|
Post by M@ on May 25, 2021 22:33:38 GMT
Weight: 302.3 lbsI briefly dipped back down below 300 last week but it didn't last. I'm eating a lot less and exercising more, so I'm guessing the numbers will go down eventually. I'm not stressing about it. My shorts are looser and my belly has gone from hard to jiggly. I've got bigger fish to fry at the moment. To that end: I had my followup appointment with my endocrinologist last Friday. He said I have testosterone toxicity (doesn't seem to be an established medical diagnosis according to Google searches) and circled the following items on my report: - Bioavailable Testosterone - 1770 ng/dl (reference range 61-213) - Bioavailable Testosterone is 8x higher than the top of the reference range. I'm flooded with it. He said it's probably the primary cause of my edema and hypertension. Despite my levels being so high, I feel like complete shit and have zero sex drive. He said he wished I could talk to his students and tell them.
- Luteinizing Hormone - <0.1 mIU/ml (reference range 1.7-8.6) - This is the hormone that signals the body to produce testosterone. Mine is completely shut off as a result of the TRT (expected).
- Follicle Stimulating Hormone (FSH) - 0.7 (reference range 1.5-12.4) - Another sign that my body is trying to stamp out testosterone production.
I forgot to ask him about insulin resistance, but I'm pre-diabetic so that's what the Metformin is helping.
Overall he said my body is screaming to stop whatever's causing the astronomical level of testosterone in my system. I feel like shit because of it. He's convinced that my weight gain, hypertension, edema, sleep apnea, and high cholesterol are all directly related to the TRT.
He said that my Estimated Glomular Filtration Rate tests showed Stage 3 Renal Failure (eGFR of 38) - which is something my GP said as well - but said that other tests did not indicate kidney damage. He suspected dehydration and advised me to drink a bunch of water prior to my next bloodwork. He also said that my coffee consumption was likely a major contributing factor to my fatigue. I'd been drinking a pot of coffee in the mornings and then would switch to beer - guzzling it like I'd just crossed the Sahara - in the afternoon. So I had a shitton of fluid in my system, but was severely dehydrated at the same time.
He switched my blood pressure medication to a more powerful version and took me off of the diuretics I was taking occasionally for the edema (raging about the stupidity of putting a dehydrated person on diuretics all the while).
His plan is to follow up in two months when the pellets should be leaving my system. He said I'll start to feel bad again when the testosterone goes to zero but that he'll have a drug that will "catch [me] like the retro-rockets on the Mars lander" and bring me back comfortably to the point where my body takes over hormone production again. At that point, we'll focus on weight loss and getting rid of the hypertension and cholesterol issues. When all of that is done, if libido is still an issue, we'll address that.
I've been pounding water 24oz at a time since and have felt great. Did leg day for the first time in a while on Monday and still had energy in the evening. Hit 135 balls today at the range and my back isn't even bothering me. Feels like things are turning around.
|
|
|
Post by shamie on May 26, 2021 14:28:29 GMT
Good you found yourself a good doctor. Not an easy thing to do.
|
|
|
Post by seltzer on May 26, 2021 15:46:00 GMT
Seconding Shamie, it's nice to read that you found a doctor who understands what's going on.
|
|
|
Post by M@ on Aug 16, 2021 18:25:18 GMT
Weight: 295.3 lbsThe metformin (now 750mg 2x/day) continues to give me energy and many of my complaints have eased or vanished. I am losing weight and am less exhausted/irritable. My blood pressure is in the normal range for the first time in over a year. The summer has been extremely eventful: - In June we went to Emerald Isle, NC for a two-week beach vacation.
- Upon return, I drove up to Providence, RI for my Uncle's funeral service.
- The next week, Sara and the kids went to Rehoboth for an unanticipated beach week. I stayed home because I was fed up with travel.
- In early July, we all went up to Pittsburgh for my cousin's wedding.
- In late July, my dad's Alzheimer's progressed beyond the point of no return. My mom and I held him as he died.
- We had a memorial service for dad last week.
...so all of that kind of disrupted my focus on fitness. Anyway, I just did leg day for the first time since the last time I posted. I'm fried, but it feels great to have gotten down into the basement to move some weight. I also changed the furnace filter for the first time in three months. I'm surprised the system was still working with it as clogged as it was. I took the kids to the water park last week. There were a couple of older kids playing in the deep end of the big pool. They threw a football and it landed at Alex's feet. I told him to throw it back to them and he managed to chuck it about ten inches. I realized that I have seriously neglected my duties as a father. I took both kids to the park yesterday and we started learning how to throw footballs, baseballs, and kick soccer balls. They had a blast. Alex starts school one week from Thursday and Lily's going to preschool starting the second week in September. It's going to be so strange to have an empty house for a few hours a day after five years of near-constant occupation. Current target is to be sub-200 lbs by May, 2021 and assess from there.
|
|
|
Post by seltzer on Aug 16, 2021 18:30:47 GMT
My condolences to you and your family with regard to your uncle and father.
|
|
|
Post by macdiver on Aug 17, 2021 0:46:47 GMT
My condolences to you and your family as well.
|
|
|
Post by shamie on Aug 17, 2021 13:26:25 GMT
Sorry for the loss of your father and uncle. My condolences to you and your family.
|
|
|
Post by Graham on Aug 17, 2021 16:13:35 GMT
My condolences also to you and your family.
|
|
|
Post by M@ on Aug 17, 2021 22:44:54 GMT
Much appreciated, everybody.
|
|
|
Post by macdiver on Aug 18, 2021 1:00:29 GMT
Not to diminish your grieving nor the expressed sympathies but this is a fitness forum ...
A couple of questions
I think you mean May 2022?
When was the last time you were below 200? Is that a realistic goal for you? Would say something like 225 and 15% BF be a more realistic goal?
Setting realistic goals and expectations helps with success. For example, when I was 20 I could run a 5 min mile and routinely ran 10 miles in an hour. That is not achievable now and I set my goals based on what I can achieve now or could achieve by pushing myself.
|
|
|
Post by M@ on Aug 20, 2021 13:25:19 GMT
Not to diminish your grieving nor the expressed sympathies... Not at all. I'd prefer never to speak of it again. I brought it up in context of it having contributed to me getting off-track after a brief period of progress. I think you mean May 2022? Yup, my bad: May 2022. When was the last time you were below 200? Is that a realistic goal for you?  It has been a long time. I know I was in the 190's in 2007 on the JSF cruise. In my current tracking, the closest I've come is 211 in October of 2014. I bought a bunch of 36" waist slacks and got to wear them once apiece before I started to blob up again. They're still hermetically sealed in my closet. I don't know if sub-200 is realistic or not. 225 is probably a much more attainable goal. Its also completely uninspiring. Just the thought of it feels like playing for a tie. 213 would put me at 100 lbs lost from my heaviest weight and I want to go beyond that. I'm sticking with the 200 lbs target, at least from this distance, because it's extremely motivating. All that said, the last time I was sub-200, I was completely skinny-fat. I have a lot more muscle on my frame now and I warm up with weights I used to max out on. Never mind the fact that just by virtue of my girth, I'm walking around 24x7 with the equivalent of weight I used to do 20-rep squat sets with in the SwoleCat days. I don't know if I'll be able to keep it all while shedding the fat, but I'm pretty sure I'll look quite different at 210 than the last time I was there. We'll see what it feels like when the time arrives. Weight: 294.8 lbsMonday's lifting triggered a gout flare-up. I had never linked lifting and gout before, but it was the only uncontrolled variable in this attack: My hydration, nutrition, and non-lifting exercise hadn't set it off in the previous weeks. Googling about it told me that weight training can increase uric acid levels. I'm stunned that I hadn't looked into that before. Everyone offering apocryphal evidence on Reddit was citing their rheumatologist. Since I'd had so much success with finally going to an endocrinologist for the hormone issues and fatigue, I decided to make an appointment with a rheumatologist for the gout. I'll see them on Thursday. I don't know if I should've been seeing specialists all this time or if my GP is just bad at her job, but I'm done with going to her for specific treatments. The flare up hasn't been bad enough to prevent workouts, though. I've popped a bunch of Advil and still gotten my time in on the treadmill and the bench. Walked for an hour this morning and will hit chest and back around lunchtime.
|
|
|
Post by M@ on Aug 28, 2021 13:27:14 GMT
Weight: 292.0 lbs
I haven't been controlling my diet in the past three weeks. I've just been eating less as a matter of course. It may be the metformin - a side-effect is eating less/weight loss - but I get full faster. I left food on my plate at one of my favorite restaurants last night. We have a trip to Lake Anna in Mineral, VA over Labor Day weekend and I'm going to dial in nutrition after that. Right now it's about getting weeks without alcohol under my belt, going on three tomorrow. Blood pressure was under 130 Systolic (125) for the first time in over a year this morning.
My lower back is aching. I've lost sleep over it for the past two nights and skipped my back workout yesterday to avoid aggravating it. It is a dull ache around the left kidney and it goes away once I've gotten up and exercised, but returns when I lay down or sit for a while. I think I pulled it at the golf course on Tuesday and then further aggravated it at the range on Thursday. I'll take some time off of swinging a club until it's fully gone.
Saw the rheumatologist about the gout issues. She said it was probably gout, but that since I hadn't been specifically tested for it, she wanted to make sure it wasn't some other kind of arthritis or Lyme disease. I'll get the test results back in a week or so and will hear from her about prescriptions then. In the interim, she prescribed me a steroid pack that should knock the next flare-up out immediately.
|
|
|
Post by phillydude on Oct 7, 2021 11:26:40 GMT
I also also 190 on the JSF cruise (was it really that long ago), except I was up from my normal 175 at the time... and I have pics to prove it.
p.s. sorry about your dad. Almost didn't want to bring it up, but I haven't been around here much anymore (and it looks like you haven't either).
|
|
|
Post by M@ on Jan 31, 2022 14:56:21 GMT
p.s. sorry about your dad. Almost didn't want to bring it up, but I haven't been around here much anymore (and it looks like you haven't either). Thanks bud. I miss him and grief comes out of nowhere sometimes, but I'm good for the most part. We had a lot of time to say goodbye and I feel like I made a good effort at it. Weight: 250.4 lbsI'm down 49.4 lbs since Thanksgiving and 62.8 lbs from my max weight on March 28, 2021. I'm losing an average of 3.4 lbs per week. Some of it is definitely muscle as my lifts have declined and weights that used to be no problem are now really challenging. Lifts as a percentage of my weight, however, are skyrocketing as you would imagine. I put my ego on the shelf last week and dropped my working set loads by about 10% and had absolutely great workouts: Lots of energy at the end and pleasant DOMS in the days that followed. What's my secret? Drugs. Specifically, I started treating my ADHD for the first time in a decade. I realized it was a problem because I was procrastinating everything at work until the last minute so that adrenaline would kick in and give me the ability to focus. As a result, my anxiety was reaching critical mass. I had to do something. I got back on Adderall (Dextroamphetamine 20mg XR) and flipped my life on its head. This whole time I've been looking at my weight gain and alcohol use like they were some kind of character flaws that I could power through with discipline. I had no idea there was such a correlation between ADHD and obesity and ADHD and alcohol abuse. As soon as I was back on the drugs I started behaving like a normal person. Then I saw my endocrinologist again, who let me have it with both barrels. He said, "You're on the cusp of Type 2 Diabetes and you absolutely must get your weight down. Your high blood pressure is a fat tax. Your high cholesterol is a fat tax. Your fatigue is a fat tax. Your gout is a fat tax. Your arthritis is a fat tax. I have you on blood sugar lowering medication and your A1C is rising, that means your disease is progressing and if you weren't on the Metformin you'd be across the 6.6 threshold and would be diabetic." Then he prescribed Rybelsus 3mg and sent me off with further instructions to lose weight. That was close to 50 lbs ago. I haven't done anything drastic with my diet except cut out added sugar. I'm just eating much less because of the appetite suppressant side-effects of the amphetamine and the Rybelsus. I'm seeing the doctor again at the end of the month and am hoping that my A1C will be significantly lower. So that's what's going on at my end. Nobody in the household has had COVID-19 or any significant health issues. The kids are enjoying Kindergarten/Preschool and I'm engaged in my job. I just read the catch-up thread in Philly's journal and will be checking back in sporadically.
|
|
|
Post by seltzer on Jan 31, 2022 18:10:38 GMT
Glad that you're doing so well and that the household is Covid free.
|
|