I retired four years ago. We moved to Florida because a company was pushing hard to recruit my wife and my job was no longer holding us in place. I looked forward to beaches, diving, fishing and all that fun stuff, but also became primary caregiver for my 90 year old mother in law who has advanced dementia and is entirely reliant on others.
This means retirement was never being away from the house for more than three hours during the day when I have someone coming in to help. I kept getting fatter and more depressed.
I was diagnosed as a type 2 diabetic about three years ago. My doc had me on Farxiga and Metformin, and suggested I ultimately would end up on insulin for the rest of my life. I had already been on statins for more than a decade but she added an additional cholesterol medication. I felt terrible, which I attributed to the drugs.
Rather than succumb to that grim view of my future, sitting on my ass, eating cookies and resenting my lot in life, I decided to make changes that could fit inside my circumstances.
I started a keto /carnivore diet, then added walking around my neighborhood. I took myself off all of my meds (except testosterone) and lost a ton of weight. Last June, I joined a gym and have been went training ever since. I also started concentrating on getting good sleep. Not always possible, given this environment, but getting an average of seven and a half hours. If I didn’t have to go pee every couple of hours, it would probably be better. I’ve also been supplementing like a madman. Creatine, magnesium, potassium are the big ones, but there are a ton more.
I didn’t know what I was doing in the gym, but I still was able to consistently add weight. I may have gone too fast, and stressed out my elbow tendons on both sides. This has slowed things down.
I just decided I needed a plan, rather than adjust weight, reps and sets based on how I felt in the moment. I think I have a better idea of progressive overload now and am redesigning my routines accordingly. I use the Hevy app to record workouts, which has been amazing.
I have hit my two initial goals, reaching 150 lbs and a body fat of 15%. Now I want to pile on some muscle. My sticking point right now is that I don’t have much energy in the gym. My guess is this may be diet-related, but struggle with the idea of upping carbs or calories. Maintenance calories for me appear to be very low, I.e. approximately 1500 on gym days. At 6ft and 150 lbs, that seems really low. My fasting glucose is usually around 80 each morning and my last A1c was 5.1. Carbs send it way up and calories add weight which my scale attributes to fat.
Sorry for the novel. I guess my question is how do I get more energy in the gym?
