Contest prep and cholesterol

anabolicscuba · Apr 3, 2014

Is it even possible to prep for a contest and keep your cholesterol in an acceptable range. I got mine tested with 11 weeks to go and my HDL was 14 and LDL 145. Didn't even bring in the winny and halo yet. Still had a ways to go on var and tren. I'm just not comfortable pushing my HDL to zero and I'm positive it would have been close by show day.

anabolicscuba · Apr 3, 2014

Forgot to add, before the prep started my HDL was 42 and LDL was 75, so clearly I know what jacked it up.

Bleed · Apr 3, 2014

At least you're smart enough to watch yours. Out of all the guys I know in person, all used large doses of orals and ADEX precontest and none had blood work done. I would imagine years of killing HDL for months at a time is not a good thing. There must be a way to mitigate it but completely avoiding it is another thing all together. You pay the cost to be the boss.

Flex2019 · Apr 4, 2014

I don't think that there are many people that can get through a contest prep (and look good/do well) that don't end up with bloodwork problems like this. It's just the nature of the compounds we take and what we do to ourselves during this time period. It's pretty clear that a bodybuilder that's a few weeks out from a show is certainly not the healthiest guy on the planet from a bloodwork perspective, it doesn't matter who you are.

I think the key is to be careful about dosages and duration of the harsher compounds, and keep the time that our bodies are under such stress to a minimum. Personally I try to run things like Tren and any orals, for only the final 8 weeks of contest prep, sticking to things like Test and EQ for the rest. And as soon as that prep is over, it's time to clean out and get the bloodwork back in order.

There are a lot of guys that want to run high dosages of all of the hardening drugs (Tren, Anavar, Winstrol, etc) for a full 16-20 week prep (and many guys even use long runs of these things in the offseason), and I think that is really when problems start to arise.

Mrtae · Apr 4, 2014

Cholesterol

From my perspective, the effects of drug usage is mainly on cholesterol. Atleast for me. I take milk thistle and Liv 52 twice a day. I get labs done by my endo at least every 6 months and sometimes every three, if something is off. I can get all my values within range, however, my cholesterol is slowly creeping up.

Just had labs done and everything was great except for my total cholesterol. It was in the high normal range and my endo wanted to prescribe me Lipitor. I've been eating 10 whole eggs every morning and not a totally clean diet. I asked to get rid of these and come back and get retested.

Does anyone have any experience with Lipitor and it's effects as far as bodybuilding?

GreenEarth · Apr 4, 2014

Such is the nature of the drugs. I don't know which one is doing it to you (or if they all are), but I noticed you're on tren...for me, tren absolutely destroyed my cholesterol.

jrock00123 · Apr 4, 2014

Mrtae said:
From my perspective, the effects of drug usage is mainly on cholesterol. Atleast for me. I take milk thistle and Liv 52 twice a day. I get labs done by my endo at least every 6 months and sometimes every three, if something is off. I can get all my values within range, however, my cholesterol is slowly creeping up.

Just had labs done and everything was great except for my total cholesterol. It was in the high normal range and my endo wanted to prescribe me Lipitor. I've been eating 10 whole eggs every morning and not a totally clean diet. I asked to get rid of these and come back and get retested.

Does anyone have any experience with Lipitor and it's effects as far as bodybuilding?

HDL and triglycerides are what you want to watch. Total cholesterol is a useless indicator. In fact LDL is also useless unless you did a VAP and know if you're predominately pattern A or B.

Mrtae · Apr 4, 2014

My HDL is 58 and my triglycerides are 121. Acceptable, in your opinion?

jrock00123 said:
HDL and triglycerides are what you want to watch. Total cholesterol is a useless indicator. In fact LDL is also useless unless you did a VAP and know if you're predominately pattern A or B.

Bleed · Apr 4, 2014

Some guys would kill for that HDL.

Mrtae said:
My HDL is 58 and my triglycerides are 121. Acceptable, in your opinion?

Knight9 · Apr 5, 2014

It is pretty much a foregone conclusion that your cholesterol is going to be wrecked if you are really going to go hard at competing. The smart thing would be to try to get it corrected as soon as possible with diet cardio and supplementation after the show.

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