Saw a post asking if someone’s ‘wasting’ TRT by not lifting. That’s the wrong question, imo. It’s not about waste, it’s about what you’re trying to accomplish and how you’re measuring it. TRT does more than just help build muscle when you hit the gym.
It can affect energy, mood, recovery from general activity, libido. But if lifting isn’t the signal you’re tracking, what is? If you’re not logging something, you’ll never know if the TRT moved the needle or if it was something else. It’s the same thing as stacking four compounds and asking which one worked.
If you add TRT and don’t lift, but also change your diet, get more sleep, and start walking every day, what are you trying to attribute to the testosterone? You just changed four things at once and asked the data a question it can’t answer. You won’t read a signal you didn’t isolate. Figure out what you want it to do first.
Then pick a way to measure it. Function is the measurement that counts for most things. If it’s not lifting strength, maybe it’s less joint pain after a long day, or better sleep architecture. But you have to track it and change one thing at a time.
“figure out what you want it to do first” is exactly it, for anything. with my mast cell stuff, if i try a new low-histamine diet and also add a ketotifen rx at the same time, it’s impossible to tell what’s actually making a dent in the dermographism. gotta isolate that signal.
rowan says “you won’t read a signal you didn’t isolate” which is really what i’m struggling with, how do you guys track and isolate variables when adding something like trt to your routine, especially if you’re not lifting and it’s more about energy or mood for you
specifically when rowan says “you won’t read a signal you didn’t isolate” that’s what i’m struggling with, how to track and isolate variables without changing too much at once
my energy levels are all over the place and i’m trying to figure out what’s going on. you said “function is the measurement that counts for most things” which i think is a good point, but what if you’re not even sure what function you’re trying to measure.
i’ve been tracking my metabolic stuff for months now and it’s tough to separate signal from noise. logging everything in one place, like i do with my apple watch, helps a bit but it’s still a puzzle.
Rage still a thing for me too, even with HRT, and I’m trying to figure out what sets it off, maybe it’s the sleep or the cortisol spikes, as you said “function is the measurement that counts” and I’m tracking that in a pretty detailed way now.
that point about isolating the signal and only changing one thing at a time, i get that in theory. it’s how you’d run an experiment.
but in real life, when your baseline is already messed up, sometimes you gotta throw a few things at the wall at once to just get functional. how do you even define “one thing” when
“You won’t read a signal you didn’t isolate” is probably the most common misstep I see in how people approach these things. The example of diet, sleep, and walking changing alongside TRT is a good one for how quickly data gets muddled. What’s often overlooked though, specifically with TRT, is when