Hardasnails, your statement is exactly what I’m looking to do. I want to fix the whole issue, but it’s like taking your car to the mechanic and trying to educate him. I have yet to find a doctor that will represent me in the long run. I have always been big, I have a picture of me at 3 with a half shirt (those where cool at one time!) and my little belly wash hanging out the bottom, I was 210 pounds at 8th grade graduation (1987) (never touched a weight and frankly was weak for my size), although I was very active and had been my whole life.
I was always into bmx bikes, skate boarding, recreational basketball, baseball, football and honest I was good at whatever I did. I started high school around the same weight since I was pretty active with karate that summer (was going 2-3 hour plus classes a day and I was good at for a big fella). Got up to 240 starting sophomore year, broke ankle and gained about 15 more pounds, junior year was 270 and senior year I started at 275, but dropped to 235 for wrestling and graduated (1991) around 260.
This whole time I was heavy in the midsection, but ran a 4.9 forty at 280 pounds starting college, don’t remember what my jump was, but benched 345, squatted 520, hang cleaned 315, etc… The second year of college (1992) I was 285-290, weights were way up, I remember squatting 585 for 5 reps to prove to the coaches that I didn’t lay on the couch all summer, bench was around 365 (never my strong lift), hang clean 365, etc…
I quite school after that, but still lifted, worked and played in a local indoor football league, although around this time I dabbled in AAS. I always lifted for strength and in 1994 I hooked up with a local powerlifting group that trained westside. After a year of training I squatted 960, benched 440 and deadlifted 675 for reps (that was with the cheap Inzer blast shirt and squat suit), BUT I was at a bodyweight of 340 and had to back down.
I ended up quiting the powerlifting team and going back to playing in a local football league. I dropped down to 310 and by the next season I was at 260. I still trained 4 days a week, plus did a few days of racket ball, nothing special. I still carried my weight in my gut this whole time. Fast forward since nothing happened other than getting older, working, kids, first marriage, still lifting heavy, no real diet in place… In 1999 I got separated, had 2 kids to help raise as a part time father.
I still lifted heavy, but would do a lot of outdoor activities with the kids, hiking, walking, parks, etc… I was about 320 at first, but jumped on some halotestin, Rev B, GH to help with getting my body weight back down. Up to this point never did blood work or went to the doc, I was using Dan D’s Body Opus for a diet and got down to 230 ish from 320. Fast forward August of 2000, I actually took about 6-8 months off from training 'cause I bought a new house with my current wife, had my kids full time and had been working as a stock broker since 1996.
Got back to a local guy and right back into the swing of lifting heavy, I was still around 300 pounds even with the layoff. In 2002 I was diagnosed with Hodgkins Lymphoma, did 6 months of chemo, had a mediasteinoscopy, portable cath, blood clot in my right arm and dropped from 320 to 230 and yo yo back to 320, but it was all muscle that I lost since I didn’t train and all fat I gained since I didn’t train. I took about 4 months just to get up the ability to walk around the block and start getting active.
I started training in November and started to focus on a powerlifting meet that January 2004, still at 300 plus pounds with a fat belly, infact the fat belly was still there at 230 pounds during chemo. Any way during the next year I trained with a partner, fathered a third child and did a meet in April '05. Squatted 875 (easy), benched 520, dead 630 (easy), had way more left in me, but it was my first meet back in 10 plus years.
Since then I’ve trained heavy, light, GVT, EDT, OTS BBB, DC, WS, MM you name it. I’ve gotten up to 353 pounds and now down to 320, but been as low as 310. It’s the same thing, blood work is normal, fat in midsection and no-one can understand why I can’t drop fat faster.
As for me, I’m easily pissed off! No real stress, more anger than anything. I don’t really worry about anything since after being sick not much get to me, I’ve had to tell my kids daddy might die so not to many things can get to me. Relationship is fine, kids are healthy, my work is still a stock broker and I don’t really get stressed since I just take orders and do paperwork, I don’t advise.
The reason I started TRT is I was very fatigued. I don’t have a demanding job physically, but I would come home and sleep for 2-3 hours, get up go to the gym, eat dinner and go to bed. This started about 1.5 years ago, I’d sleep all weekend in an attempt to catch up for whatever reason. I had no sexual desires, no dysfunction though, just didn’t feel like it. I sleep/slept atleast 7-8 hours a night.
My diet isn’t bad, although currently it’s not to strict, the last 5 months were beef and rice, chicken and rice, with yams as another carb source and I stayed right at 315 the whole time. We go to the park still, play basketball with the kids (nothing to crazy though), go for walks (still to big to run for distance). I drink a lot of iced tea, green tea, water and diet soda occasionally. I take the normal fish oil, Vitamins, DHEA (about a week now), CoQ10 (about a week now), Beta Alanine, Creatine, protein shakes, gatorade.
I think that should sum things up, I don’t think I’m that abnormal at all. The TRT seemed to help in the beginning, but didn’t proved the longer solution even with elevated numbers (over 1000 at one point).
Let me know if you need other info, although you probably didn’t want as much as I provided, but I want to get to a solution and need the help/guidance from professionals.