Intermittent fasting

Well, let's give it a try. I give up.

No surprise...I have always enjoyed being a bigger guy. It took years and years of 1) being a skinny guy and not liking it, and 2) being a gay man and learning that I could take control of my life—and that included my body—to realize that if I wanted to be big, I could be big. I just needed to make it a priority.

In 2007, I ran my second of two triathlons. Training for months ahead of time insured that I was losing weight at a reasonable, slow, and steady pace. The year before, I had gone down to about 180 or so. After tri #2, I was at 185. And stopped training cold turkey once it was done. The end result? I packed on 40 pounds over the next 4 months. I went from looking a bit thin but healthy to looking a bit thick but healthy. It surprised me, but I didn't mind it at all.

It took about three more years of slowly moving up and down until I realized I had wanted to be big, that I could if I wanted, and that there were many ways to get there. Packing on muscle seemed to be the best way, since I also wanted to be strong. Some web searches later, I had found Stronglifts 5x5, and knew that this was the way to go.

Six months after that, I had been lifting for a few months, and the progress was more than noticeable. I was looking bigger and packing more muscle. I was up to about 240. I had also discovered the benefits of drinking kefir: a caloric, high-probiotic yogurt-like drink that had the side effect of making me a bit hungrier a few hours after guzzling it. So combine that with lifting, and by the time 2015 ended, I was sitting high at 285, with a prominent belly around 50-52" and a pant waist of 42-44".

Unfortunately, my body seemed to resist further gains. I began feeling sicker—just this sense of stomach uneasiness that stuck around longer than it should. Digestion seemed to slow down. I was more fatigued all the time. And I had to keep that in mind as I tried to gain even more. Every time I approached 290 and a bit higher, I would get illnesses that pushed me back down below 285 again.

Couple that with regular blood tests that revealed consistently high liver enzymes, plus a liver biopsy in 2015 that clinched a diagnosis of nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), and I knew I had a significant issue on my hands.

My training in natural medicine enabled me to move my liver enzyme numbers back down to normal, for which I'm grateful. But still, I felt like my liver was ailing me, and I wanted to get it strong again.

Over the past year, I've had more and more of a reckoning with myself. I have always wanted to be big...within reason, the bigger, the better. When I was young, I somehow felt like the number 295 felt crazily high, and 297 or 298 was truly crazy, though I didn't associate that with my personal weight. But I've become more and more open to the idea that I need to treat my liver better, and if that means I lose a bit of weight in the process, so be it.

So here I am, doing some intermittent fasting. Today is day 2. I'm drinking coffee with turmeric, ginger, pepper, and cinnamon in the grounds in the morning. Eating begins at 1 and ends at 9. I can eat what I want during those hours, but otherwise, it's just water, coffee (no cream or sugar), and tea. I'm curious to see what will happen. I've read some studies that indicate that IF may or may not be effective for weight loss, but it does seem to be effective for NASH either way. So I'm open to it. Besides, I won't lie—a big part of me wonders what would happen if I lost some weight doing IF, then once I finished, if I packed on more weight and were able to get past 300. Would my body be able to cope with that?

In the meantime, I'm feeling okay in the mornings. Yesterday was an unusually productive day from a work standpoint, but emotionally I was a bit skittish. I can see rationale for both events. I'll check in again at some point.