Testosterone is the drug of the future

>I've been lifting weights three times a week for the last four years. I still look average, and yes I'm eating and exercising properly.

People always says this. They always eat well and recover properly, but they just can't make any gains. Everyone else can, but they can't and instead of looking at the simplest explanation, they do hurdles to convince themselves they have low test and that's why they're not perfect. Have you been going to a trainer? A nutritionist? Might want to check out other alternatives before taking synthetic hormones. And get off /fit/. This seems like the kind of genius idea that someone on /fit/ came up with.

The original poster had High T levels to start with. Maybe he didn't notice much of a change. I noticed a significant change going from <120ng/dl to 500ng/dl (still less than OP). I always drop weight when I am on T and get much leaner without changing anything else. Well it does make it easier to work out and diet but even without any changes it makes a big difference. Each time I go off and onto something else like clomiphene I gain 20-30lbs that is not lean at all.

I only practice mindfulness meditation with varying frequency, sitting anything from about 5 minutes to 30 minutes, rarely longer.

Typically mindfulness meditation starts with basic breath meditation: Sit in a stable, comfortable position, focus on your breath and notice it going in and out. If thoughts appear, try to keep focus on the breath but don't force the thoughts away, just try to let them dissipate without continuing them.

The big difference for me with unstructured relaxation was that it was hard at first to focus on the breath. My mind produced all kinds of objections to sitting there and paying attention.

Sitting for 5 minutes like that caused my mind to practically rebel. Then I went through a period with dream-like states (one of the most memorable effects, which I've only had a few times, was like seeing a dream unfold around me, but while dreams always feel "fuzzy" and unclear for me this was as if I was standing in the middle of a theatre set, seeing everything clearly, yet knowing it was not real).

Then I had a period of what is something referred to as "monkey mind" - all kinds of distractions piled on. Then I went through a period where I would suddenly get an intensely strong belief that I'd forgotten to set my alarm and was going to be late. I knew I'd set my alarm, but the feeling would become unbearable until I looked at my (set) alarm. I had to solve that by triple check the alarm before I started, and telling myself it was set, and telling myself it didn't matter because I had lots of time free after it was set to go off, and then it stopped happening (and I don't triple check my alarm any more).

These distractions were not constant, and I could sit longer and longer before they'd set in. After a few weeks of daily practice they were weakened enough that I started feeling I was getting somewhere.

Once I'd gotten past those distractions, it changed nature very strongly. Now I slowly sink into more and more relaxed states depending on how long I sit. At about 20 minutes I will generally start feeling as if I am noticing the pulsing of blood in my eye lids and pressure on my eyes (I have no idea if those are real physical sensations or not - doesn't matter to me) and see patterns similar to what you might see if you squeeze your eyes firmly shut and feel a sense of blissful calm that makes it tempting to just stay like that.

If I sit longer and focus, those feelings dissipates as I get calmer and more concentrated and I can best describe it as if my mind is "emptying" and clearing of whatever feelings the sense of bliss brought, and it feels more steady and crisp. It's very hard to relate the sensations of it with words.

If I sit to the "bliss" state or past, I will feel an immense feeling of calm once I finish that will often last for hours afterwards.

I'd recommend the frequently recommended Mindfulness in Plain English (available for free online, or from Amazon etc.) or Introduction to Mindfulness (free podcasts) by Gil Fronsdal. Both are no-nonsense secular introductions and very simple, basic practice to try out and see if you like the effects.

Benefit to everyone, not just men, is running my back muscles occasionally at 200% percent safe capacity in general daily life, lead to punishing pain though I was still a teen at that time. Under advice and monitoring of the docs, following all the trainer recommendations, good form and trainer approved plans etc, I bulked up to the point that daily life occasionally peaked my back muscles at maybe 50% of safe capacity. You can guess the effect on my quality of life. Sometimes simply not feeling pain anymore is a gift from the gods. I suppose it was either lift, or start a life long opiate addiction.

On the other hand, I know most of the guys at the gym with me were just addictive personalities. Rather than wanting that lvl80 in WoW, or feeling the uncontrollable desire to get drunk, they wanted to bench 300. There certainly are worse grind addictions than lifting.

Gwern wrote a section about Testosterone in Nootropics article: http://www.gwern.net/Nootropics#testosterone