Hi all - I'm Christie, and I decided to join after finding this board and being very impressed by the amount of knowledge being shared here and how seriously most members seem to take their training and cycles. I've learned a lot already just from reading, so I definitely want to thank those of you who've taken the time to assemble this research and weed out some of the obvious (even to a newbie like me) nonsense.
It's taken a while for me to do what seems like enough research to prepare for my first cycle, just because there's not a lot of info out there that even considers women and this is certainly not something I want to jump into without being as prepared as possible. The logs I've found have mostly been from figure competitors or bodybuilders; I haven't seen much from women who are focused primarily on strength and there's almost no follow-up about keeping gains or any side effects post-cycle. Although I suppose, as they say, we're all an experiment of 1 so we'll see what happens.
I'm 31 and have been lifting for 5 years, although I only got really serious about it 3 years ago. I was a nutrition minor in college and continue to read a ton about nutrition and training, so I think I'm in a solid position from that angle (after all, I want to GET something out of this cycle and I'm not about to undercut my first one with weak diet and training). My biggest challenge is getting enough sleep, but things are calming down at work after a couple of crazy months so with a little more effort and planning I should be able to get that nailed down as well.
Basically, at this point I just have to pick what compound to run! Already got taurine and cycle support supps in hand, so it's just the last (hardest) part. Anavar seems to be the most popular choice among the ladies, and I like the idea of an oral so I can monitor for sides and adjust my dose as needed immediately (especially since I've never ordered before and have to acknowledge that I might get something other than var anyway if the supplier swaps it out on me). The other couple of orals suitable for women seem to get called out for harsher sides but I can't find anything conclusive to back up whether they also produce greater gains. That trade-off would be worth it to me but from what I've read there doesn't seem to be that big of a difference in strength gains.
So that's my long-winded introduction and way of saying thanks to all of you who've made this board what it is...how come I can't find any equally nice guys with these types of bodies where I live?!?