Why do you juice if you know that when you get off of a cycle you will lose those gains?
How much of the gains do you retain after a cycle?
Are you afraid of addiction?
The psychological effects of gaining when your on and losing when your not could be damaging, increasing your dependence.
What is consider a safe amount with minimal, if no negative side effects?
Do you worry about not being able to produce testosterone on your own in the future like Flex Wheeler?
You dont lose the all the gains you made when on cycle.....for the most part all you lose is the water weight, if you continue to eat right and train well after the cycle there is no reason why you cant keep most of what you gained.....the problem is the crash in strength after a cycle can be demoralising and thats when people coming off cycle think 'fuck it' and start skipping the gym.....the hardest part of using gear is the 8 weeks or so after a cycle when you feel weak as a baby and the gym is the last thing on your mind....if you can keep lifting through this period then you will keep most of your gains.
How much you keep depends on how you keep eating and training after the cycle has finished, eat well and train hard (even though it may be the last thing you feel like doing) and you will keep a good ammount of your muscle gained on gear.
Other factors include what gear you've used during the cycle, test will bloat me right up and cause me to hold pounds and pounds of water....therefore i know when i come off cycle that i will lose a huge ammount of weight due to my body excreting all the water i've been carrying.
I tend to use cycles based around milder, low dosage gear like Winstrol, Primo, Anavar etc to minimize the water retention....the gains arent as dramatic as they are with test but i know that the weight i'm gaining is muscle and not water.
As for the psychological effect of dramatic gains when on cycle and losses when off cycle. Like i said above, the loss of weight after a cycle can be minimized, you will obviously lose all the water but the muscle can be held onto.
Part of the reason i switched over to non test cycles was because of the psychological effects of gaining 14lbs in 8 weeks, being strong as an ox and then losing 7lb of bloat and being weak as shit when i came off.....it was (as someone earlier wrote) two steps forward and one step back....and it wasnt for me.
I prefer steroids with less side effects, less water retention and steadier gains....when i gain 7lb on a Primo/Anavar cycle i know its muscle, theres no moonface, no back acne, no sweating that i used to get from test....and although i dont get the increases in strength that test used to give me, i can live with that....i'm not a power lifter.
Not afraid of addiction, dont have that type of personality.
What is a safe ammount?....how long is a piece of string?.....it will vary from person to person, some people can take huge ammounts of gear and have no sides and others (like me) only need 750mgs week of test and i'm sweating like a pig, breaking out in spots and filling up with water!.....if you dont like the sides, change the gear or drop the dose.
There are anti estrogens around to minimize gyno and other ancillaries that can be used for water retention, this all adds to the cost of a cycle though so thats another reason why i dont bother with gear that gives me nasty sides. Its trial and error a lot of the time until you find what works for you.
Dont worry about my test levels in the future, if you could see me and my dad (and all the other blokes on my dads side of the family for that matter) then you would know why!....we seem to have high test levels anyway....i.e we look like a bunch of hairy apes even without gear.....maybe i'm being flippant but theres always HRT if i'm proved wrong.