u/Wdshow — reddlx

106.7 lbs down in 9 mos!!!

Nine months ago I was 408 lbs walking into my first tirzepatide shot. This morning’s scale: 303. From my actual peak of 426 in December 2024, that’s 111 lbs gone. I’m 57, 5’8”, goal is 200. Roughly halfway home.

On 15mg, shot 40 went in Sunday. My best-performing dose by lifetime average was actually 12.5mg, not 15. I’m giving 15 two more clean cycles before that conversation with my endo. The data will say what the data says.
Sustained pace the last three months is 2.1 lbs a week. Not flashy. Sustained is the word that matters at this stage.

I lean into tracking because it keeps me honest. Zolt for macros and trend weight. Renpho for body composition. Shotsy for injection rotation. Stelo CGM for glucose (29 weeks at 99% time in range). OMRON for BP. WaterMinder. Athlytic for HRV and recovery. ResMed for CPAP. StepsApp (137-day streak). It’s five minutes a day and a Sunday review. Worth it.

Three honest pitfalls
A. Sunday scale lies. End-of-cycle fluid peaks. I used to panic at “gains” that were 90% water. Friday floor and 7-day trend weight are the real numbers
B. Multi-protein plates stack fat fast. Chicken thigh plus burger plus hot dog on the grill lands 50–80g fat even with lean cuts. Two nights in a row drives a 6-lb Sunday fluid bump that looks like fat gain and isn’t.
3. Suppression days are physiological, not motivational. Mon/Tue after a shot, appetite is just gone. I built a morning protein stack (132g in shake form before 1 PM) that handles those days without willpower. That argument is the wrong argument on suppression days.

A few weeks ago the VA pulled a full panel. Total T came back at 0.5 ng/mL (range 2.7–10.7). Free T at 9 pg/mL (range ~46–224). Not borderline. Critically low. Two panels confirmed it.
This week the follow-up workup came back:
• LH: 36.8 (range 1.2–8.6) — about 4x upper limit
• FSH: 32.2 (range 1.4–18.1) — about 2x upper limit
• TSH, PSA, iron, CBC all clean
That LH/FSH pattern is the textbook signature of primary hypogonadism. Pituitary is screaming at the testes. Testes aren’t answering. No MRI needed. Clean clinical picture for why (retractile testicle as a kid, groin trauma in little league, lifelong sparse body hair).

Phone follow-up mid-June. Going in asking for subcutaneous cypionate twice weekly since I already self-inject for tirzepatide.

The thing sitting with me: I’ve been fighting low T this whole time. Most of what gets called “metabolic adaptation” or “older guy slowdown” is downstream of hormones for some of us. Not expecting magic from TRT. Expecting the floor to come up.

11 lbs to my 300-lb milestone, which is when resistance bands enter the picture (knee osteoarthritis means no traditional lifting). 50% of the way to 200 still to go. TRT decision mid-June. Probable knee replacement down the road, lighter and stronger when I get there.

For anyone who started TRT during active weight loss on a GLP-1: what changed first? Not the obvious stuff. The subtler things. Recovery between days. Sleep quality. Resilience to a bad day of eating. How long before you noticed?

And for the 50-plus guys who got the same LH/FSH diagnosis later in life: what do you wish you’d asked at your first phone visit?

Halfway there. Thanks for reading.

u/Wdshow — 8 days ago

▲ 3 r/Testosterone

After Labs, I found out my testosterone is 0.5

Hey all. Long-time lurker, first real post. Trying to keep this honest because I think a few guys here might recognize the shape of it.

Here’s the short version. Peak weight was 426 lbs in December 2024. Started tirzepatide in August 2025 at 408. As of this morning I’m sitting around 311 to 315 depending on the day, trend weight 310.2, currently on 15mg. That’s about 111 lbs gone from the peak, 93 of it on tirzepatide. Sustained pace the last three months has been 2.1 lbs a week. The protocol is working. The work is working.

Then a few weeks ago the VA pulled a full panel and my total testosterone came back at 0.5 ng/mL. Reference range is 2.7 to 10.7. Free T was 9 pg/mL against a range of roughly 46 to 224. Not low. Not borderline. Critically low. Two separate panels confirmed it.

I had my first consult with the VA fellow today. She didn’t dismiss the numbers, which I appreciated, but she’s not starting treatment yet either. She wants a full hormone workup first to figure out whether this is primary hypogonadism (testes) or secondary (pituitary). I went in fasting this morning and they drew LH, FSH, prolactin, estradiol, and a repeat T panel. If anything points toward pituitary, MRI gets ordered to rule out a lesion before TRT. If it points to the testes, the path to treatment is more direct. Results expected around May 18. Phone follow-up roughly four weeks out, mid-June.

For the clinical picture, there’s a pretty clean four-point case for primary on my end. Retractile testicle as a kid. Took a fastball to the groin in little league with no cup, hard enough that I remember it 50 years later. Body hair has always been sparse on arms, legs, and pubic area in a way that doesn’t match other men in my family. And now two panels confirming the labs. I didn’t disclose the body hair piece today, made a note to bring it up at the follow-up.

What’s grinding on me is the gap between what the scale says and how I actually feel. On paper this is a textbook run. 111 lbs down. A1C 5.6. Lipids clean. Glucose time in range at 98 to 99 percent for 29 straight weeks. Blood pressure under control. Sleep apnea managed. I’m 11 lbs from 300, which means resistance band training starts and I get back into actually building something. The data is screaming that I’m winning.

The inside doesn’t match. Energy is flat most days. Recovery is slow. Mood drags even when nothing’s wrong. Libido has been gone for a while and I stopped pretending it was a phase. I’ve been working with a therapist weekly since the fall on depression, anxiety, and isolation, and the more weight I lose the more obvious it becomes that some of this isn’t psychological. The body is asking for a hormone it doesn’t have.

So here’s where I’d love to hear from people who’ve actually walked this.
If you started TRT while still actively losing weight on a GLP-1, did it change the trajectory? Did fat loss slow, stall, speed up? Did body composition start shifting toward muscle the way every TRT thread on the internet promises, or was it more subtle?

If you’re a guy who got diagnosed in your 50s after years of feeling off, how long did it take to feel like yourself once treatment started? Weeks? Months? Longer?

For anyone on TRT through the VA, what did the modality conversation look like? Cypionate injections, gel, pellets? What do they actually offer and what monitoring cadence did they set up?

And for anyone with a similar physical history — childhood testicular issues, trauma, late-onset diagnosis — does any of this sound familiar? I’d really like to know I’m not the only one piecing it together this late.

I’m not looking for medical advice. I have a care team and a real plan. I’m looking for the human side. The part that doesn’t show up in the labs.
Almost 60. Down 111 lbs. About to find out what’s actually under the weight. Appreciate anyone who reads this far.

reddit.com

u/Wdshow — 11 days ago

▲ 64 r/Masterbuilt

I purchased this last August, but I didn't get a chance to even get it going, so it sat all over the fall and winter. About a month and a half ago, I decided I was gonna start ramping it up and getting it ready for grill season, and it didn't work. It did not work. My other Gravity Series didn't work either, and I was really feeling bummed about it, but after reading some of the fixes, I decided to give it one more chance.

I finally got in touch with the Master Built Customer Service. It took me a while to get it, but they sent me the wires for the magnet. Today I got it installed (the magnets I'm talking about), but there was an extra wire that was connected to the control panel that was squeezed underneath the hoppers. That's what we found. Plus, the magnets were wrong. The magnets were wrong from whoever put it together. Probably Home Depot.

Right now I am seasoning it, and tomorrow I will be grilling on it. I think I'll do some chicken first, but you know the ribs are coming, and you know that brisket is coming. For God darn, everything's coming. Pray for me because I am about to get in this.

u/Wdshow — 21 days ago