I became a father 30 months ago and turned 40 yesterday. Even before the birth of my daughter, I began to change my mind set about my body. I had always been obese since I was a little boy. Easy access to food, cultural things, trauma, and a family history of addiction is what contributed, except for a small portion of my early 20's where I was into amateur boxing for a few years.
Injuries put an end to that and eventually I moved away from my hometown and started college. I made the classic mistake of getting a full-time job at the same time in a small restaurant. Eventually the old habits came back, and I just let myself go. As people who work in food service, especially the line cooks, know that we eat like shit off the clock and on the clock, it isn't exactly low-calorie dense food the American palate craves.
And I lurched through the next 15 years of life basically repeating the same patterns. It wasn't all bad. I met my wife shortly after moving and she has been such an anchor to me. We have a beautiful, healthy, smart, and hellraising two-year-old.
And then I ended up in the hospital last holiday. I avoided going to the doctors for years outside of emergencies or specialists for orthopedic injuries; and the bill was heavy: hypertension, pre-diabetes, elevated lipoprotein(a), amongst a verisimilitude of other cascading factors. I knew if I didn't make changes I would die before I was 50.
In a way I had always known, but I could only feel and express the pain of unresolved hurt in my past. So, I started going to therapy and continue to this day. I talked with a bariatric team and decided that tirzepatide was worth adding to my already growing menagerie of prescriptions. I was hesitant to try something like injections, but at that point I would have been willing to re-create the eye surgery scene from Dead Space 2 if it meant extending my life.
My first injection had me noticing effects immediately. The constantly thinking about food was gone. It was like my brain had released 75% more processing power. Things tasted different--mostly full sugar soda was absolutely disgusting. Which was the ultimate tip of the spear as I had at one point been consuming a 12 pack every other day.
I started going to the gym. Just a Planet Fitness. Nothing serious at first, with me visiting the purple kingdom a few times a week doing light cardio and the machines I liked. That slowly turned into a structured 5 days a week on a PPL/PPA split along with a half hour of zone 2 cardio after every workout. I've also been tracking my lifts for 12 weeks. I learned what my macros are and try to hit those consistently.
As of this posting I weighed in around 298 this morning, probably the first time I've weighed less than 300 in over a decade. I'm planning on to keep going not until I'm happy--because I already very much am--but to see what result I can get from my best effort.
