CFSRecovery
Explorer
Hey everyone! I've finally stopped hesitating and signed up, because I've come to see that going through this alone isn't the best path.
My situation might be somewhat distinctive, though plenty of it will sound familiar. I'm a guy who has dealt with dissatisfaction about my body for as long as I can remember. My type 1 skin is extremely obvious, which made me stick out on the beach, and people kept telling me all I required was a "base tan" and then I'd be able to tan like anyone else. That was completely wrong.... On top of that, I was really scrawny in middle school and envied the kids who developed early and looked huge, like they were using steroids, by 8th grade. Once puberty arrived I chose to go out for wrestling, where I had zero natural ability but put in relentless effort. At 112 lbs I figured I was pretty tough. My first real summer job was making desserts at a restaurant, and I indulged way too often. A single casual remark from a friend "You're looking a little pudgy" was enough to shatter my fragile ego, since he wasn't wrong. The bulk of the weight I put on sat as a fat pouch right on my belly. So I was no longer too skinny. I had muscle, strength and absurd endurance, but I also carried too much body fat. I stuck with wrestling, which only reinforced the idea that obesity was unhealthy, disgusting and a moral failure. Yet I couldn't get rid of it.
Then came college, and 4 years of something you could fairly call exercise bulimia. Perhaps not as severe as, say, hours of cardio every day depending on what I ate, but I fought desperately to control how much I ate and just couldn't, so I did the only thing I knew: exercise even more.
I got very strong and very fast. My goal had been to join Army or Air Force special forces (Green Berets or PJs). I signed up with local ocean rescue and matched, even outpaced, the competitive college athletes they brought in from all across the USA and Canada. Across 5 years I made over 60 water rescues, the majority of them solo- some unimpressive, like simply running and grabbing a kid who'd been swept out - and some incredible - like a 2 mile paddle on the rescue board after eating a full meal of Mexican food into an offshore wind, when a kayaker lost her paddle and her boyfriend tried to save her but couldn't paddle them back in. Nobody even knew whether anyone had spotted them and called 911, and when I began paddling from the beach I could hardly make them out through the binoculars.
Anyway, one year I caught mono from one of the lovely beach ladies and was flattened by crushing fatigue for about 3 weeks. For her it was like a mild cold and she thought nothing of it, but for me it basically wrecked my life. Over a few years I gradually began crashing after exercise.
After any prolonged stretch of mental or physical activity or stress, it feels like I have the flu. I've dialed in sleep, nutrition and hormones. I've seen every medical specialty. I found peptides and want to explore direct sourcing some of them further, but so far Reta has been the only real game changer.
At last I felt I could control my diet. I was controlling the food rather than the reverse. My body recomposition is moving very slowly because of the Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and other health conditions, but at least I'm reaching a healthy weight and eating a moral, natural and healthy diet. I figured my blood sugar would improve just from the medication, but even my blood pressure, LDL, VLDL, and Triglycerides are getting better.
At this point, with so many unnatural and harmful chemicals around me, I'm not against using unnatural compounds to deliberately improve my health. I'm nearly 40 and have 5 kids, and I won't let anything hold me back any more- early on I was always a rule follower and it did me no favors- I won't be held back by fear of being judged, or being called unnatural, or being told I cheat or pay to win or whatever. That said, I can't simply take straight up gear because it would crash my energy with CFS, but I'm considering large amounts of things like SS-31, MOTS-c, NAD+, whatever. Basically I'm willing to try anything to get my life back, recover from double shoulder injuries and just get my life back and feel good for once in my life. I don't want to live like this and I don't want my kids to see this and say yeah sad settled for being "mid" because he had challenges so I can too.
My situation might be somewhat distinctive, though plenty of it will sound familiar. I'm a guy who has dealt with dissatisfaction about my body for as long as I can remember. My type 1 skin is extremely obvious, which made me stick out on the beach, and people kept telling me all I required was a "base tan" and then I'd be able to tan like anyone else. That was completely wrong.... On top of that, I was really scrawny in middle school and envied the kids who developed early and looked huge, like they were using steroids, by 8th grade. Once puberty arrived I chose to go out for wrestling, where I had zero natural ability but put in relentless effort. At 112 lbs I figured I was pretty tough. My first real summer job was making desserts at a restaurant, and I indulged way too often. A single casual remark from a friend "You're looking a little pudgy" was enough to shatter my fragile ego, since he wasn't wrong. The bulk of the weight I put on sat as a fat pouch right on my belly. So I was no longer too skinny. I had muscle, strength and absurd endurance, but I also carried too much body fat. I stuck with wrestling, which only reinforced the idea that obesity was unhealthy, disgusting and a moral failure. Yet I couldn't get rid of it.
Then came college, and 4 years of something you could fairly call exercise bulimia. Perhaps not as severe as, say, hours of cardio every day depending on what I ate, but I fought desperately to control how much I ate and just couldn't, so I did the only thing I knew: exercise even more.
I got very strong and very fast. My goal had been to join Army or Air Force special forces (Green Berets or PJs). I signed up with local ocean rescue and matched, even outpaced, the competitive college athletes they brought in from all across the USA and Canada. Across 5 years I made over 60 water rescues, the majority of them solo- some unimpressive, like simply running and grabbing a kid who'd been swept out - and some incredible - like a 2 mile paddle on the rescue board after eating a full meal of Mexican food into an offshore wind, when a kayaker lost her paddle and her boyfriend tried to save her but couldn't paddle them back in. Nobody even knew whether anyone had spotted them and called 911, and when I began paddling from the beach I could hardly make them out through the binoculars.
Anyway, one year I caught mono from one of the lovely beach ladies and was flattened by crushing fatigue for about 3 weeks. For her it was like a mild cold and she thought nothing of it, but for me it basically wrecked my life. Over a few years I gradually began crashing after exercise.
After any prolonged stretch of mental or physical activity or stress, it feels like I have the flu. I've dialed in sleep, nutrition and hormones. I've seen every medical specialty. I found peptides and want to explore direct sourcing some of them further, but so far Reta has been the only real game changer.
At last I felt I could control my diet. I was controlling the food rather than the reverse. My body recomposition is moving very slowly because of the Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and other health conditions, but at least I'm reaching a healthy weight and eating a moral, natural and healthy diet. I figured my blood sugar would improve just from the medication, but even my blood pressure, LDL, VLDL, and Triglycerides are getting better.
At this point, with so many unnatural and harmful chemicals around me, I'm not against using unnatural compounds to deliberately improve my health. I'm nearly 40 and have 5 kids, and I won't let anything hold me back any more- early on I was always a rule follower and it did me no favors- I won't be held back by fear of being judged, or being called unnatural, or being told I cheat or pay to win or whatever. That said, I can't simply take straight up gear because it would crash my energy with CFS, but I'm considering large amounts of things like SS-31, MOTS-c, NAD+, whatever. Basically I'm willing to try anything to get my life back, recover from double shoulder injuries and just get my life back and feel good for once in my life. I don't want to live like this and I don't want my kids to see this and say yeah sad settled for being "mid" because he had challenges so I can too.