Bulk and Cutting Cycles

b4tsb4k · Jul 8, 2025

Oi Mud!

I‘d say do a Test Base at upper natty level or a bit above (250mg weekly) and add Semaglutide. That‘s it. You have quite a few weeks before maxing out the 2.5mg weekly.

What are you currently running? You can cut on Test + Sema for at least 24 weeks.

Greets

Einherjar · Jul 10, 2025

b4tsb4k said:
Oi Mud!

I‘d say do a Test Base at upper natty level or a bit above (250mg weekly) and add Semaglutide. That‘s it. You have quite a few weeks before maxing out the 2.5mg weekly.

What are you currently running? You can cut on Test + Sema for at least 24 weeks.

Greets

Yes, indeed, it might be worth adding one of the GLP-1 agonists, which can help reduce appetite. This is a real issue for many people, especially when all your energy and focus go into work, and you get tired, losing your willpower. When you also have to think about training and diet, it can really break your mindset. To make things easier, medications like semaglutide, retatrutide, and terzepatide were developed.

Actually, I would start with semaglutide without using testosterone, beginning with the minimum doses. First of all, it's cheaper, which allows you to save money. If semaglutide doesn't work for you, you can always try terzepatide or retatrutide. I would recommend a cycle of about 12 weeks to assess the results.

I’d also be curious to know how much protein and carbohydrates you’re consuming; perhaps adjusting the ratio of these macronutrients would help speed up fat loss.

If testosterone is needed, it can be added later, but I would avoid it in the first 12 weeks. Understanding that if you're prone to gaining weight, you most likely have a larger bone structure will help avoid unrealistic expectations. Using testosterone might even cause you to gain weight rather than lose it. There will be water retention, you'll get bigger, but this is probably not what you want at this stage.

Especially important when using testosterone is to monitor the results through blood tests. In your case, it’s crucial to track estradiol levels, because elevated estradiol will lead to even more water retention, making you bulkier, and you might look worse in the mirror than if you hadn’t used testosterone.

In conclusion, my recommendation is to try 12 weeks of semaglutide. If it works for you and you’re losing weight, aim to drop 10-12 kg, take photos, assess the results, and decide whether you need to use testosterone going forward.

Mud · Jul 13, 2025

b4tsb4k said:
Oi Mud!

I‘d say do a Test Base at upper natty level or a bit above (250mg weekly) and add Semaglutide. That‘s it. You have quite a few weeks before maxing out the 2.5mg weekly.

What are you currently running? You can cut on Test + Sema for at least 24 weeks.

Greets

Hey mate, appreciate your response, currently running nothing at all, in my head, I've always left the idea of doing something like test once I get to a point where I feel I'm not finding gains naturally. Big part of that is leaning out first, so I've never considered it and have a long way to go.

Is there a particular reason you recommend sema over tirz and reta?

Mud · Jul 13, 2025

Einherjar said:
Yes, indeed, it might be worth adding one of the GLP-1 agonists, which can help reduce appetite. This is a real issue for many people, especially when all your energy and focus go into work, and you get tired, losing your willpower. When you also have to think about training and diet, it can really break your mindset. To make things easier, medications like semaglutide, retatrutide, and terzepatide were developed.

Actually, I would start with semaglutide without using testosterone, beginning with the minimum doses. First of all, it's cheaper, which allows you to save money. If semaglutide doesn't work for you, you can always try terzepatide or retatrutide. I would recommend a cycle of about 12 weeks to assess the results.

I’d also be curious to know how much protein and carbohydrates you’re consuming; perhaps adjusting the ratio of these macronutrients would help speed up fat loss.

If testosterone is needed, it can be added later, but I would avoid it in the first 12 weeks. Understanding that if you're prone to gaining weight, you most likely have a larger bone structure will help avoid unrealistic expectations. Using testosterone might even cause you to gain weight rather than lose it. There will be water retention, you'll get bigger, but this is probably not what you want at this stage.

Especially important when using testosterone is to monitor the results through blood tests. In your case, it’s crucial to track estradiol levels, because elevated estradiol will lead to even more water retention, making you bulkier, and you might look worse in the mirror than if you hadn’t used testosterone.

In conclusion, my recommendation is to try 12 weeks of semaglutide. If it works for you and you’re losing weight, aim to drop 10-12 kg, take photos, assess the results, and decide whether you need to use testosterone going forward.

I really appreciate the detailed response!

Reducing appetite is a really big one for me. On a bad day I just want a bit extra of everything and end up eating alot. On a good day tho, I aim to get in about 130-150g of protein, carbs wise, actually have never tracked it, but my best weight loss period came from reducing my carbs dramatically (almost none on a typical day).

I think I'll take your advice and try semaglutide, but curious, same question as I made to the original comment. Why semaglutide instead of Reta? I might be falling for the algorithm but all I seem to see online at the moment is people banging on about how amazing reta is and how much better it is for body recomp then sema

b4tsb4k · Jul 13, 2025

Mud said:
I really appreciate the detailed response!

Reducing appetite is a really big one for me. On a bad day I just want a bit extra of everything and end up eating alot. On a good day tho, I aim to get in about 130-150g of protein, carbs wise, actually have never tracked it, but my best weight loss period came from reducing my carbs dramatically (almost none on a typical day).

I think I'll take your advice and try semaglutide, but curious, same question as I made to the original comment. Why semaglutide instead of Reta? I might be falling for the algorithm but all I seem to see online at the moment is people banging on about how amazing reta is and how much better it is for body recomp then sema

The way I do understand it was Reta having more side effects. Sure it‘s more effective, but more aggressive so you‘d have to make sure to really keep on with training and the necessary amount of proteins which can be tough as it‘s really nuking your hunger. You can run it in shorter cycles, but so personally wouldn‘t run it for 24 or more weeks without AAS support against catabolism.

As I also don’t want to recommend substances I do not have first hand experience with. Other are probably a bit more liberal with this.

Mud · Jul 13, 2025

b4tsb4k said:
The way I do understand it was Reta having more side effects. Sure it‘s more effective, but more aggressive so you‘d have to make sure to really keep on with training and the necessary amount of proteins which can be tough as it‘s really nuking your hunger. You can run it in shorter cycles, but so personally wouldn‘t run it for 24 or more weeks without AAS support against catabolism.

As I also don’t want to recommend substances I do not have first hand experience with. Other are probably a bit more liberal with this.

Got you, makes sense. Really appreciate your help mate

dr. Doping · Jul 13, 2025

I would suggest you hold off on using steroids, because a "bad" body composition exacerbates the health damaging effects of the steroids (worse insulin sesnitivity, worse lipid levels, higher blood pressure, higher aromatisation, etc).
What I've seen to work best is to create a mealplan and follow it and progressively lower calories, based on how your bodyweight is moving.
My suggestions for the mealplan would be to consume about 250g of protein per day, as little fats as possible (because they contain 2.25x more calories per gram than carbs and protein do), fill out the rest of the calories with carbs (when you get to around 300g of carbs per day, start concentrating them before and after training, trying to have the other meals as low on carbs as possible) to fuel you performance in the gym and try to make as much of your carbs fiber as possible (because fiber digests slower, you will be satiated for longer).
Try to sleep enough, because this has a huge effect on hunger and try to identify if your binges have any psychological triggers (I've noticed even for myself that eating junk food is very psychologically dependent, because it gives me comfort or if I'm bored).
When all that is taken care of and you come to the point that psychologically, you can't handle cutting anymore, I'd suggest starting retatrutide (ofcourse after you thoroughly learn and understand the compounds, how they work, etc), since reta (as opposed to semaglutide) also limits dopamine release from food, therefore eliminating cravings and binge behaviour. With GLP-1's, I really suggest more frequent dosing than 1x-2x per week, since this allows greater flexibility and less side effects. Always start low, asses response and titrate up based on need. If you need anymore help, feel free to ask

Mud · Jul 15, 2025

dr. Doping said:
I would suggest you hold off on using steroids, because a "bad" body composition exacerbates the health damaging effects of the steroids (worse insulin sesnitivity, worse lipid levels, higher blood pressure, higher aromatisation, etc).
What I've seen to work best is to create a mealplan and follow it and progressively lower calories, based on how your bodyweight is moving.
My suggestions for the mealplan would be to consume about 250g of protein per day, as little fats as possible (because they contain 2.25x more calories per gram than carbs and protein do), fill out the rest of the calories with carbs (when you get to around 300g of carbs per day, start concentrating them before and after training, trying to have the other meals as low on carbs as possible) to fuel you performance in the gym and try to make as much of your carbs fiber as possible (because fiber digests slower, you will be satiated for longer).
Try to sleep enough, because this has a huge effect on hunger and try to identify if your binges have any psychological triggers (I've noticed even for myself that eating junk food is very psychologically dependent, because it gives me comfort or if I'm bored).
When all that is taken care of and you come to the point that psychologically, you can't handle cutting anymore, I'd suggest starting retatrutide (ofcourse after you thoroughly learn and understand the compounds, how they work, etc), since reta (as opposed to semaglutide) also limits dopamine release from food, therefore eliminating cravings and binge behaviour. With GLP-1's, I really suggest more frequent dosing than 1x-2x per week, since this allows greater flexibility and less side effects. Always start low, asses response and titrate up based on need. If you need anymore help, feel free to ask

Yeah, the more and more I read into it, the fingers are pointing towards me needing to give complete natural cutting a longer chance. Im still so fat that I could be losing so much if I just stop randomly binge eating. Like you say, theres alot of factors I could look into like sleep, which is definitely a problem for me today. Thanks for the advice, and I'll definitely reach out again in the future.

Einherjar · Jul 16, 2025

Mud said:
I really appreciate the detailed response!

Reducing appetite is a really big one for me. On a bad day I just want a bit extra of everything and end up eating alot. On a good day tho, I aim to get in about 130-150g of protein, carbs wise, actually have never tracked it, but my best weight loss period came from reducing my carbs dramatically (almost none on a typical day).

I think I'll take your advice and try semaglutide, but curious, same question as I made to the original comment. Why semaglutide instead of Reta? I might be falling for the algorithm but all I seem to see online at the moment is people banging on about how amazing reta is and how much better it is for body recomp then sema

Semaglutide is cheaper and it might solve your problems. That is, you will spend less money. I believe that any problem is better solved with minimal effort and for this purpose the simplest tool is selected. If semaglutide does not help, then I would start using another drug, for example, tirzepatide. For example, if you want to gain muscle mass, then you start with testosterone but not with trenbolone. My logic is this.

Bulk and Cutting Cycles

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