My First Anabolic Cycle

What you need to know before reading this article:

1) There will be no paragraph pushing you to get "real legal anabolic supplements", claiming to be much better than the illegal ones. 

2) The sale of anabolics and foreign food supplements without registration at the Brazilian Sanitary Surveillance Agency (Anvisa) and without Portuguese labeling information is a crime against public health.

3) On the other hand, the sale and prescription of certain anabolic substances in Brazil is not illegal if prescribed by a doctor.

Here is what the Law says:

Art. 1 The dispensation or sale of drugs from the therapeutic group of anabolic steroids or peptides for human use shall be restricted to the presentation and retention by the pharmacy or drugstore of the carbon copy of prescription issued by a physician or dentist duly registered in the respective professional councils. (PLANALTO, 2000)

Also note:

Even if you do it legally, backed up by the prescription of a doctor, taking anabolic steroids, either for replacement or for regulating any given hormone might bring some undesirable side effects. That's the same for any and all medications, even aspirin! (HUANG et al., 2012)

So let's do it, here we go with My First Anabolic Cycle:

Anabolic steroids (anabolic androgenic steroids) are natural or synthetic hormones that promote cell growth and their division resulting in the development of muscle and bone tissue, and are usually derived from testosterone. (YESALIS et al., 2012)

I got interested in taking them after a routine blood test in which I discovered that my free testosterone, although healthy, could be higher, which could help me recover better from workouts and also help me on getting more results from my daily physical activities; including the increase of muscle mass without extra body fat accumulation.

For a natural increase, I could also try sleeping more, eating even better, training heavier, spending less hours exposed to stress, etc.

But at the moment I was feeling indeed curious to supplement with something that could boost Testosterone production and finally check if "juicing" is as good as it seems to be.

Many times I've caught myself in the urge of saying stuff like:

- With steroids even I can lift heavy like him.

- On drugs, anyone can get ripped as this girl.

- Later the will say that they got these guns by eating only broccoli.

- Drinking milk and eating gluten is a no no, but injecting 'roids on your gluteus is alright.

My main goal with the use is facilitating the results I've mentioned above; and finding out by self testing the possible benefits of more testosterone. On the other hand, I will not share exactly what I took, after all what works for one does not necessarily work for another, and I suggest that before anything, you seek the assistance of a specialist as I did.

If you cannot do it, the responsibility for the possible risks when choosing to take any substance of this class by your own is all yours.

Another goal, by sharing on the internet such a long and detailed post, is so that you, dear reader, virtual friend, relative, close friend, follower, whoever you are, have the chance to realize that most of the fit bodies and PR’s we see being hit, including mine, can also be consequence of the use of something that goes beyond sweet potatoes, chicken and broccoli.

With this article, you are free to judge me, as well as free to judge my personal opinion, free to quit supporting me on my decisions and also free to shout out that with anabolics it is easy getting in shape.

You are welcome to call me and say that I'm actually killing myself and how stupid I am.

I say that, because more important than all these reasons together,  by sharing this content, I really feel that I am not cheating at all.

I am here to share my own novice experiment with something that is part of the Fitness industry and I believe it can indeed bring many benefits if used with caution, prescription, monitoring and accountability.

One more caveat.

Take you time while reading to consider the existence of some controversial facts:

1) The world of sports is corrupted by the use of steroids. The use of performance-enhancing drugs seems to increase the chances of success in sports and can be masked through programmed cycles without leaving traces behind. (1, 2, 3)

2) Actors who play the roles of our favorite heroes in action / adventure movies, considering their aesthetics which suddenly changes from one year to another, or their strong as (The Rock) a rock bodies, which remain ripped and strong all year long, despite how old they are, also make use of hormone replacement. (4)

3) The models and athletes illustrating most of the advertising materials of our favorite supplements are using some sort of hormonal supplementation. I'm here, I live among them, and I can assure you that they do this, because that's what contractors are looking for. (5)

4) When you see someone on Instagram saying that they need to thank "Doctor Who" for their success, or saying that they would never use anything illegal, you're probably dealing with someone who uses some type of steroid to maintain a specific body or level of Fitness.

5) It does not matter if we are talking about too much use or just a little bit, if the individual is taking it to regulate a specific hormone or to pump it over the limits, every steroid user is riding in the same boat.

6) Bodybuilding is powered by anabolics, Fitness is illustrated by anabolics, six packs get even more ripped with anabolics.

Regarding to my cycle, it was short. I used an oral solution complemented with milk thistle (a natural herb famous for aiding on liver detox), without the need of using needles.

As for time and dosage, everything that exists on the internet indicates that the time would be too short (30 days) and the dosage too low to feel or notice any change, whether in performance or in physical fitness.

My 30 Days of Hormonal Supplementation:

Day 1

I felt like my appetite was suppressed. I was not feeling well. I did not feel like training, still I did it and it was a good session. Mild headache. I did not have much carbohydrate during the day (200 g).

Day 2

Normal day with no effects. I was still recovering from a bronchitis crisis that had began one week prior to starting with the supplement. The symptoms were still bothering me. The workout of the day consisted of heavy squat cleans for maximum reps for 9 minutes. I did not feel the cardio respiratory system being stimulated to the point of getting tired during the workout, in fact I felt strong and willing to work even harder. In the end of the day, everything changed. I started feeling  a strong fever, I was freezing while my body was burning, and it wasn’t a cold day. I cannot tell if it was due to the supplementation or because of the bronchitis. Still I would risk to say that I may have gone through an overtraining episode as my immunity system was still weak.

Day 3 - Day 7

No effect. Maybe a little bit of insomnia at bedtime. Because I had been feeling bloated prior to the steroid, I had spent a week eating less per option (3600 cal: 40% carbohydrates, 30% protein, 30% fat).

Day 8

All the same. The workout of the day was very good. At night, after arriving home,  I felt more impatient than usual. I felt aggressive. On this day I returned to 4000 cal meal plan: 40% carbohydrate, 30% protein, 30% fat (400 g CHO-300 g PRO-133 g FAT).

Day 9

I must confess that I felt a  unusual increase in my libido and sexual desire.

Day 10 - Day 15

Another episode where I felt like breaking it all. I let a bottle fall, I spilled water everywhere, and then I felt way too angry, fortunately I managed to keep calm. Besides that, nothing, exactly nothing! The training sessions were the same, my body was the same, I started even forgetting to take the supplement every 8 hours (so far, I was varying between 8-10 hours between each intake).

Day 16 - Day 19 

Zero. Absolutely no change. I felt so demotivated that on the 18th day, after two months without eating any flour (breads, cookies, cakes, pastry, etc.) or any sweets, I decided to eat pizza and panettone. The next day I returned to my default menu (meat, fish, chicken, salads, broccoli, spinach, kale, oats, sweet potatoes, kefir, peanut butter, whey protein concentrate, fruits, rice, beans and lentils).

Day 20 - Day 30

I did not feel anything until the last week of supplementation, which began on November 23rd, when I finally decided to weigh myself and found out that I was weighing 5 kg more. I tried it again on the next day to see if it could have been just some extra fluid retention and no, it was real weight. Finally in the last week I noticed some positive difference in the exercises performed for low number of repetitions, but with high loads. I increased my personal records of Clean & Jerk and Squat Snatch, plus 5 kg and 3 kg respectively. I have taken photos to compare before and after and I believe that it is possible to note that my legs and chest are bigger.

This blue part is dedicated to all fitness geeks out there...

Blood Test (One Week After The End of Supplementation)

My Total Testosterone is very low, it went from 740 ng / dL to 254 ng / dL, but this was already expected, since the hormone I used, served as an exogenous source of it, taking some time for the body to return to its standard production .

Despite the change in Total Testosterone, my Free Testosterone (which really matters for the goals I described earlier) is about the same as before supplementation; it was 248 pmol / L to 237.7 pmol / L (considered a normal level despite being lower).

My result for SHBG - Sex Hormone Binding Globulin (the hormone that presented a slightly above the reference value before supplementation and that might lower the concentration of Free Testosterone) dropped a lot, from 100 nmol / L to 17 nmol / L (again, probably just a temporary “joy”, since my body is still readapting the production of endogenous hormones).

My Total Cholesterol is normal (136 mg / dL), although my HDL has dropped from 89 mg / dL to 38 mg / dL.

My LDL and Triglycerides have not increased.

20 Days after the End of the Anabolic Cycle

My weight dropped again. I went from 85 kg to 80 kg. I dropped weight even eating the same number of calories, macronutrients, vitamins and minerals. I trained every day in the same way, ate even more sugar than usual because of Christmas and New Year  (I mean two bottles of red wine, 4 pints of draft beer, 700 g of assorted fatty cheeses and 500 g of dried dates and figs).

The same people who stopped me at work to tell me, "Hey, you've put up some muscle mass," stopped me to ask me if I am alright as it looks like I am skinnier than usual.

Fortunately, despite the weight loss, I do not feel that I’ve lost muscle definition, energy when working out, libido, or performance at any moment. I simply feel that I went from point A to B in relation to aesthetics and then returned to A.

Conclusion

Will I do it again? If prescribed by a doctor, in order to further improve my Health, yes. But I confess that at the moment I feel that it is much more complicated than it seemed to be at first. Did I get what I wanted from the steroidal supplementation? Yes, and it was actually cheap, I am not kidding. I invested less than I invested in my distilled molecular omega 3. I ordered it at the same pharmacy where people pay fortunes for homeopathic solutions and teas.

I would say that the most curious part of going for it was the opportunity to learn that many of the people around me take performance enhancement drugs or have already taken some kind of it, even though it does not even look like they do so, while others that I could swear that are running on steroids insist on claiming they have never done it, making me wonder if maybe the problem itself is in my feeding window and the amount of broccoli and hibiscus tea I add to my meals (add a bunch of sarcasm in this last part).

But did I keep the gains I wanted? No! And hence the reason for not being sure if it is worth taking.

I finally feel it goes much further than simply taking some drugs or doing the same cycle some one did before.

With this first use I learned that I must judge less those athletes who take the responsibility for taking anabolic substances as it is not an easy path to take as it might look like at first. After all they are not only putting their own health in risk, by testing, improving and cycling different formulas in order to achieve the results they want, but for the fact that it's not just taking something and waiting for the magic to happen, you really need to work out hard as well and keep an eye on dieting for growth or fat loss (whichever is your main objective).

It seems that hormone replacement or supplementation accompanied by a professional can rather make the way for a desired physical shape or physical conditioning even shorter, however it is an investment that requires money (doctors and nutritionists, plus medical exams), time (as you need to study and filter data about something that lacks of reliable scientific studies and much of what you find on the internet does not seem to be accurate) and a superb willpower to take care of training, food and rest.

I am under the impression that combining high irresponsible doses of different steroidal drugs can bring huge results in aesthetics and performance, especially in the capacity to generate force, almost immediately, but I still believe that the individuals who make this choice are giving up longevity and well being for the sake of fast results.

Keep Strong. And Learning.