Hello meso, I've been on a fitness journey this year and have had a lot of success starting from zero, so I wanted to start a log. Hopefully get some advice and support and pointers from those more experienced. Sharing my journey will help others on similar ones or considering it.
Background: Lifted for about 7 years in my 20's, some periods of very high consistency, some periods of fucking around for months. I was a pretty heavy drinker for most of this so my progress was absolutely glacial, but since I never trained any other way and loved partying more than training, I don't recall it ever bothering me too much. I just accepted I was some % slower, but as I've learned this year that % was significantly higher than I thought! I had periods where I focused on powerlifting, hypertrophy, and strongman. During that period, I was 5'10" and ranged anywhere from 180 to 220 pounds. If I had to guess I was probably never under 18% body fat. I ran 4 cycles in that period, and while the notes I took were pretty scant, they are somewhat painful to read. Mostly just realizing how unserious I was, and how deluded I was in terms of my health. Missing pins, skipping like 25% of my workouts, no cardio, got bloods done but had nothing on hand to deal with sides and maintaining blood markers other than E2 and gyno. I was pretty good on nutrition though (besides alcohol), wish I still had my recipes from back then.
I stopped lifting after covid and basically returned to sedentary life until this year. I'm in my mid 30's now and a number of factors lead to me getting back into fitness with a vengeance this year. I don't drink anymore or take any other drugs that interfere with training. Here's the rough timeline, and before/after photos. But first, I got 5 DEXA scans this year to track my progress.
Photos from the day of first and last DEXA scans:
Not sure that I agree that I'm that I'm 8.4% in the after photo, I would guess more like 10%, but I'm also pretty freakin hairy so its hard to tell e.g. that I have abs. My partners love the hair though, and I do too. I have some more photos in between I might upload later.
What I did between these dates. I was basically starting from zero - hadn't done cardio or been inside the gym in 1-2 years. Not including all the supplements etc I was taking right now, but these were the heavy hitters:
Couch to 5k training block:
- Started tirzepatide in March.
- Upped TRT dose to 200mg Test U/week. It took a few months but this landed me around 1000-1100 ng/dL total test.
- Started Couch to 5k program in late March.
- Half-assed C25k, making the 10 week program into more like a 20 week program.
- In May, switch from Tirzepatide to Retatrutide.
- In May, start HGH at 2iu/day. I ramped up to 4iu/day over the next 3-4 months.
- In June, start walking every day in addition to continuing the Couch to 5K program. WALKING EVERY DAY WAS THE MOST IMPORTANT HABIT OF THE YEAR!!!
- In July, start doing yin yoga 2-4x/week. Yoga was basically the only form of fitness I'd done for the last few years, and yin is my favorite. It's where you hold postures from 3-5 minutes, for those who don't know.
- Early August, run my first ever 5k race. Got like 32 or 33 minutes I think? I was just happy to have completed the program.
- Early August, keep running and add in 2 full body workouts per week. Just the basics: squat/bench/dl day 1, squat/ohp/dl day 2.
Half marathon training block:
- Look up what half marathon training looks like and realizing that I'm basically already doing it. Running 3x/week, lifting 2x/week, stretching (yoga) 4-5x/week, and walking every day I'm not running. I was walking quite a lot at this point, averaging around 20k steps/day. I just had to start running 1 more day per week, that didn't seem bad.
- In late August, get a ruck pack and start rucking. 30lbs at first, I do 50lbs now. Initially I was doing it 3-4 days/week but once I focused on half marathon training I went to 1x/week.
- Sign up for the local Thanksgiving half marathon and join the training program.
- Then from September through Thanksgiving, I maintained my routine extremely consistently. I've never skipped a single day in the gym (other than planned ahead of time for e.g. deloading or vacation).
- Training went great for the first 7 weeks of the half marathon program, and then I had my first injury: annoyed peroneal tendon in my right foot.
- That unfortunately was just the first tendon issue of 3 while half marathon training. None of them were bad, I just had to replace one or two runs with some other form of cardio and do rehab every day. But it was annoying as shit to deal with.
- I was very happy with how the race went. I ran about a 2:30 and had a lot of gas left in the tank. The tibialis tendon issue I was dealing with at the time gave me hell for the first 4.5 miles, with the pain around a 4/10. When it finally let up I had a fantastic time running the rest of the race. Looking back on it, finishing it was the best acute feeling I've ever got from a fitness achievement.
Transition to strength + hypertrophy:
- After the half marathon, I met with a podiatrist and took two week off from running to let things heal while I do rehab exercises every day. She put me in a different kind of shoe. I changed my lifting routine from two full-body workouts/wk to a 4-day UL split.
I'll continue the log to the present sometime later today or this week. I'm pretty happy with where my physique is at already, TRT/Reta/HGH is pretty damn good all on its own. I'm still pretty weak, too.
Background: Lifted for about 7 years in my 20's, some periods of very high consistency, some periods of fucking around for months. I was a pretty heavy drinker for most of this so my progress was absolutely glacial, but since I never trained any other way and loved partying more than training, I don't recall it ever bothering me too much. I just accepted I was some % slower, but as I've learned this year that % was significantly higher than I thought! I had periods where I focused on powerlifting, hypertrophy, and strongman. During that period, I was 5'10" and ranged anywhere from 180 to 220 pounds. If I had to guess I was probably never under 18% body fat. I ran 4 cycles in that period, and while the notes I took were pretty scant, they are somewhat painful to read. Mostly just realizing how unserious I was, and how deluded I was in terms of my health. Missing pins, skipping like 25% of my workouts, no cardio, got bloods done but had nothing on hand to deal with sides and maintaining blood markers other than E2 and gyno. I was pretty good on nutrition though (besides alcohol), wish I still had my recipes from back then.
I stopped lifting after covid and basically returned to sedentary life until this year. I'm in my mid 30's now and a number of factors lead to me getting back into fitness with a vengeance this year. I don't drink anymore or take any other drugs that interfere with training. Here's the rough timeline, and before/after photos. But first, I got 5 DEXA scans this year to track my progress.
Photos from the day of first and last DEXA scans:
Not sure that I agree that I'm that I'm 8.4% in the after photo, I would guess more like 10%, but I'm also pretty freakin hairy so its hard to tell e.g. that I have abs. My partners love the hair though, and I do too. I have some more photos in between I might upload later.
What I did between these dates. I was basically starting from zero - hadn't done cardio or been inside the gym in 1-2 years. Not including all the supplements etc I was taking right now, but these were the heavy hitters:
Couch to 5k training block:
- Started tirzepatide in March.
- Upped TRT dose to 200mg Test U/week. It took a few months but this landed me around 1000-1100 ng/dL total test.
- Started Couch to 5k program in late March.
- Half-assed C25k, making the 10 week program into more like a 20 week program.
- In May, switch from Tirzepatide to Retatrutide.
- In May, start HGH at 2iu/day. I ramped up to 4iu/day over the next 3-4 months.
- In June, start walking every day in addition to continuing the Couch to 5K program. WALKING EVERY DAY WAS THE MOST IMPORTANT HABIT OF THE YEAR!!!
- In July, start doing yin yoga 2-4x/week. Yoga was basically the only form of fitness I'd done for the last few years, and yin is my favorite. It's where you hold postures from 3-5 minutes, for those who don't know.
- Early August, run my first ever 5k race. Got like 32 or 33 minutes I think? I was just happy to have completed the program.
- Early August, keep running and add in 2 full body workouts per week. Just the basics: squat/bench/dl day 1, squat/ohp/dl day 2.
Half marathon training block:
- Look up what half marathon training looks like and realizing that I'm basically already doing it. Running 3x/week, lifting 2x/week, stretching (yoga) 4-5x/week, and walking every day I'm not running. I was walking quite a lot at this point, averaging around 20k steps/day. I just had to start running 1 more day per week, that didn't seem bad.
- In late August, get a ruck pack and start rucking. 30lbs at first, I do 50lbs now. Initially I was doing it 3-4 days/week but once I focused on half marathon training I went to 1x/week.
- Sign up for the local Thanksgiving half marathon and join the training program.
- Then from September through Thanksgiving, I maintained my routine extremely consistently. I've never skipped a single day in the gym (other than planned ahead of time for e.g. deloading or vacation).
- Training went great for the first 7 weeks of the half marathon program, and then I had my first injury: annoyed peroneal tendon in my right foot.
- That unfortunately was just the first tendon issue of 3 while half marathon training. None of them were bad, I just had to replace one or two runs with some other form of cardio and do rehab every day. But it was annoying as shit to deal with.
- I was very happy with how the race went. I ran about a 2:30 and had a lot of gas left in the tank. The tibialis tendon issue I was dealing with at the time gave me hell for the first 4.5 miles, with the pain around a 4/10. When it finally let up I had a fantastic time running the rest of the race. Looking back on it, finishing it was the best acute feeling I've ever got from a fitness achievement.
Transition to strength + hypertrophy:
- After the half marathon, I met with a podiatrist and took two week off from running to let things heal while I do rehab exercises every day. She put me in a different kind of shoe. I changed my lifting routine from two full-body workouts/wk to a 4-day UL split.
I'll continue the log to the present sometime later today or this week. I'm pretty happy with where my physique is at already, TRT/Reta/HGH is pretty damn good all on its own. I'm still pretty weak, too.
