I will share my experience with you and maybe it will help your focus and thought process.
I will turn 57 next week. I started my turn around earlier this year (Jan/Feb) by visiting an orthopedic Doc because my knees were kiling me. I am 6"-2" and was at 304 lbs BMI was 32% with a 44" waist and was miserable. I had torn miniscus in both knees. While I was in the treatment room waiting for the Doc I noticed via some litterature that he had branched his practice into wellness, anti aging and HRT. I asked him if I was a candidate since I was overweight, no drive and felt like shit all the time.
He performed the blood and saliva test and while I waited on the results (2 weeks) I went to my cardiologist and had the whole cardiac work up including a stress test which kicked my ass. All of the cardiac checked out ok and the blood/saliva test indicated that I was ok on cholesterol/tryglyceride but my Testosterone was in the low/normal range. I think around 480+/-. My wellness Doc had put me on a handfull of nutriceuticals to take daily and he started injecting me every week with Testosterone Cypionate 200mg. I did this for a month and ran more blood and he changed to every other week with the Test.
After 3~4 days passed with the initial injection I felt the surge. I started going to the gym 3x a week and after 8 weeks I started seeing results. I started whey protien powder and added some NOX supplement. By late July I had dropped my weight to 265 , waist to 40" and BMI to 25% !! In early August my Doc and I agreed that I should start injecting myself and sent me home with the vial and hardware for ten injections. I went back to 1x week and am now injecting every 5 days. I think I am getting close to the "sweet spot" for me.
My knee problems have almost gone away completely and I look forward to gym visits and have a much better outlook on life. The goals I have set for myself are realistic I feel for my age. I am resolved that I can't achieve the big mass that a serious "cycle" would produce. What I can do however is use the technology and knowledge that I am gaining with this site to shape my body to look and feel the best I can. One of the tricks that I have found is the ability to direct development in certain areas that I feel need work.
To that end I have started using only a teaspoon of creatine mixed in with my protien shake along with a small amount of Cytocarb powder about an hour prior to workout. For post workout I have another protien shake with Cytocarb within an hour while I am still pumped.
This set up opens my blood vessles and muscle fibres during my work out and feeds that protien and amino acids straight to the muscle cells. The post work out drink continues to feed the cells at a time when they are screaming for food/nutrients. The Testosterone is accelerating the mucle cell repair and growth. The pumps I get with the creatine are pretty significant compared to without it. It doesn't take much.
Guys like us have to be very aware of changes and side effects when doing this stuff. I have started taking an estrogen blocker because accordingly at some point the Testosterone can convert to estrogen and it causes negative things that you can read about elsewhere on this site.
In summary, my short term goal is to get my waist to 36", BMI to 15% and weight down to around 225~230. The weight may seem heavy but I know I have a heavy frame and to me the weight is not as much a measure of fitness as is that waist size and the BMI %. Diet has become something that I am focusing on and I know that the changes that I am making now must become prmanent ones. The amount of weight I am using in my excercises is not as important as the ability to add small increases while maintaining proper form and execution of each rep. I know one of my measures of success is the ability to do Roman Chair "dips", 3: sets of 10. When I was playing football in High School and again when I was in great shape in my mid-thirties I could do it. I'm not there yet but know I will be soon.
Hopefully some of this helps put some perspective on this for you. I read alot of stuff on this site and try to learn something new every day.