Have you logged food intake accurately before when not dieting? I don’t feel like I have a good idea of your normal caloric intake. Also, I’ve done sHaKe FoR dInNeR cuts before but imo you need a more moderate, sustainable strategy than this. I think you hit it on the head about not being balanced. These extreme strategies are always going to be more prone to failure.
I’m interested in this again though. The 208 is a recent result? How long ago were the 300 to 350 values? Always give units and reference ranges. I just pulled up my results from 2017 and noticed Labcorp (Esoterix) changed the reference for total T since then. Different calibration / assay now. We don’t know anything about your bioavailable T yet either.
Now this is news I can use. Can you just buy the app/subscription without buying their bike? My wife is begging for one, and is currently visiting a friend who has one. The problem is that she previously bought a spin bike off of Craigslist, and it atrophied. If we can get the motivation factor in subscription form without the expensive potential doorstop, I would be OK with it.
As an aside, those sleep stories on Headspace, Calm, and presumably Peleton are great for falling asleep. They lead you down a very detailed, non-work- or family-related little path, filling your mind with those benign details instead of your troubles.
I’ve logged my food intake at times. I was going pretty low - like 2200 calories a day - and legit logging everything. It didn’t help much. My coworker did the same thing and lost 90 lbs. I think it was the first time he ever tried to diet.
The diet I’m doing now isn’t that hardore. I eat breakfast and lunch and a snack and protein bar in the afternoon. Then a meal replacement shake which has some carbs for dinner. And I have those Pure Protein cans in case I get serious hunger pangs at night or during the day. My biggest issue was being hungry constantly nibbling at night. Just saying no solid food after 5pm seems a lot easier than trying to ration myself.
The amount of exercise I’m getting now is something I’ve never done before. I’m legit addicted to it. I walk 2 miles each way to the gym and back to lift 4x a week, and walk/hike pretty hard the other days. I took a full rest day yesterday - not even 4 mile walk - and it felt weird as hell.
I’ve been doing this for around 4 months, and was doing pretty good before that with lots of walking with hills, and maybe 2 workouts a week. Before that I was addicted to hiking. My legs have been in the best shape of my life for years, and now my upper body is catching up. I plan to just keep riding this current wave as long as I can.
My hope is that a normal diet that I actually stick to, plus this unprecedented level of exercise, will get some results. Seems to be working so far. I’m down from 261 to 256, while definitely picking up some muscle, and my stomach is getting flat - which is always the first thing to go. Or I should say stomach is getting tight. I lose the outer fat first, then the stuff under the muscle that makes it stick out.
I had liposuction on my stomach and love handles in my 20s. So now the fat goes everywhere else, which sucks obviously.
Yes 208 was a couple weeks ago. Available T obviously. I dunno the reference ranges - American. I just know 300-800 is normal (or was for my age at the time). I was 300-350 a bunch of times in the last few years - but either through juicing on my own or TRT. The last clean 300+ was 5-10 years ago probably.
This was on a CUT though. I’m asking about your calories during normal times. You must have had some guess about your TDEE also?
Doesn’t sound like bioavailable T. You also can’t compare values across different assays from a decade ago. You really need to acquire your records and dive deeper here. If your total T is really borderline like it seems to be, checking bioavailable T makes a lot of sense: If SHBG is high then maybe you were just clinical hypogonad all along. If that’s the case then I’d say no fucking wonder you can’t lose weight easily. If SHBG is low (common finding in obesity) then your total T might look low but bioavailable T completely normal and there’s no there there. Seems kind of important in your case.
I have no idea what any of that means anymore than your music-math breakdown of Borderline.
My chart going back to Oct 2015 just says Testosterone, and Free - no units. The test ordered is [Testosterone, and Free (Direct) Serum with Total / QST]
Testosterone starting with most recent is 206, 362, 330, 152, 177, 359, 332.
Free is 9, 17, 14, 8, 13, 12, 17 (rounded off).
I also have hematocrit, prostate, protein, albumin, bilirubin total, bilirubin direct, alkaline, AST (SGOT), and ALT (SGPT).
I’ve never tracked calories when I wasn’t trying to diet. I’d guess 3000-ish. I don’t usually pig out unless I’m at a party or on vacation.
Most of your circulating testosterone is bound and only about 2% is free. It binds strongly to sex hormone binding globulin (SHBG) but some is also weakly bound to albumin. The free and albumin-bound fractions are the active portion that can bind to androgen receptors and are called bioavailable testosterone. The SHBG-bound fraction is inactive. Everything combined is total testosterone.
SHBG increases with age, so a common recommendation for checking testosterone in aging males with low-normal total T is to check bioavailable T. If it’s low then can make the diagnosis based on that. You’re around 50, right? It’s possible your SHBG has crept up slightly leaving you with less bioavailable T, or maybe you had high SHBG all along.
I just measured my blood pressure at 142/97 and 140/90 on consecutive days at the grocery store.
I’ve lost thirty pounds this year but still have fifteen more to go. It’s slowed by the fact that I stopped going to gym again because covid, but I am 90% to lose this weight by the end of the year. Should I just continue/ramp up weight loss and recheck or should I be seeking out high blood pressure medications immediately? Thanks.
Sorry but I forgot to ask and don’t remember exactly: what was your testosterone reading before they offered you TRT the first time? And can you give me that albumin value from your labs?
Goal is 140/90 so they’d likely continue with lifestyle stuff especially if you’re making progress. I’d still go see the doctor though, and get a bp check on a medical grade cuff with the pharmacy one probably isn’t.
My point is that you have smoke here and should go the (minimal) extra distance to see what kind of fire you’re dealing with before you consider paying a king’s ransom for a weight loss drug. When are you back in LA?
I’m in LA now. Yes I agree I’m seeing where this diet thing goes for now. Sub-250 lbs will be a big milestone that it’s definitely working. I don’t care how long it takes as long as it’s working and not going backwards.
152 was probably before TRT - in Nov 2020. But I was also crashing off the sustenon at the time. Like I said the last fully clean one I remember was about 350, maybe 8-10 years ago.
My Albumin is consistently within 4.2 and 4.6 for all the readings. No I don’t know the units. They’re giving me a summarized spreadsheet version that shows all 7 entries, not the lab report for each.