Blake is 55. A loving husband. A caring father. He trains. He eats well. He’s handsome. One of those men you want to put on a postcard or a MultiVitamin bottle. Blake just gets shit done and doesn’t ask for a party every time he does. Yet, this depiction of everything we see as manly has been suffering from severe fatigue for over five years, going to battle each day with clinched fists.
He went to a doctor a few years back and was quickly diagnosed with low testosterone and put on TRT. No more questions were asked. This was the answer. Ten to fifteen minutes. Done. At first, things improved, but after a few months it felt the same as before, just now he had this new prescription in his life that he really didn’t understand or even want. But, it was there looming over him and his family. The only thing he wanted, was to be healthy and have more energy, so that he give more to those he cared for.
This situation can’t be out worked.
This puzzle can’t be unraveled with the same thinking that got us into it.
I took Blake on and we discussed everything – Nutrition, Sleep, Exercise, Health History, and all the details of his daily life. We isolated his limiting factors. Mainly, he wanted to get everything done for everyone at the expense of himself and he just flat out didn’t eat enough food to fuel the level of activity that he wanted to maintain.
So we talked, I listened, and we made a plan. We touched base on how it was going and we tweaked it as needed. On paper, Blake increased his caloric consumption by over 50% and lost weight. He gave himself permission to unplug and then he turned his phone off in the evenings. He started practicing mindfulness every day. Blake did all of this, I just provided the why and the how, and then got the hell out of the way.
Blake now fully understands the benefits and the drawbacks of TRT and he is likely far more educated than his prescribing physician. He also knows that we can’t go back in time and that at 55 the odds of successfully taking him off are very very slim. He also understands that using this tool does not make him any less of a human being. We just have to monitor and watch to make sure he doesn’t write checks his physiology can’t cash.
Here is what Blake had to say…
“I thought low T was for ‘old’ guys who were out of shape and couch potatoes. But, suddenly I had no energy at work, home or in the gym. I had a physical and was told my ‘T’ was 113…extremely low. Desperate to get back to “normal” I started TRT with no knowledge of the process. All my doctor worried about was my number and for 6 years I rode the TRT energy roller coaster. One week I felt great, the next week I tanked. Like a junkie, I couldn’t wait for the next “hit” of “T”. I just wanted to feel normal. I continued to workout hard and thought I was eating “pretty good.” I was wrong and finally hit the energy bottom. Desperate and frustrated, my son turned me on to Functional Medicine. A two hour meeting changed my life. I changed my diet and added supplements to help target energy and balance my system. I always worried about eating too many carbs, but come to find out I was grossly below what I needed to fuel how I trained. Six weeks later, I am a new man! Energy way up, stress way down and my workouts have never been better. Finally, I feel educated and empowered, and the future has never looked brighter.
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