u/Specific_Fist

I have been hitting the gym fairly consistently for about two years now, starting when I was sixteen and now turning eighteen. I had to take a few month long breaks here and there due to life events, but overall my consistency has been pretty decent.

My first year went great and I made awesome progress, but lately everything has gone completely downhill. I am now actually weaker than I was during my first year, and my progress is nonexistent.The biggest issue is that I keep getting hit with random injuries and joint aches. First it was my left elbow, then my left shoulder, and now it is my right shoulder. This constant pain has completely destroyed my progress. I have tried seeing multiple physical therapists in my area but none of them have been able to fix the issue. I even tried taking several deload weeks and lowering the weights significantly, but nothing seems to help.

On top of the injuries, my nutrition and recovery are a total mess. My family is strictly vegetarian and they absolutely refuse to let me cook meat in the house. They are also convinced that protein powders are dangerous for health, and I have completely given up on trying to convince them otherwise. Because of this, I can barely hit a bare minimum protein intake. I weigh sixty kilograms and only manage to get about eighty grams of protein a day by forcing down five to six eggs, chugging milk, and eating lentils. My sleep is also terrible because my school schedule is awful.I always train incredibly hard and push almost all of my sets right to failure, yet I am seeing absolutely zero return on my effort.

It is incredibly demoralizing because whenever I tell people I have been working out for two years, they just make fun of me and tell me I look terrible. I am completely lost, stressed out, and honestly contemplating just quitting the gym entirely because none of my hard work is paying off. I have no idea what to do next and really need some solid advice.