How To Adjust Diet When Starting Hormone Replacement Therapy

Our next caller is Elijah from Texas. Hey, what's up, Elijah? How can we help you? Hey, so I had a question about some TRT diet stuff. So a little bit of backstory, former Air Force, got out, got lazy, got fat, had the realization that I needed to make changes. So about three years ago, I peaked at about 314 pounds. We basically changed our entire lifestyle. I now maintain about 235, but I've been dealing with some symptoms of low T for a long while now, even after the fat loss. So thanks to some of the conversations that you guys have had on the show, especially Adam, I pursued that and I'm now two weeks on the initial dose that they're putting me on for TRT. Already within a few days, I'm starving all the time. So right now I maintain about 3,000 calories and I don't know whether I should kind of stay at maintenance for a little while. Obviously, I got to get used to everything. They're going to dial in the dose. But after that, do I stay at maintenance and try and re-comp or push calories up slowly and see how I respond? And if so, how long before I should probably jump into some type of cut phase? Because I do still have some body fat to lose. Yeah, no, good question. A couple of things. Do you mind if I ask what your testosterone was at before you went on TRT? So the initial diagnosis test was like 320. I had another test at like 290 something. And then they did another one that was like 357. Okay. And in starting dose, do you mind if you let us know what the starting dose is in milligrams? Just out of curiosity. A hundred milligrams a week. You're only on a hundred, okay. That's it? You're not with Dr. Rand then, are you? No. Yeah, you must not be. No, it's a local clinic that my insurance covers. Oh, I see. Okay. Dr. Rand is the best in the business. So I would go there. And he usually starts people off higher. Nonetheless, what you're noticing is quite normal. So testosterone is a metabolism boosting hormone. If they give it to men who don't even work out with low testosterone, they'll lose body fat and build muscle without even working out. So it just shifts the way that your body uses nutrients and where it shuttles them. And you will typically, if you look at the research, it takes about four months or so before people start to kind of settle down. So initially, sometimes people feel way more energy. Libido goes through the roof. That'll settle down a little bit. And their appetite goes up quite a bit as well. These are actually good signs. Okay. They're good signs. It's telling us that the testosterone is doing its job, but also realize it's going to settle after about four or five months. Typically, again, when you look at the literature. Now, if you were my client, what I'd recommend is to go with it. I would say, look, here's the deal. Stick to whole natural foods, prioritize protein, eat until you're satisfied. Okay. Don't eat until you're stuffed, eat until you're satisfied, and that'll keep you probably where you should be. Now, if you hyperpalatable foods, processed foods, I should say, your calories are going to go up naturally. If you don't prioritize protein, you're more likely to eat too many calories. So high protein, whole natural foods, continue doing your workout, and then just eat until you're satisfied and kind of give your body what it needs. And what you'll probably notice is you're just going to gain muscle. And then what happens is the body's fat starts to come down because of the metabolism boosting effects of the increased muscle mass. I'm going to predict that at some point, they're going to probably increase your testosterone dose. A hundred milligrams a week is typically barely a replacement dose from what I understand. But again, you can get a consultation from someone like Dr. Rand. And what they'll do is they'll go over what your clinic's doing, and then give you some advice. And you can go back to your clinic and say, Hey, this is, you know, kind of what I want to try, but this is not a bad sign. This is a sign that your testosterone is working. You're in a great place right now. You're in a great place right now. In the fact that you're already consuming 3000 calories. And I know your question is asking us, you know, what you should do, whether you should cut bulk, recomp, what you should do right now. The answer is you can kind of do anything. You're in a healthy place calorie wise. Obviously, your metabolism is speeding up and you're hungry. Now, personally, if you let me tell you what to do, what I want you to do, I mean, your body is basically primed for building muscle. And it wasn't so much not that long ago. With your testosterone levels as low as they were, now that you're supplementing with testosterone, you're going to build muscle better than you ever have before. And so I would want to go with that. I'd want to, instead of going into a cut right now, which you could, because you're at a healthy amount of calories, I'd rather put calories on and really focus on getting strong and building muscle. And I would want, so if you're a client, our goal would be, okay, Elijah, I'm going to, I want to keep inching your calories up until you get at a place where you tell me like, Adam, that's, this is, I don't want to eat all this food. And then I go back the other way with you. So I'd keep inching you up, trying to build strength until we reach a calorie intake where you're looking back at me saying like, I feel like I'm eating all day. I don't like this much food. Can we go the other way? And then I'd bring you the other way and try and land you somewhere kind of probably where you're at right now, calorie wise, but work you up to probably 3,600 plus. Yeah. I mean, keep this in mind. This is a very good sign. If you feed your body properly, you're going to be fine. Now, if you take this increased appetite and then eat a bunch of processed garbage, then yeah, you're going to, you're just going to gain muscle and body fat. So you'll get this huge bulk effect, right? But if you eat whole natural foods, prioritize protein, what you'll do is fuel muscle growth, and then your metabolism will boost. And then at about like month three, four, five, now you're going to start to burn body fat. And the body fat really starts to come off your body because of the, the sped up metabolism effects of what's happening right now. So not a bad place at all. Again, feed your body. Just stay away from those foods that, you know, are engineered to make us really overeat. Cause then it'll just be too much of a compounding effect. Okay. I appreciate it. That's awesome. Elijah, what workout are you following right now? Um, I do my own programming. Um, I do, I've been doing a push pull legs six days a week. Okay. Modulate intensity and, you know, volume. Yeah. I'm going to, I'm going to send you maps aesthetic if you don't have that great program for building muscle. Uh, I think you're in a good place for it right now, especially if you've been doing what you've been doing for a little while. So if you don't want to have access, uh, we'll send that over to you. And then if you want that consultation, you want to inquire about it, you go to mphormones.com and they'll look over your current protocol and then tell you what they think, you know, would be, would be good for you. Okay. That's awesome. I appreciate it. No problem. Thanks for calling in. Thank you. Yeah, this is a different situation, right? Than the average person. Yeah, no, I mean, but what a great place to be eating 3000 calories, still hungry, taking your testosterone levels to 9,300 and probably now shooting them up to 900 plus. I mean, your body is just, you know, so I guess, you know, he could go and cut right now if he really, if, because he says he's got extra body fat, but I would much rather you keep building muscle, feed the metabolism. It's already trying to bump up and, and you, and who knows how long he's been training with this low of testosterone, which, uh, you know, we've all experienced low levels of testosterone and know what it's like to try and build muscle. It's very hard to build muscle when your testosterone levels are in the floor. And one of the best parts about getting on hormone therapy is having optimal testosterone all the time. It makes it a lot more fun. Oh, yeah. I mean, now, now, so long as you don't eat like an asshole, like Sal's talking about, I mean, you, you will add and build muscle and speed the metabolism up. I would go right with feeding the body. I tell you what though, just kind of a side note. It is quite, it was very surprising to me and of course this makes sense. This is true for any business, right? The difference in expertise and recommendations from one clinic to another. Well, he sounds like he's at a clinic I was the first time. Yeah. That's what I'm saying. When you went to that first one and they were, he started you off on a hundred and you're looking at your numbers and like, I still, I feel better, but I still, and then you go talk to Dr. Ran and he goes, you know, that's important, but we also got to go based off of how you feel and it can fluctuate depending on the man and androgen receptor density and all that kind of stuff. A hundred is in, you know, typically, typically low if you're going to go on replacement. Well, my, my takeaway from it in my experience is that you, you'll get these clinics like this and ageless men was like that. And I think that they're they kind of like how NASM would tell you not to shoulder press deeper than 90 degrees. You know, it's like a safe, like, well, we don't want to risk going to guards. And yeah, so let's, let's be conservative and put you on the lower end when in reality, it's like you could handle double that. No problem. They inched me up like 10 milligrams at a time. By the time I got to Dr. Ran, you know, I'd already inched up like four or five times and he still was like, oh my God, I would start you at almost double that. That's nowhere near. Yeah. And it's, you know what, it's old school. It's, it's a, it's a old understanding of testosterone because the, the research now, not even now for the last 20 years shows it's only because it was a controlled substance because for a while there, oh, athletes are using steroids, but no, no, no, it's not. It's of all the hormones. You need to be careful for testosterone is a pretty damn safe hormone. So this like fear around moving it up is totally unwarranted. And I, you know, I, like I said, when you talk to people who really know what they're doing, it becomes quite clear. So