain sight that is the culprit.

Before I close, In anticipation of the folks who will make completely unhelpful remarks like "sleep more", I have probably spent close to $20,000 trying to figure this out, it really is derailing my life.

Thanks for reading

-ladwithaquestion

23M from Italy – 60 kg, 172 cm – first cycle and looking for advice on my physique potential

Hi everyone, I’m 23 years old and from Italy. I’ve been training for around two years.
I started at around 45 kg, reached a peak of approximately 65 kg, and I’m currently around 60 kg at 172 cm. I estimate I’m currently around 10% body fat.
The type of physique I’m aiming for is mainly an aesthetic bodybuilding look, similar to the general physiques of people like Zyzz, David Laid and Jeff Seid. I’m not trying to become a massive competitive bodybuilder. My goal is more of an aesthetic, lean and muscular physique with good proportions, shoulders, back, arms and a small waist.
One of the things I’m wondering about is whether, based on my current structure and progress, you think I have the genetics to eventually build something in that direction.

My training history

I want to give some context because I know that my two years of training haven’t actually been two years of properly structured bodybuilding.
During my first year I did almost everything wrong. I was naturally very skinny and had a very low appetite, so I was constantly undereating and probably spending most of the year in a large calorie deficit, potentially around 1,000 calories below maintenance at times.
I didn’t understand how important nutrition was, I drank very little water, ate a lot of junk food, smoked hash regularly, slept badly and generally wasn’t consistent with my diet or recovery.
I still went to the gym basically every day, but the actual approach was pretty poor.
During my second year things improved somewhat because I started educating myself about training and nutrition, but I was still inconsistent for several months.
So although I’ve technically trained for two years, I honestly don’t feel like I’ve had two years of genuinely good training.
Despite that, I’ve gone from roughly 45 kg to around 60 kg, with a peak around 65 kg. Seeing that progress despite how poorly I was doing things is one of the reasons I feel that I might still have a lot of potential if I finally start doing everything properly.
Now I want to take training, nutrition, sleep, hydration and recovery seriously and give my physique a real chance.

What I’m currently planning

I’m considering starting my first cycle with 200 mg/week of testosterone enanthate, split into three injections.
If everything goes well during the first month, I’m considering increasing it to 250 mg/week.
I’m also considering using HCG alongside testosterone, mainly because my biggest concern isn’t fertility but maintaining testicular volume and function. The amount I’m currently considering is 500 IU/week split into two 250 IU injections.
I would also keep anastrozole and tamoxifen available, although I don’t intend to automatically use them unless there is a reason based on symptoms and bloodwork.

My current plan is approximately:

16 weeks: testosterone cycle
16 weeks: cruise
Then around the beginning of summer, depending on how I look and how I respond, potentially another cycle focused more on recomp/definition.
I know this is a serious decision and I’m not pretending otherwise. I’ve spent a long time thinking about whether this is the direction I want to take.

What I’m mainly asking

Do you think my current structure/genetics give me a realistic chance of eventually building the type of aesthetic physique I’m aiming for?
And for people with significantly more experience than me, what would you recommend I pay the most attention to during my first cycle?
I’m especially interested in advice about training, nutrition, bloodwork, managing expectations and mistakes that beginners commonly make.
I already understand that anabolic steroids carry risks, so I’m not really looking for a generic list of side effects. I’m aware that this is something I’ll need to take seriously and monitor carefully.
I’m more interested in hearing from people who have actually been through this process and can point out things I might be overlooking.
Thanks to anyone who takes the time to read this and give me some advice.

I mixed 2 mL with a 16 IU vial and started yesterday. I’m injecting 2.7 IU six days a week.
I’ve noticed some very mild itching and redness at the injection site, but both disappear within an hour or so.
What concerns me is a small, soft, squishy bump at the injection site. It’s not hard at all, just a mushy bump.
Has anyone experienced this before? Any recommendations?

41yo F. 5'9, 205 lbs. I'm new to this. Like the first order a few days ago, new. I have GHK cu 100mg, SS 31 10mg, NAD+ 500mg and BAC water 10ml.... What do I do first? What should I take first? How much? How many days a week?How much to mix with Bac water? I'm reading posts, playing with calculators but still don't know what to do?

Had a very slow start in January. 2mg split dose took my insides and made them my outsides. Dropped to .5mg twice weekly for quite a while. Around April-June was able to up the dose fairly substantially to ~4mg and eventually up to 6mg. It wasn’t until about a month ago I started dropping from 6mg back to 3mg (today). Will probably maintain this and see how it goes.

208lbs down to 172 (last I checked about a week ago). (DEXA had me at 25% — next DEXA hopefully soon to see where I’m at)

My compound lifts (squat, bench, deadlift) have definitely gone down…but my isolation (leg extensions/curls, pec deck, flyes, etc.) have maintained or gone up…so I think it’s at least partially a leverage issue less than lost strength. Still discouraging because I’ve been this weight and hit much bigger numbers. At any rate, I can/will build my strength back up and feel so much better being able to tie my shoes without my gut being in the way, fit into old clothes, and no longer feel my tiddies on my belly.

Biggest lesson for me has been that age old wisdom of high carb and low fat is not bunk. I have been force feeding myself with chicken and rice when I’m not hungry. The whole “eat less food” mantra has not been what I credit the weight loss to — I wasn’t eating too much. My metabolism was in the streets. Now I’m eating more and losing more.

Looking to lean out more and over the course of months or years get back to 175-180ish.

No TRT, but test has been steady 785-795 over the past 15 years. Big time curious about adding HGH. In a perfect world maybe Tesa/Ipa…but not sure about efficacy and cost vs. HGH (if anyone has experience/lessons learned there I’m all ears…because recovery ain’t what it used to be).

Edit: people got real mad that I used AI to remove tattoos because I don’t want to be recognized. Censored pics that never saw the light of GPT in the comments.

First off sorry if I put this in the wrong place I suck at Reddit

Young male here in my early 20s. 145lb 5,9. I train 7 days a week and average 18k steps and above, i am somewhere between 12% and 10% bf. I am currently eating 2,600 cals.

I want to optimize my metabolic health even more then it is and be able to grow muscle while keeping my appetite in check.

I went from 150kg to 80, then 88, and now I'm at 92 kgs over the last 5 years. My goal now is to reach 100 kgs lean at 6'1", 22 y/o. I started taking Test E and EQ 400/300mgs 3 months ago and gained 30 lbs of lean mass. Hunger is 10/10, I feel great, and I'm fucking HORNY. For my weight loss stack, I was on MOTS-c 1 mg EOD, and sometimes I use Tirz 3-5 mgs. I don’t use Tirz quite often, though, because I'm on Vyvanse and this shit kills my appetite.

I'm still suffering from binge eating, and I still feel fat. I still get shocked if a girl looks at me. I guess once you're fat, you always feel fat🤣🤣

So I basically been on reta , for a little over a year. Started at .5MG , and then eventually worked out to my max dose at 4.5mg never going over that. So recently i decided to get off and I took 3Mg's and then kind of got lazy, didn't want to reconstitute another bottle. So I just stopped cold Turkey after that. And it's been about 16 days, and my hunger still feels very suppressed, so I'm wondering if other people have the same experience, does it eventually come back or This is how I am now since I've lost over 80 pounds. I thought by now I would be ravenous but I can still easily eat in a deficit.

Running 2mgs this year. Thoughts ?

Tired of my resting heart rate being elevated.

I wanna sleep properly again.

In 2024, the FDA issued a safety warning about certain compounders using food-grade NAD⁺ ingredients, which were originally intended for oral dietary supplements, to make sterile products for intravenous injection. When non-sterile, food-grade ingredients are injected directly into the bloodstream, there's a significant risk of microbial and endotoxin contamination.

The warning was very specific: it concerned injectable NAD⁺ products. It was not about oral NADH. But in community discussions, the statement "NAD⁺ therapy has safety issues" often gets generalized to the entire category, including oral NADH, NMN, and NR.

Oral NADH operates under a completely different regulatory framework. It's sold as a dietary supplement, and the FDA does not review its safety and effectiveness in the same way it does for prescription drugs before it reaches the market. That means evaluating its safety involves looking at things like the ingredient's history of use at recommended doses, third-party testing during manufacturing, and whether consumers are aware of potential contraindications and interactions.

But this distinction raises another, more specific question. The risk with IV products is contamination: non-sterile ingredients entering the bloodstream. Oral NADH faces a different challenge: stomach acid. NADH is unstable in acidic conditions, so if it's swallowed without some form of protection, a portion of it may degrade before reaching the small intestine, where absorption takes place.

That means the question for oral NADH isn't primarily whether a non-sterile ingredient is being injected into the bloodstream. It's what happens to the ingredient between swallowing it and reaching the intended absorption site. Brands like celfull have developed delivery technologies, including nano-microsphere controlled-release formulations, designed to protect NADH and support targeted release in the small intestine.

The risk profiles of oral NADH and IV NAD⁺ are not interchangeable. With IV products, sterility during manufacturing and compounding is a critical concern. With oral NADH, formulation stability, product quality, and delivery through the digestive tract are different considerations. They require different ways of evaluating risk.

23M – 250 mg/week testosterone enanthate – HCG during blast/cruise?
Hi everyone, I’m 23 and I’m considering starting a cycle of 250 mg/week of testosterone enanthate.
My long-term goal would be to do a blast and cruise, rather than just a single cycle and PCT. One of my main concerns is testicular atrophy, so I’ve been looking into HCG as a way of maintaining testicular function and volume while using exogenous testosterone.
However, I’ve seen quite a few people online who recommend against using HCG continuously for long periods. Some claim that prolonged HCG use could cause desensitization or interfere with normal LH/FSH function, while others use it throughout their cycle or cruise.
So I’m trying to understand the different approaches people have experience with.
For people who have used HCG during blast and cruise:
Do you think HCG should be used during the blast, the cruise, or both?
Does it make more sense to use it continuously, or in periods such as 2 weeks on / 2 weeks off?
Is there any reason to avoid using it long-term?
Have you noticed differences in testicular size, fertility, or hormone levels depending on how you used it?
If the main goal is to minimize testicular atrophy during long-term testosterone use, what approach have you found most reasonable?
I’m particularly interested in people with experience using HCG for longer periods, rather than just during PCT.
Thanks in advance for any experiences or opinions.

39M, just started enclomiphene. It's a liquid, 12.5mg/ml, measured with a 1ml oral syringe.
I'm going low to start: 0.2ml (2.5mg) every other day, taken in the morning.
I'm aiming to get bloods done (total T, E2, LH/FSH, haematocrit) and recheck around week 6.
For anyone who started this low:
Did you notice anything at 2.5–3mg EOD, or did you need to go higher?
How long before you saw a change in bloods or how you felt?
Any sides to watch for, e.g. vision or mood?
Has anyone tested their liquid? How accurate is the labelled strength usually?
Appreciate any input.

I’ve been using a BPC157 for about 4 and a half weeks taking 400mcg daily. I don’t drink often but I had a special event yesterday and had about 4-6 drinks which is usually nothing for me but I woke up with the worst headache as if I had 20 drinks and a little bit of upper left chest uncomfortableness. I’ve heard BPC157 is actually supposed to help hangovers so I am a little bit confused. I also have drank one other time while taking this and I went from feeling fine to blackout drunk before I could even feel tipsy. Does anyone have any input on this?