Skidude said:
Calm Logic said:
Why So Many Guys Are Obsessed With Testosterone#-why-so-many-guys-are-obsessed-with-testosteroneMarch/May 2026
...One more thing that muddies the picture: everyday problems such as
obesity, stress, poor sleep and diabetes can drag testosterone down all by themselves, which turns the whole thing into a loop that feeds itself. Plenty of physicians push men to fix diet and training first and see whether T climbs back naturally, before anyone commits to T.R.T. Dr. Mohit Khera, a urologist at Baylor College of Medicine, argues that
age on its own barely shifts T at all, and lays part of the blame on the fact that, as a population, we simply keep getting sicker.
...Because online clinics hand testosterone out so indiscriminately, the one thing most of those men will actually get is extra muscle. For plenty of them that is more than enough. The sales pitch, though, usually promises far more, insisting testosterone could repair both mind and body. “Online, everyone is saying testosterone is the solution to all of your problems,” Dubin says, then adds the plain caveat that it very clearly is not.
Without paywall:
http://archive.today/2026.05.30-100...azine/testosterone-masculinity-trump-rfk.html
Further reading:
Muscle Dysmorphia, Obsessive–Compulsive Traits, and Anabolic Steroid Use: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis - PMC
Muscle dysmorphia (MD) describes a body image disorder built on obsessive preoccupation with muscularity, together with compulsive habits such as over-exercising, rigid dieting and constantly inspecting the body. Researchers have tied MD to obsessive–compulsive ...
View attachment 249
pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
"Muscle dysmorphia...exists at the intersection of obsessive–compulsive psychopathology and substance-related behavior"
https://gertitashkomd.com/high-dose-trt-and-tendon-ruptures-whats-the-risk/
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Genuinely appreciate the feedback, and I respect the “harm reduction” aim.
The wording a lot of these studies use, plus the assumption that TRT exists only for cosmetic or vanity reasons, looks like an overstated conclusion to me.
I am talking about TRT only here. I have not gone anywhere near supraphysiological dosing.
I would agree that many of us, myself included, are after every benefit going - which takes in wanting to look better as much as feel better.
I also think it’s a slippery slope, the same as most of the peps and compounds we buy with no grasp of the full physiological picture.
That area is unquestionably more dangerous and can leave lasting damage.
That said, I agree with a few of the points I’m about to paste in: people differ, high doses are hard to work out when labs show no big reaction, and there is plenty on offer besides muscle.
What do you make of this:
A dose of
150 mg per week is not considered a high dose when that is what your body needs to sit in a normal, healthy physiological range. [
1,
2]
Whatever you were reading was probably leaning on older clinical guidance or strict academic protocols, which tend to treat 100 mg per week as the ceiling for replacement. Modern TRT clinics and their specialists accept that real-world biology is all over the place. [
1,
4]
Why 150 mg Counts as Standard, Not “High”
- Individual Metabolism: No two men clear exogenous hormones at the same speed. A 100 mg dose could leave one man sitting at a healthy 700 ng/dL while another stays subtherapeutic at 350 ng/dL. [1, 2]
- The Role of SHBG: SHBG (Sex Hormone-Binding Globulin) soaks up testosterone like a sponge. When a man’s SHBG runs high he will usually need more per week (often 150 mg to 200 mg) simply to release enough active testosterone into his tissues. [1, 2, 4]
- Clinic vs. Academic Disconnect: Older academic literature tends to aim at the smallest dose that clears the basic clinical symptoms. Specialized modern clinics instead tune levels up into the upper-normal physiological range (typically 700 to 1,000 ng/dL), where patients describe the strongest symptom relief. [1, 2, 4]
What the TRT range actually looks like
Injectable testosterone (cypionate or enanthate) is broadly split by medical consensus into these bands:
2,
3,
4,
5]
- Low/Conservative Dose (75–100 mg/week): Best suited to men who respond strongly, who run low SHBG, or who are older.
- Moderate/Common Dose (100–150 mg/week): The usual “sweet spot” for most men on TRT.
- Higher Therapeutic Dose (150–200 mg/week): Often needed by bigger men, fast metabolizers, or anyone with high SHBG.
- Abnormal / Performance Doses (200 mg+ / week): Seldom needed for genuine medical replacement; go into this territory and the odds of side effects climb, such as thick blood (high hematocrit) or elevated estrogen. [1, 2, 3]
In the end, the figure in the syringe counts for far less than what the blood work shows. If 150 mg lands your trough levels (the low point just before the next injection) inside a standard, healthy male range, then it is legally, medically and biologically a replacement dose—not a “high” or performance-enhancing dose.
