My glutes, hamstrings and abs are exactly where I notice it too! Just before this deficit began, a line was starting to show down my stomach and my whole posterior chain felt insanely strong! These days that's far less true- I can't wait to get back to bulking.
Women using peptides to build muscle — any experiences?
- Thread starter henzvwry
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wildweasel
Explorer
There's a mental side to this too. For me, after spending years dropping weight the natural way, reaching a low number on the scale made it genuinely tough to convince myself that eating more was the answer to not looking flat anymore. But once I raised my calories, the change came fast — I got really toned, my stalled fat loss picked back up, the fat came off, and muscle took its place. It's strange how that ends up working.
DunningKruger
Explorer
Tesa never caused any bloat for me. That said, my dose stayed at 1mg/nightly, since I was paying $150 per vial for grey resale. Tesa is a favorite of mine. The lean gains and muscle sparing it delivered were precisely what I was after. In fact, among all peptides it ranks #2 for me, behind only Epitalon.
Ipa did give me bloat, though across months of use it happened just once. After several days traveling with no peps at all, I had a single day of clearly noticeable water retention in my extremities. And it showed up only on the day following my first dose back. Even so, it was alarming because of how extreme it was. I mean, "Should I go to the ER? Where did my bones go?" levels of extreme.
By the way, have I mentioned yet how little I care for Ipa?
Bollerhead
Explorer
Fantastic subject to raise! At 50 yoa as a female, gaining muscle is genuinely hard, and even harder when you are also trying to shed weight. For what my very humble opinion is worth, you are doing great! The weight came off through Tirz plus strength training. A lot of it can just be genetics. My rear is flatter than a credit card, yet my glute work is heavy. HRT has been part of my routine, with small doses of my husband's TestC, 4mg RT weekly and Klow 4 mg daily. Tesa, MotC and 5 amino are waiting to go into my stack. Adding slowly is the plan, so I can tell what is doing what. I do not know your age, but for an old head like me TestC is a good place to begin.
Gt3294a
Explorer
That's a new angle. My own observation had been the opposite: among the women I know, peptides aren't the route they take for building muscle. When they're younger, I tend to see Var first, with prim often following. As they get older — women around my age, 49 — test becomes more of a regular thing. From what I gather, it's a go-to when standard HRT isn't delivering. My wife is in the middle of sorting out her HRT right now. Good to hear you're getting yours squared away.
Bollerhead
Explorer
once you reach our age, HRt should come first. Nail that down, and only afterward bring in GHRH and/or High and so on. Just be prepared for your wife tho. She will be needing that vitamin D
lessthanhalf
Explorer
For women, the available choices are somewhat narrower. When it comes to actually adding muscle mass, the only agents with real effectiveness are androgenic anabolic steroids, testosterone and compounds in that family. However, for females the dosages and usage patterns have to be handled with far more caution so that side effects are avoided or kept to a minimum.
Secretagogues and HGH likely shift body composition only slightly — a few percent at best — unless someone resorts to doses that are not safe.
The bulk of the work comes down to getting training and nutrition right. Putting on muscle while eating in a deficit is close to impossible.
A low dose of Ostarine could be something to look into. It was studied in humans alongside semaglutide at 3mg, and it more or less eliminated muscle loss during weight loss. As a SARM with weak androgenic activity, it is considered safe in women, at least at lower doses. The problem is availability: it comes as 25mg pills from a very small number of sources, so to get 3mg doses you would have to crush pills and weigh them on accurate scales — a fair amount of hassle. Still, it is at least backed by human trial evidence for reducing muscle loss when weight loss happens with GLP drugs, and toxicity risk at those doses appears quite low. From what I understand, research into it as an add-on to GLP drugs is still ongoing, which is a reassuring safety sign.
Secretagogues and HGH likely shift body composition only slightly — a few percent at best — unless someone resorts to doses that are not safe.
The bulk of the work comes down to getting training and nutrition right. Putting on muscle while eating in a deficit is close to impossible.
A low dose of Ostarine could be something to look into. It was studied in humans alongside semaglutide at 3mg, and it more or less eliminated muscle loss during weight loss. As a SARM with weak androgenic activity, it is considered safe in women, at least at lower doses. The problem is availability: it comes as 25mg pills from a very small number of sources, so to get 3mg doses you would have to crush pills and weigh them on accurate scales — a fair amount of hassle. Still, it is at least backed by human trial evidence for reducing muscle loss when weight loss happens with GLP drugs, and toxicity risk at those doses appears quite low. From what I understand, research into it as an add-on to GLP drugs is still ongoing, which is a reassuring safety sign.
My first instinct after reading this post was to bring up Ostarine, but I held off. Now I will go ahead and say it: you can get it as a liquid solution, and dialing in the 5-10 mg dose that many women use across 6-8 week cycles is pretty straightforward.
wildweasel
Explorer
For your own use, which test dose have you found to work well?
Bollerhead
Explorer
At the moment I take 1mg two times per week, and since my levels are a touch high, that’s a positive sign. For the time being, this is exactly the range I’m aiming for. Should it start rising, I might lower the dose somewhat. Still, no two people respond the same way. Start low, move slowly.
wildweasel
Explorer
Your approach makes sense to me. Speaking as someone who's really into numbers and analytics, I'd love to see more hard data — it seems rare for women to run test.
When you pin 1m of test c each week, where do your Total t numbers end up?
Bollerhead
Explorer
That's intriguing. SARMs as a whole are something I want to look into, and Ostarine specifically hasn't crossed my radar much. Appreciate the tip — I'll dig into it.
Bollerhead
Explorer
A lot of my friends take it too. I’ll need to look at my lab results and then reply to you—I don’t want to pass along incorrect details.
lessthanhalf
Explorer
Would it be okay to ask which source carries the liquid form? I've never managed to complete a purchase, since tablets require paying shipping separately and many vendors claiming to stock it actually don't. On top of that, dosing is a hassle because you need to split a fairly tiny pill into an accurate 1/8th.
With that dosage, I figure you're using injections. Only about 10% gets taken in through topical application, so people usually go with roughly 5mg per day. A men's gel comes in 50mg tubes, designed for men to use each day. Women get prescribed 1/10 of a tube per day, which works out to 5mg. It's really cute and soaks in better than the compounded cream. 30 tubes in a box will last you 10 months.