While I have tried my whole life to manage my weight and fitness I have had loads of issues that have impacted me. Early on in life most doctors were garbage as they wouldn’t test me for issues and instead would just state “move more” and “eat less”.
Living this way through all of life through high school I went into the US Air Force to serve like my father before me. Basic training was rough for me as I wasn’t amazingly fit but was about 185 pounds of flabby meat on a 5’11” frame.
Starting Life Outside of Home
While much of the military time I like and hate, my friends and the people who will choose to help you is second to none. In basic my flight helped me learn about food and showed me what to eat to manage myself through this physical trial.
Once I made it to my duty station I had continued issues with my weight as I had no real controls on my life and activity level while high as a aircraft maintainer was poor at best. This is where I first heard of the “Atkins” diet and was introduced to “different” methods to control weight and health.
Now I just learned from listening to people explain and didn’t know there was a book so I fought and basically always was on the military “fatboy” program, as with high school doctors no one dug into why I could eat less and workout more than many of my fellow Airmen but couldn’t lose weight like they could.
Moving Back Home After Service
In the military I found my wife and love of my life, while I was “fit” by most standard definitions it was at best “skinny-fat” and we chose to move back to my hometown and reboot after my military time ended. While this was a nice sounding plan moving back to Washington state meant moving back to gloomy NW weather from sunny California.
I went to school to apply that GI Bill money and over two years I was able to graduate with my associates in networking and thought I was well on my way. While in school I refound the Atkins diet and the book in a Half Priced book store, I began reading but as always the voices of the world were like “this is dangerous”.
But I have always been open to well reasoned and informed changes so I dove in headfirst, since I was so busy with full time school and full time job I had to shop and manage foods like crazy but I lost loads of weight, if I recall correctly over this time I lost nearly 80-90 pounds and for the first time in nearly forever felt amazing.
Leaving To Sunny California Once Again
Needless to say after almost 4 years in Washington we were willing to admit we both missed sunshine and the greys that thrive in Washington just weren’t for us. In the moving and reassembling life I gave back in to shitty SAD dieting and almost like you read the weight came back fast, going back to where I was then vaulting way past.
But for the first time in forever I found a doctor who wanted to know why it was happening. He was a god send and put me through the largest volume of blood testing, MRI, and more to look at everything and we found some startling issues that i have fought ever since.
Through loads and loads an loads of testing, I have a non-working pituitary, leading to hypogonadism and basically an almost 0 testosterone. Basically at some point in my life the pituitary shut down and since then testosterone lowered more and more and more. This led to insidious weight gain as unless I was working hard non stop daily I can’t seem to eat low enough to maintain.
This also came with the news that I wouldn’t be able to have any kids if I didn’t take medications to kick start the engine, this led me to HCG and our long path towards having a kid, it took nearly a year and a half of stabbing myself weekly in the belly to get pregnant and this led me more down trying to fix myself.
Digging Into Endo Care
For the first time in my life I had standing appointments with a endocrinologist and this is when I learned that more than likely I would need to be on TRT for the rest of my life. As ego goes this hurts when you are in your mid twenties, but you can’t win all the time so I started with shoulder based rub in T.
This is the first time in my life I felt somewhat in control of things as I finally at least understood what and where the problems came from, the problem is everything I read basically listed this as unfixable and to this time they are correct in this.
Leaving To An Amazing Opportunity In Houston, Texas
While working I had an opportunity I couldn’t pass up which was to take on a contractor for another business helping them launch a new system. I spoke with my family, my dad then called and spoke to my wife also to make sure it was a “we” choice. This was because it was a huge penalty to our family as I had to fly out and work all week in the remote state then I could fly back Friday night which meant I had 2 days a week wwith my family for over a year.
This led to more and more weight gain asI was spending so much time alone in the hotel and wasn’t amazingly active. By the time the contract was ending and they wanted to hire me I was weighing in at 320 pounds, I took the job and we moved the whole family and got situated with the new world to explore.
This is when I found keto, it was late 2016 and in 2017 I started in hardcore on the diet. My wife has always been supportive of me even when she may question the background and real tangible “benefits” most speak of but over the next year she watched the weight literally melt off my body.
I reached an ultimate low of 228 pounds in mid 2109 and then life began to creep back in, we had commitments for time and so I started to violate the diet and then the weight just kept coming. Then in late 2019 into 2020 the hell pandemic and covid kicked in and society was locked in and not knowing employment status we began to save and eat cheap carby goods and it was over.
Between 2019 and 2023 I put nearly everything back on, whats funny is when I failed hardcore in 2019 I had heard of this insane doctor, Shawn Baker, and his “carnivore diet” and I thought it was crazy and that it would lead to bad health over time.
Again I let others influence my beliefs and over the years from 2019 until now in 2024 I watched him set records, I saw others do this 5+ years, 10+ years and even longer with stories of amazing health and many fixing issues “others” have said weren’t fixable.
The part that sold me was that people were fixing health problems that were ruled “impossible” to fix, this is literally the one last chance I have to fix myself and maybe kickstart my pituitary in a way no one has ever even attempted before.
What example would I be for my family and daughter if I didn’t put everything into this effort and try to really “fix” everything thats been broken within me. My hope is that this site showcases how this helps to fix loads, form my medical concerns themselves to the body flab I have never been able to lose in full.
Worst case I hope like the many others online have done for me, to inspire the plunge into fighting when the medical world basically has told you to give up and just medicate forever.
I hope this shows the power of this diet, I started March 1st, 2024 and this is my journey.
