INTRO Fat Dad Rebuilding His Health

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lakemandude

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I go by E. I'm a husband, and a father to 2 young children. As the only one bringing in income for my household, I'm grinding it out in Southern California.

My height is 6'3". At one point not that long ago, the scale read more than 330 lbs. Better health and a smaller number on the scale have been goals of mine for years. I've shed pounds, put them back on, and gone through that loop an uncountable number of times.

Things I've given a shot:

  • Tracking calories
  • Keto- OMAD
  • Fasting for multiple days
  • A water fast lasting 40 days
  • Lifting heavy
  • And at this point, peptidesThen it all shifted

Last year a herniated discresulted in emergency cauda equina syndrome and surgery. Getting better made me reconsider what "healthy" truly means.

Right now I'm 26 pounds lighter and keep digging into reta.
 
It makes me happy to hear you've landed on a method that's working for you! Glad to have you here, and here's to your ongoing wellness : )
 
Nice work on what you’ve achieved up to now! Starting a family is something I’m hoping to do before long as well, and I want to be in good enough shape to run around after little ones once that day arrives — that’s what got me going on this path.
 
lakemandude said:

I go by E. I'm a husband, and a father to 2 young children. As the only one bringing in income for my household, I'm grinding it out in Southern California.

My height is 6'3". At one point not that long ago, the scale read more than 330 lbs. Better health and a smaller number on the scale have been goals of mine for years. I've shed pounds, put them back on, and gone through that loop an uncountable number of times.

Things I've given a shot:

  • Tracking calories
  • Keto- OMAD
  • Fasting for multiple days
  • A water fast lasting 40 days
  • Lifting heavy
  • And at this point, peptidesThen it all shifted

Last year a herniated discresulted in emergency cauda equina syndrome and surgery. Getting better made me reconsider what "healthy" truly means.

Right now I'm 26 pounds lighter and keep digging into reta.
Click to expand...
Nice work on what you've achieved up to now!

The same thing happened to me with every trendy diet out there.

For me, Reta made a huge difference thanks to how much it cuts appetite.

Now I'm able to meet my macros and not eat past fullness.

Would you be okay sharing which one you're on at the moment?
 
lakemandude said:

I go by E. I'm a husband, and a father to 2 young children. As the only one bringing in income for my household, I'm grinding it out in Southern California.

My height is 6'3". At one point not that long ago, the scale read more than 330 lbs. Better health and a smaller number on the scale have been goals of mine for years. I've shed pounds, put them back on, and gone through that loop an uncountable number of times.

Things I've given a shot:

  • Tracking calories
  • Keto- OMAD
  • Fasting for multiple days
  • A water fast lasting 40 days
  • Lifting heavy
  • And at this point, peptidesThen it all shifted

Last year a herniated discresulted in emergency cauda equina syndrome and surgery. Getting better made me reconsider what "healthy" truly means.

Right now I'm 26 pounds lighter and keep digging into reta.
Click to expand...
greetings, another big guy here — my starting weight was 332lbs back in May, and I'm at 309lbs now. tirz has been my tool. exercise has been minimal apart from hauling my PA to parties and/or performing with my bands. as for diet, I figure it's the same story as yours: years of absorbing the information yet never managing to put it into practice consistently. these days, thanks to these modern scientific wonders, I've got a better handle on portion control, and the food noise has faded in and out ever since I chose to stay at a low dose for as long as I keep seeing progress.

wishing you the very best on your journey!
 
lakemandude said:

I go by E. I'm a husband, and a father to 2 young children. As the only one bringing in income for my household, I'm grinding it out in Southern California.

My height is 6'3". At one point not that long ago, the scale read more than 330 lbs. Better health and a smaller number on the scale have been goals of mine for years. I've shed pounds, put them back on, and gone through that loop an uncountable number of times.

Things I've given a shot:

  • Tracking calories
  • Keto- OMAD
  • Fasting for multiple days
  • A water fast lasting 40 days
  • Lifting heavy
  • And at this point, peptidesThen it all shifted

Last year a herniated discresulted in emergency cauda equina syndrome and surgery. Getting better made me reconsider what "healthy" truly means.

Right now I'm 26 pounds lighter and keep digging into reta.
Click to expand...
Glad to have you here!
 
My spine is in rough shape too — L4/L5 is nearly worn away and L5/S1 is herniated. In the beginning it was awful. These days I'm sort of partially disabled, since lifting anything heavy is off the table for me. But once Reta got me losing weight, my back pain dropped dramatically. I made lifestyle changes after my spine surgery as well.
 
lakemandude said:

I go by E. I'm a husband, and a father to 2 young children. As the only one bringing in income for my household, I'm grinding it out in Southern California.

My height is 6'3". At one point not that long ago, the scale read more than 330 lbs. Better health and a smaller number on the scale have been goals of mine for years. I've shed pounds, put them back on, and gone through that loop an uncountable number of times.

Things I've given a shot:

  • Tracking calories
  • Keto- OMAD
  • Fasting for multiple days
  • A water fast lasting 40 days
  • Lifting heavy
  • And at this point, peptidesThen it all shifted

Last year a herniated discresulted in emergency cauda equina syndrome and surgery. Getting better made me reconsider what "healthy" truly means.

Right now I'm 26 pounds lighter and keep digging into reta.
Click to expand...
A 40-day stretch has always eluded me, yet for years I kept a fasting schedule going:

1 time each week

Each month, that single session stretched into a 3-day fast

Over the Christmas to NYE window, the 3 days became 6

By the 4th of July, it had reached 11

Within days of dropping the weight, I'd put it right back on, and after a few years of this pattern, my body became highly prone to injuries.
 
I get it. Earlier this year I tipped the scales at 300, my worst yet. The pattern for me has been climbing to roughly 285, dropping into the 220-240 range, and then packing it right back on. Over and over and over. While I'm watching what I eat and working out — usually in the warmer months — I feel fantastic. But the moment I reach a weight I'm happy with, I do the complete reverse.

Fingers crossed that's different now. Wishing you the best on your journey!
 
I figure plenty of people in this community know exactly what it's like to cycle through just about every diet and method out there. My own history has been a long loop of dropping weight, putting it back on, dropping it again, putting it back on. That changed once I started GLP's — first Tirzepatide, and these days a Retatrutide / Cagrilintide combo. The pounds are coming off nicely, but what honestly feels close to a miracle🙂 is how completely the “food noise” has gone quiet.

There is a huge amount of useful material on this site .
 
I’m not a father, but my own journey looked a lot like that. At 6’4" and 350 lbs last year, that’s when I began compounds. No matter how much I watched my diet, worked out, counted macros, got bloodwork, or had scans, the weight refused to budge. Eating clean comes naturally to me—what I couldn’t control was how much I ate. Tracking macros and food did help me drop some pounds, but I was miserable and constantly hungry. When I went high protein, it felt like every gain cost me something else. Once I started compounds, I began seeing differences, and then someone introduced me to GLP-2. For me, it delivered all the upside with none of the side effects.

After 10 years, I’m finally at a healthy weight and my bloodwork is completely normal. I really get how hard this is, and this forum has so much useful information! Welcome!
 
Wishing you success! Weight loss involves plenty of biology, plus the surroundings we live in. My guess is many of us are capable of dropping pounds, yet in the end the drive to eat takes over. My hope is that gpl1, along with other medications, begins to be seen as a long-term solution for a condition that is biological and environmental. I hope you discover what works for you.
 
lakemandude said:

I go by E. I'm a husband, and a father to 2 young children. As the only one bringing in income for my household, I'm grinding it out in Southern California.

My height is 6'3". At one point not that long ago, the scale read more than 330 lbs. Better health and a smaller number on the scale have been goals of mine for years. I've shed pounds, put them back on, and gone through that loop an uncountable number of times.

Things I've given a shot:

  • Tracking calories
  • Keto- OMAD
  • Fasting for multiple days
  • A water fast lasting 40 days
  • Lifting heavy
  • And at this point, peptidesThen it all shifted

Last year a herniated discresulted in emergency cauda equina syndrome and surgery. Getting better made me reconsider what "healthy" truly means.

Right now I'm 26 pounds lighter and keep digging into reta.
Click to expand...
Glad to have you here, you've landed in a good spot. In my opinion, Reta is excellent. Stick around. Browse, try the search feature, and only after that post your questions. A lot of what newcomers ask has already been covered repeatedly. So make the effort first, before you ask. That approach will get you more responses and better ones. This forum is fantastic, truly. The people here are willing to help.

One more thing: don't rush into purchasing grey market peps. If you hurry, the odds of being scammed go up. And the odds of ending up with a poor product go up too.
 
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