When losing fat in the mind of a bodybuilder, maintaining as much lean body mass (LBM) as possible while trying to drop to single digit body fat percent levels is the goal.

Unfortunately calorie restriction puts the the body in a catabolic state, which is the process in which your body breaks muscle at a accelerated rate for energy. To fix this problem many will use steroids. They don’t do it for a crutch, but because it allows them to acheive a level of BF% that they would not reach naturally no matter how strict the regimen.

Steroids will insure that the body is in an anabolic or near anabolic state at all times during their cutting phase. The mechanism of it works like this: steroids put you in a ultra-anabolic state making you less likely to store fat and break down muscle instead, during calorie restriction. Steroids change nutrient partitioning (so it actually changes your basic metabolism function by making your body “prefer” to eat up fat instead of muscle for calories). They do this nutrient their direct action of stimulating the AR receptors and by blocking the glucocortisoid, which helps block the action of the cortisol hormone. Steroids therefore are not just for building muscle, but also good during cutting because they preserve muscle and help block fat formation.

One idea that circulates in steroid circles is that certain steroids have magical cutting qualities to them such as Winstrol and Trenbolone. Winstrol and trenabolone makes the user not hold excessive water like testosterone and other steroids. They also makes the user look hard and dense, which is why many believe it has some magical fat burning properties. There is actually one major reason why they are good. In the case of Trenabolone it binds strongly to the AR and both winstrol and tren don’t convert to estrogen. This makes them both better at fat loss than testosterone. Some people stack testosterone with winstrol and trenabolone during cutting, but this counteracts the major benefit of using these steroids by themselves for burning fat because you are introducing high levels of estrogen.