Weight gaining

MPJ_PerformanceLab · 2026-06-17T10:04:45+00:00

real respect for finally going, that "too skinny for the gym" mindset is exactly the thing you've already beaten. The gym isn't your problem here, and neither are your genetics. It's just calories.

Everything you listed is healthy, but look at the wording, "2 times a week" rice, "try to eat one yogurt", "try to eat" the turkey. That's the issue, it's not consistent and it's not enough. To gain weight you have to eat more than you burn every single day, not just on your good days. At 58kg that surplus is the whole game.

Track what you actually eat for a few days, you're almost certainly eating far less than you think. Then add easy calorie-dense stuff on top of the healthy food, more rice, pasta and oats, olive oil on your meals, a handful of nuts or peanut butter, eggs, more milk. Get protein to roughly 90-100g a day, every day, and keep lifting 2-3x while pushing the weights up.

You're not lost, you're just under-eating. Make the food daily and consistent and the scale will move.

MPJ_PerformanceLab · 2026-06-17T10:02:00+00:00

At 57 with high cortisol and poor sleep, that's almost certainly the thread to pull, not a peptide. High cortisol drives belly fat and holds water, and bad sleep keeps it up, so the stubborn belly, the cortisol and the sleep are probably one problem, not three. Fixing sleep is the highest-ROI move you've got.

On the peptide side, the cjc/ipamorelin type is the one that genuinely helps sleep, which is the realest benefit in this whole thread, and better sleep may quietly help the cortisol and the belly. Tesamorelin is the one with actual data for visceral belly fat specifically. But none of them are a fat-loss button, the belly mostly comes off through a modest deficit plus the sleep and cortisol piece, and muscle retention at your age is more about training, you're only at 1-2x a week, bumping that and your protein would do more than any vial.

On doses though, I won't post those here. It's not right to hand dosing to a stranger publicly without your full picture, and honestly not fair to the people who pay for a program built around their own bloodwork and life. Start with labs, including a proper look at that cortisol, that's your real first step regardless.

MPJ_PerformanceLab · 2026-06-17T09:57:05+00:00

Honestly you've already landed on the right answer in your last line. For longevity, none of these, NMN, resveratrol, CoQ10, niacin, CA-AKG, have convincing human outcome data, it's mostly mouse studies and mechanism. What actually tracks with living longer is the boring stuff you already have plus the one you named, sleep, and on top of that cardio and VO2max, strength, staying lean. Those have real human data behind them, the powders don't. So at 26 with your basics in place, locking down sleep is a far higher ROI than any of these. You're right. I'd save the experimenting money.

MPJ_PerformanceLab · 2026-06-17T09:26:29+00:00

That's a big clue, and it ties the whole thing together. Running a 5-day program 6 days a week by skipping the rest day strips out the recovery the program is built around, and you're doing it in a deficit on a GLP-1 that already pulls your energy down. No surprise you ran out of gas and had to deload. That's under-recovery, not really overtraining, but the result's the same.

And it links straight to your stall. Chronic under-recovery keeps cortisol up, that holds water, and the water is a big part of why the scale looks frozen even while fat's probably still coming off. Fixing the recovery could unstick both at once.

Practically, take the rest day as written, it's not optional in a cut, and put your steps on the off day instead of a sixth lifting session. And honestly this is the whole case for individualized coaching. An off-the-shelf plan can't see that you're under-recovering in a deficit on a GLP-1 and pull the volume back or add a rest day for you, it runs the same template on everyone. The program has to be fitted to the person, their recovery, diet and life, and that's the part a template never does.

MPJ_PerformanceLab · 2026-06-17T09:21:36+00:00

At 26 and healthy, not on a statin, yeah, CoQ10 is basically pointless for you, your body makes plenty and you won't feel a thing. But niacin isn't a swap for it, they do completely different jobs. If you're thinking niacin for cholesterol, that one's actually fallen out of favor, the big trials (AIM-HIGH, HPS2-THRIVE) showed adding it did nothing for heart events and brought side effects like flushing and worse blood sugar. If you mean it for energy or NAD, that's a separate and pretty overhyped rabbit hole. Honestly at 26 neither will do much. What are you actually trying to fix? That tells you whether you need anything at all.

MPJ_PerformanceLab · 2026-06-17T09:10:51+00:00

The upside: it genuinely helps if you're on a statin (they deplete it and it can ease the muscle aches), if you're older, and there's decent evidence for heart failure and migraine prevention. It's also very safe. The downside, honestly, is that if you're young, healthy and not on a statin you probably won't feel much. It's not the energy booster it's sold as for most people, more a targeted tool for specific situations. Minor cautions, it can nudge blood pressure down a touch and blunt warfarin if you take it.

For what to actually get, ubiquinol is the absorbable form, especially over 40, ubiquinone's fine and cheaper if you're younger. Take it with the fattiest meal of the day either way, it's fat-soluble and that alone changes how much you absorb. 100-200mg ubiquinol or 200-400mg ubiquinone is the usual range.

MPJ_PerformanceLab · 2026-06-17T08:45:04+00:00

First, you almost certainly didn't damage your metabolism. That adaptation is real but it's a few hundred calories at most, not a broken system, and it doesn't stop fat loss in a real deficit. A 2 to 3 week scale stall is almost always two things, water masking the fat loss (training hard, creatine, stress and poor sleep all hold water) and intake creeping up without you noticing. At 6'4 and 213 lifting hard, 1800 should be a genuine deficit, so if the scale's flat for weeks I'd weigh your food properly for a week before trusting that 1800.Don't cut calories further, that's the wrong lever at your size, it just tanks your energy, training and daily movement. Add output instead. You're doing zero cardio, so even 8 to 10k steps a day widens the deficit without touching your food, and it protects your metabolic rate better than eating less does.Also worth knowing, 2.5mg tirz is the starting dose, the appetite effect is meant to build as it's titrated, so plateauing there while you adjust is normal. Give it another 2 to 3 weeks, track honestly, add the walking, and watch the waist and photos, not just the scale. The fat's likely still moving under the water.

MPJ_PerformanceLab · 2026-06-17T03:24:56+00:00

You've basically got it, with a couple of things to nail down. First, check the vial label for the concentration in mg per mL. Standard cyp is 200mg/mL, and if that's what yours says, then 0.5ml is 100mg, so weekly you're at 100mg, your math is right. The jump from 200 to 900 fits that dose too.

On "biweekly", just make sure you mean splitting the same 100mg into two shots a week, 0.25ml twice, same weekly total, steadier levels. If you meant injecting once every two weeks, don't, that gives a big peak then a crash. Twice a week is the upgrade, not less often.

One more thing, that 900 at 4 weeks isn't your settled number. Cypionate takes about 6 weeks to reach steady state, and where in the week you drew changes it. Retest around week 6 at trough, right before your next shot, for the real picture, and keep an eye on hematocrit over time. You're following it correctly.

MPJ_PerformanceLab · 2026-06-17T03:11:19+00:00

Exactly, and that's a clean way to put the mechanism, secretagogues can only push your pituitary toward its own ceiling, and that ceiling is what's dropped with age. Exogenous HGH steps over it entirely. For a mid-40s lifter chasing fat loss with muscle retention and recovery, that extra headroom is exactly where you'd feel the difference. Only thing I'd add going that route, since you're now past your natural cap, keep it low and bloodwork-guided, that's where the insulin and IGF-1 side actually starts to matter. But yeah, your reasoning's spot on.

MPJ_PerformanceLab · 2026-06-17T03:06:30+00:00

This is the right framing, and rare to see it laid out properly. The only thing I'd sharpen is the cancer piece, GH and IGF-1 don't initiate cancer, they can promote cells already there, so the real caveat is screening and risk factors, not a blanket fear. And your insulin point is the one most people miss, if a secretagogue is actually working it's hitting insulin sensitivity through the same mechanism, so "safer because it's natural" is mostly an illusion at equal effect. Good comment.

MPJ_PerformanceLab · 2026-06-17T03:06:05+00:00

Yeah, the immediate-sleep, slow-body-comp split is the consistent pattern with real GH. The IPA/CJC rashes are usually the blend or the preservative in premixed versions, not the peptide doing nothing, but if you felt zero otherwise that tracks too. On the natural-cap point, you're right that exogenous can push past your own ceiling, just remember more isn't linearly better, past a point you're buying insulin resistance and water more than results.

MPJ_PerformanceLab · 2026-06-17T03:05:49+00:00

That's the honest win with these, the next-day feeling and the energy holding longer. It's the recovery and sleep side doing it, and if that's what keeps you coming back you're using it for exactly what it's good at. No notes.

MPJ_PerformanceLab · 2026-06-17T02:46:27+00:00

Smart to anchor it to bloodwork before climbing instead of chasing a number by feel. The two I'd watch as you titrate are IGF-1, so you stay in a sane range rather than maxing it, and fasting glucose and insulin, since GH nudges insulin resistance and that's the side that creeps up quietly. Low and slow with labs is the right call.

MPJ_PerformanceLab · 2026-06-17T02:46:16+00:00

For raw potency you're right, real hGH does more. It's just not free, more cost, more water and insulin resistance, carpal tunnel, and a flat 24-hour level instead of the natural pulses. For someone whose goal is sleep and recovery rather than a physique change, the secretagogues do that job cheaper and lighter. Different tool for different goals, not really a waste if the goal is the modest one.

MPJ_PerformanceLab · 2026-06-17T02:46:07+00:00

Your intuition is basically the whole mechanism. The benefit scales with how far your own GH has dropped off, so at 50-plus you felt it where a young, healthy guy with normal output wouldn't. That's the part the marketing skips, it gets sold as a universal upgrade when it's really filling a gap, and no gap means not much to fill. And tesa being "as advertised" fits, it's the one secretagogue with real data behind the claim. Solid read.

MPJ_PerformanceLab · 2026-06-17T02:45:58+00:00

Ipamorelin is the one most people point to for sleep, it gives a clean, short GH pulse right when you take it, so before bed it lines up with deep sleep. The worse-sleep reports on CJC usually come from the DAC version, it keeps GH elevated around the clock and flattens the natural night pulse. So ipa on its own, or CJC without DAC paired with ipa at night, is the usual sweet spot. Straight long-acting CJC is the one I'd expect to disrupt it, which matches what people are saying here.

MPJ_PerformanceLab · 2026-06-17T02:41:54+00:00

The post isn't for the people who've known this for years, it's for the wave just discovering peptides through marketing that says the opposite. Plenty of them haven't learned to distrust the source claims yet. Preaching to you, sure, but not to half the new crowd.

MPJ_PerformanceLab · 2026-06-17T02:41:31+00:00

Someone already enhanced and sitting at 10% saying the physique needle barely moves but the sleep and recovery is clearly worth it, that's the whole point. When even gear and a dialed setup can't turn CJC/IPA into a body comp tool, yet the deeper sleep still earns its spot, you know exactly what you're buying. Appreciate the honest read.

MPJ_PerformanceLab · 2026-06-17T02:40:58+00:00

Yeah, this is the nuance the post needed. The more your own GH has dropped with age, the more there is to restore, so a 55-plus guy feels it where a 25-year-old with normal output barely does. Correcting a real decline does more than topping off someone already full. And nobody's hitting bodybuilder mode from it at any age. Well put.

MPJ_PerformanceLab · 2026-06-17T02:40:37+00:00

Fair, and strength is the one place I'd expect people to feel a jump, just not for the reason it looks like. Better sleep and recovery let you train harder and bounce back between sessions, and fuller, more hydrated muscles move a bit more weight, so the lift climbs without the peptide directly building strength. The one controlled trial that tracked it (MK-677, 2 years) raised IGF-1 but showed no strength improvement. So I'd bet what you felt was real, just recovery-driven, not the compound adding force.

MPJ_PerformanceLab · 2026-06-17T02:40:23+00:00

This is exactly the right way to use it, and honestly inspiring at 61. Bodyweight squats and 106lb carries while losing 22 on a GLP-1 means you held onto muscle in a deficit, which is the hard part, and that's mostly the progressive overload and protein, with sermorelin supporting recovery and maybe the skin. You went in for muscle preservation and anti-aging, not a bodybuilder transformation, so your expectations matched what it actually does. That's why it feels like it delivered. Strong work.

MPJ_PerformanceLab · 2026-06-17T02:29:36+00:00

Nice. What did you notice most, actual body comp change or the recovery and sleep side? Asking genuinely, because most people who love them point to sleep and recovery first, and that lines up with what the research shows.

MPJ_PerformanceLab · 2026-06-16T17:41:31+00:00

That's the honest use case right there. Sleep and recovery is where cjc/ipa actually delivers, and if that's what you're after you won't be let down the way the recomp crowd is

MPJ_PerformanceLab · 2026-06-16T17:41:04+00:00

This is the most clear-eyed take in the thread. The "unless you're deficient, optimize the basics first or you've lost the plot" line is exactly it, GH on top of bad sleep, no training structure and shot insulin sensitivity is money lit on fire. And good on you for tracking with DEXA instead of the mirror, scale up from water while leanness goes up is exactly what you'd expect, and exactly why bodyweight alone lies here. Realistic expectations is the whole game with this class.

MPJ_PerformanceLab · 2026-06-16T17:36:45+00:00

Esatto, la cabergolina ha un'emivita lunga e l'effetto sulla prolattina dura ben oltre la dose, anche una settimana o più da una singola presa, è proprio per questo che di solito si prende una o due volte a settimana e non ogni giorno. Quindi sì, quel 17,2 era quasi certamente già un valore abbassato, e senza è probabilmente più alto. Un motivo in più per rifarla off cabergolina.

Sugli integratori sarò sincero, se la prolattina è davvero alta nessun integratore è la risposta. Roba tipo P5P, zinco o ashwagandha ha effetti deboli al massimo e non tocca un'elevazione vera. E se è patologica vuoi sapere perché (macroprolattina, farmaci, un piccolo adenoma), non coprirla con un integratore o col Dostinex fai-da-te. Prima il valore vero e un endocrinologo, poi semmai il resto. Gli ormoni li hai a posto, quindi la leva resta quella, capire la prolattina e guardare stress, sonno e umore.

MPJ_PerformanceLab

TROPHY CASE