I’ve found in all my years in competitive bodybuilding, T3 has been my favorite cutting compound. The negative hype I see on the message boards is highly over dramatized. In all my years of personal use as well as using it with clients, I have yet to see the problems that have been parroted for all these years. Maybe thats because my clients and I have used it with the highest respect. What does that mean? Using the least amount of T3 for the shortest duration to get the most benefit from it. Like anything, the higher the dose, the longer you use it, the more risk of side effects. T3, active thyroid is the foundation of your metabolism. Even with the best diet, over time, your metabolism may begin to slow. Your body doesn’t understand you’re trying to lose fat and look good. It just knows its low on energy reserves (fat storage) and it knows that calorie intake has been greatly limited. It wants to adapt by slowing down how fast you burn the calories you do get. This is where T3 can come in. Its not something you want to use right out the gate in your diet. It’s what you want to use when you are already in the weeds, cardio is already high and food intake is getting reduced. If I am working with a competitive client and doing a 20 wk diet, we may introduce T3 at 8 wks out. Possibly 10. But there is no set time that we use it. We watch how the individual is responding. When we start T3, its at 25mcg, taken first thing in the AM on an empty stomach which will have great effect for a diet that has already been producing results. I’m a big fan of then doing fasted cardio but if AM fasted cardio is not an option, I’d give it 15-20 min before eating meal 1. So we started T3 at 8 wks out. In another 3 wks or so, we may increase if needed. 25mcg in the AM, 12.5 mcg between meals about 8 hours later. Further along, if needed, we may go to 25 and 25, therefore using 50mcg total per day. If you go no higher than this and limit your use to no longer than 8 wks, you will be better prepared to avoid issues that could come from higher doses. Once you are ready to come off, taper down, removing 12.5mcg every few days, so that within 10-14 days, you can come off T3 all together. It’s those hat get greedy, using higher doses for longer periods that tend to get higher side effects and risk causing long term health issues related to thyroid production. Of course, this is no promise that you will be ok but I can say with 1000’s of clients over the years, I have seen no long term issues in myself or in the people I’ve worked with.