September of 2020, I woke up one morning and was absolutely disgusted with myself.
My investors liquidated all US assets, perceiving COVID to be a permanent issue, and I lost my business. Five years of grueling research, product development, launch, and absolute slaving to become profitable - up in smoke. As I went through personal and professional bankruptcy, I stuffed my face with any and everything to cope.
I weighed 300lbs (6’4" 40% BF). Disgusting.
I couldn’t keep up with my kids (I’m 35 now).
I have a smoking hot wife and I hated to even make eye contact with her because I was so disgusted with myself.
I even tried to justify it as, “well at least I’m not drinking and doing drugs” - but the reality was, I was fast pacing myself to death’s grip simply by being a disgusting sack of shit.
So as I came to terms that I was going to have to start all over again and build a new business, I found it fitting to build a new me. I owed it to my kids and more importantly I owed it to my wife. Losing the business put her through hell. She doesn’t deserve to also have to endure some fat sack of disgusting shit scrambling to rebuild stability. I don’t want my kids to see me as a giant meat ball and think that’s an acceptable self-image to put forth to the world.
I haven’t trained since I got married 11 years ago. I worked hard in a very niche industry that required a lot of manual labor and that kept me in good shape, but when I became self employed, I took more of a hands off position and my lifestyle became sedentary. Though I had/have an intense level of self-disgust, I didn’t really know what to do. My dad had lost a bunch of weight on a ketogenic diet. So with the advent of 2021, I opted to start with that diet.
The weight fell off quickly at first and then I plateaued somewhere around -55lbs. To be fair, I looked significantly better at 245lbs, but It was apparent I had lost so much muscle mass. In lieu of immediately jumping into moving heavy weights, I started running. No real plan, just put some fucking shoes on and run.
I had forgotten about my chronic achilles tendonitis from my basketball days. It hurt, still hurts.
I had forgotten about my hip flexor issue. It hurt, still hurts.
But fuck it, just run.
I’d run for a minute, walk a minute, then two minutes, then three minutes.
It fucking hurt (still hurts), but there’s more at stake here than a little pain.
Shit got weird the further and longer I started running. I was no longer losing weight, my recovery time from a one mile run was 48-72 hours, but I was losing body fat - albeit slowly. I tried playing with my diet, adding some carbs back to aide in recovery. I felt better but I was not shedding fat as quickly as I was. This went on for two months, with my run distance getting longer, my cardio improving, but my weight stagnant. I did manage to develop some decent leg musculature. But I never could find the right diet to meld harmony between recovery, continued accelerated weight loss, and energy for harder and farther runs.
I have a fairly large online presence because of the niche industry I’m in and my business, and as part of that, I had someone approach me about TRT. I had never considered it before, but the symptom sheet read like a page from my biography. I took two sets of bloods and was a bit stunned at what I saw for my age. TT 300-313, FT 8-8.2 – Fasted, rested, first thing in AM. In lieu of “trusting the docs” and jumping right in, I decided to delay jumping on the TRT train until I tried a few other supplements (Vit D, Mg, Zn). Took another blood test a month later and there was no movement. Is that long enough to see any movement? Probably not, but it was convincing enough for me to pull the trigger.
I have a generalized distrust of most doctors so I started reading about blood level stability, esters, and realized what I was prescribed (1 pin/wk, arimidex ed), was likely not going to work out well for me. Against medical advice, I’m on a low dose (lower than what was prescribed) TC pinned EOD with no AI. Today is the end of my second week. I feel fucking amazing. Focused. Hard. Tough. Empathetic. Emotionally available. I’m taking another blood test after the first of the year to see what changes have taken place.
So here I am, at 35, still hovering around 245lbs, still 6’4", DEXA scan at 26% BF (significantly lower than when I hit my weight loss plateau), still running(10mi/week), and now adding weight training.
My knowledge of weight training I would equate to the Dunning-Kreuger effect. Instead of trying to replicate the shit I did in college, I opted to start with the Athlean-X Push/Pull/Legs system.
Is it a valid system? I don’t know. But I’m not interested in being a body builder, I just want to look good, feel good, and hump my wife with pride.
I keep playing with my diet. A few things to note: Carbs always bloat me. Whether I eat 100g or 500g, I feel like a swollen tomato. On TRT, I recover faster than I ever have in my life. Eating carbs amplifies that recovery. Even lifting to failure, adding 100g carbs in to the diet, I feel like I could complete another lift by the time I’m going to bed. I’m struggling to find that balance. I’d appreciate any advice.
Right now I’m eating 2300 calories a day. I have no real macro plan, but I try to limit carb intake with no real reason. No sugar. Coke zero is my cheat. I just started adding whey protein, 40g, on training days immediately after lifting. I don’t know why, it just seems like what I’m supposed to do.
As time goes on, I’ll backlog my last ten workouts. For now, I feel like I’m in a 12 step program admitting I hit rock bottom and only opted to come to a meeting after 10 months of sobriety.
I need help dialing in a diet or even exercise regimen or anything anyone with more experience than me see’s. I know only enough to be dangerous and that’s a problem.
GOALS:
My goal is to get to ~15-18% body fat.
I’m not trying to be a body builder. At 6’4", I’m thinking 225-230ish at 15-18% body fat would be an ideal aesthetic.
I want to continue improving my overall strength. I’ve always been a relatively strong dude, but I want to be stronger.
I want to continue running because I do some of my best thinking (work wise) after about 10 minutes into it.
I want to figure out how to heal my achilles and my hip flexor. Had a doctor tell me I needed a new hip. Had an alternate doctor tell me to stretch. Stretching helps until I run and then its right back to the pain game. (Hip flexor issue started after I tore my ACL and opted against surgery - walked with a limp for a long time)
And I want to hump my wife all the damn time.
Again, I have no idea what the fuck I’m doing. I’m malleable, coachable, and not risk adverse.
Glad to be here.
