Quotes dont work on my laptop for some reason. Yeah, good call regarding weight and running. I'm like 15-20 over. I've been 185-215 my entire adult life and I'd like to try life in the 170s one more time, last seen age 17. I think my plan is to do intermittent fasting and stationary bike 45 mins a day + walking to get like 195 real quick. I lost 5 lbs in a week last time I did that, likely not fat but weight is weight as far as my knees care. Back when I was walking 5 miles an evening, my body got to the point where it just wanted to run. I'm nowhere near that well conditioned, so that's probably a good start.. get on my doomer night walks again.

I really just want energy and improved mental health more than anything. Brain fog and depression are wrecking me atm. Zero energy and critical thinking / executive functioning not where I want it in the hospital and that's severely troubling.

run hard
lift heavy
eat clean


its literally that simple

roughly 15% BF here by my estimate. No visible definition of abs, but I dont think I'd say too far off.

Green phone? yikes

aquamarine, sir.

I know some people in the fitness industry swear by intermittent fasting. It definitely wouldn’t hurt, tends to have only benefits. Just like any diet, what matters most is if you can maintain it for the rest of your life. Whether it’s intermittent fasting or whatever, if it’s not something you find doable forever, implies there’s and end point and if there’s an end point, it’s almost always a crash off it where the weight comes back

I crashed hard off diets when I went too hardcore. So instead I worked in some cheat meals and just focused on burning them off. As long as you pay attention to total calories in vs calories out you can’t go wrong. The type of calories does matter, but people tend to pay WAYYY too much attention to what kinds of food and not just the simple total of calories in vs out

You could do a combination of run/walks. Pick a landmark in the distance and say “I’ll run to there and then start walking again”. Repeat. I bring up the bones because when I was overweight (and from talking to overweight people who try to run), I had brutal blinding lightning bolt pain in my shins (splints), and joint pain in one knee. And as soon as I lost some fat AND strengthened my leg muscles, they could support the weight to where it wasn’t coming down too hard on my bones, causing the shin bones to flex in and out too much. And all the joint pain and shin splints went away and has never returned

If you really want to go hard on the running you could even do some simple bodyweight calisthenics stuff to strengthen the legs and core. I was lifting the same time I was running which might have helped the legs get strong enough to support my fat ass lol. Stationary bike is great, no pressure on the bones, strengthens the legs, and is cardio at the same time

Tiredness and brain fog sounds like it could be an endocrine issue. Most likely your test is slightly low and estrogen is slightly high because of your weight (but your weight is not that bad if it’s 15-20 over). The good news is as soon as you lose some fat, your testosterone will automatically rise and estrogen will fall because the conversion of test to estrogen happens in our fat cells

BUT what you could do is get a blood test to check your levels. If your bloodwork comes back out of whack, an endo doctor could talk to you about how to fix. But there’s so many other things that lethargy and brain fog could be I don’t want to even start to claim that that is for sure it

If it were me, and I was so tired I couldn’t bring myself to work out, I’d personally solve that with some pre-workout powder. But it’s not for everyone. Some people are too caffeine sensitive and others say it prevents them from sleeping. When I take pre-workout, it’s like a jolt of energy. If I don’t work out, I feel uncomfortable. I basically HAVE to work out after I take it, otherwise I feel way too jittery. So any time I’m on the fence saying “ehhh I just don’t feel like I have the energy for this workout”....pre-workout will give me that energy lol

I'm a trans woman if you're not aware so 100% it's endocrine. Getting blood work later this month after dosage change (which was probably too low). I was like 500 e / 17 t on 6mg/5 day. Got dropped to 4mg/5 day. You may be right that t is too low, though. Think the target is something like ~200/<50 insert units. Living on energy drinks and smoking to keep adrenal glands working over time and that's also something im kicking this summer.

Ty for the advice! Also omg at that before / after. Wow.

Oh my bad I always just assume everyone online is a guy lol. Yeah don’t do the pre-workout if you’re doing energy drinks too during the day, that’d be too much total caffeine. I am pushing it even with coffee in the morn and pre-workout in afternoon. The recommendation is to stay below 350-400mg caffeine/day

I dunno for gals but for guys low T correlated to what you were describing, lethargy, brain fog, depression. You got a doctor monitoring so you’re set, they’ll work out the kinks

I’m not a trans woman, if it wasn’t clear.

My giant boobs have huge varicose veins. That's where most of my fat is.