So I’ve been on this hrt for 3 years but took a 3 month “break” and restarted in August
I was really freaked out because I wasn’t on the hrt when I had the random weight gain
Weight gain = good
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A three month break will still have your body trying to achieve homeostasis, it would still have almost certainly been the cause of weight gain. Also as @Voxel says weight gain should be a goal of yours not an anathema.
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I’m having to significantly back off for my kidneys and don’t have a barbell, so it still freaks me out
Although, math has been quite a bit harder than expected so maybe some stress prs on the horizon 
You’re still doing a fairly high rate of work even without a barbell, so some hypertrophy is possible and given your low BW, weight gain (and yes fat gain) is still essential, being so underweight is damaging for your body.
Bottom line, gain weight even if it’s fat, even if it doesn’t increase your strength.
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I’ll delete this if it’s not kosher to post per the board rules but @anna_5588, if muscle mass goes up so will body fat. You’d benefit from having more of both. Any weight gain you see will be good.
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Also, notice how fat mass isn’t always increasing. You gain weight, some muscle, some fat. Now, to maintain that weight what used to be a surplus now becomes maintenance so occasionally you’ll eat into your fat stores.
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Have you spent any time on pro-ana websites, Anna?
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No. I don’t think I’m alone in thinking that pms is unpleasant and bleeding is inconvenient
Contrary to popular belief, periods are not normally painful and can in many cases be nearly symptomless.
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Mine were, then I started getting symptoms WITH the hrt
That would be because you dropped to such low body fat levels that it disappeared, and you deliberately made the decision to not gain enough body fat for it to come back, and you’re pouring exogenous hormones into your body, forcing it to restart a process that it stopped in order to warn you that something was drastically wrong. Go drill a hole in your car’s radiator and then pour coolant into it every couple of days and see if your car runs just like it did before.
I feel like we skipped right over the therapy part - have you reached out to a therapist? Can anybody here assist in any way in terms of finding reviews or where to look, etc.? It’s COVID time - the perfect time for any therapist anywhere to give you a video chat session where you don’t feel like you’re trapped in their room with them. I’m wondering if there’s any way to convince you to just send an email to a cognitive behavioral therapist. There’s no downside, and the upside could be muscle gains, strength, and a long life.
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Overtraining syndrome is a real thing
No, but there’s a tendency among anorexics to find them repulsive because they’re unpleasant, inconvenient, and more importantly a mark of failure, akin to weight gain.
Google “therapists [my town]” and read the Psychology Today profiles. Therapists pay for these profiles, so they both give needed info and suggest a level of professionalism and awareness of marketing. I like intelligent, professional people when looking for someone to do my accounting or fix my head. OTOH, my therapist (I have one) doesn’t do any of the online stuff. I found her through referrals. Doctors tend to know who’s good because they’re often the first stop for people falling apart, and then they hear back six weeks later how it’s going with both meds (if prescribed) and the new therapist.
I would also urge you again to rethink your past experience. I strongly suspect that your resistance to change was the problem. I had a guidance counselor pull me into her office because she’d gotten (true) information about my complete unraveling from my former best friend (we weren’t friends because I’d stopped being a good kid and good student), but we had secrets in my family and I didn’t want to talk. So I came shrieking out of my corner like a rabid bat, accusing her of violating my confidentiality. She threw her hands up and switched me to a counselor who asked nothing of me. I’ll always resent her for her lack of fortitude in staying with me and sticking through my resistance. I soon after that dropped out of high school and left Connecticut for California as a runaway.
I’ve had a number of people accuse me of complete bullshit, as I accused the counselor. They didn’t want to be there. I assume they’ll find someone when they’re ready to make changes, if ever.
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Week 5: day3
Sprints: 5x(3squat jumps+30m sprint)
Pistols: 3x3/side-45lbs
1 arm push-ups: 1x8/side, 3x7/side
Rows: 2x(7 gorilla rows/side-45lbs+20russian twists-25lbs)
- legs still didn’t feel great and that showed w/the pistols, pretty happy with push-ups and rows though
@vision1 it’s been 3 workouts where performance on pistols tanked so it’s probably not random bad workouts. I haven’t changed anything except starting school and am actually getting 3-5k LESS steps in. Any ideas?
I’m not a car guy but to borrow an ongoing analogy
maybe that’ll work for a few miles but eventually it won’t work any later and unlike in the analogy any distance you may have travelled you might end up being teleported back to before the point you even started at. Sometimes when I’ve turned things around I regress anyway, probably because my body is paying of a debt and is now less in survival mode.
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Try switching to 25 lbs for a few weeks and then come back to 45, see if that helps. Linear progress doesn’t work forever. And stop working to failure every set if that’s what you’re currently doing.
I’d also put more focus on rows, they shouldn’t always be sitting in the back seat. Why only 2 sets when you do 4 of pushups?
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good idea
I stay 1-2 reps from failure, but sometimes on the left side, I end up hitting failure to match reps
pushups are a “main movement” and rows are accessories I do at the end of the workout. Unfortunately I’m on a tighter schedule and am too drained to do a circuit
How does your body feel after a workout?
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legs pretty dead, upper body not too bad, humidity high so very sweaty