Hey Guys,
Sorry for taking so long to bring any feedback to the dialogue. I've been fairly consistent with my lifting since sine the mid-nineteen-nineties. Let me give a brief background. As a disclaimer, ignorant folks might want to avoid the thread because it will now contain information regarding long-term living with HIV.
I was fairly sick when I started Anti-viral therapy in conjunction to TRT in 1998. At the time I got into the gym I weighed about 150lbs soaking wet, and I had a middle. For me getting testosterone was a miracle in that I finally for the first time was able to put on weight and hold it.
As time went on I got better, but I wanted to really have some size, I hit 205 really easily doing just a straight shot of 200mg of cyp a week within two years. This photo was circa May of 2000. You can already see good shoulder development there and very strong development of the traps.
Around that time I came into contact with an individual who had a very big build and we became friends of sorts. I knew he cycled, because when we worked out together I would be busting my ass and he barely did anything much, and granted, there are those who look at a stack of weights and they develop fast-twitch muscle response, but this dude wasn't one of them.
He turned me on to trips from Pasadena, CA where I lived then to Tijuana, MX. No need to explain the rest I do believe. I cycled sustanon and tren-a with dbol on and off for about a year and half. This photo is from late 2003, and I was about 243 lbs. You can see the beginnings of the belly. I'll explain it shortly.
This was my peak. And this was due to a couple of factors, for starters, I have depression issues that have dogged me my entire adult life, and they don't surprise me because I've lived this life firsthand, and there's plenty to be unhappy about. I got into a funk that lasted the better part of a year and a half, and sure enough, I started missing the gym, and cutting back on my cycles and I started losing size.
The other issue, and part of what drove this slide down was the fact that I developed a condition called lipodystrophy. Men and women who are long-term HIV patients tend to manifest one of two conditions. The most common one is facial wasting which is called lipoatrophy. It is the loss of subcutaneous fat around the structure of the mouth and behind the cheek bones. This is what some folks rather crudely refer to as "AIDS Face."
Just as insidious, but not as easily recognizable as to its cause is Lipodystrophy, which is the opposite to lipoatrophy. Instead of losing fat, in a case where Lipodystrophy is present, fat begins to accumulate subcutaneously behind muscle wall. You can see it in the "Buffalo Hump" some men and women develop, but that is readily treated with liposuction.
Where it is more insidious is where it develops behind the abdominal wall. There is no amount of dieting or toning of the mid section that is going to positively affect this condition. There is a single drug on the market made by Serano trade name
Egrifta (the
Serostim people) that is approved by the FDA for treatment of this condition, and I was on it for a year with no visible results.
I even question if I have this. My former doctor and his kick-back machine pharmacy he worked with had me setup to receive four boxes of Serostim a month for over two years. Each daily vial was 6mg per dose. Those of you who purchase it know this already. I was taking that much daily. No one I knew advised me on taking a lower dose and using bacterial static water so that it would keep.
The end result was fairly awful. My lower jaw grew painfully, and I eventually had to have my wisdom teeth which were in perfect health removed because they grew to the point where I could not close my incisors properly. To this day I cannot. My hands and feet grew. I went from an eleven wide shoe to somewhere between an eleven half to twelve shoe, and depending on the cut, an EE. I eventually had carpal tunnel syndrome, and it was during this period I noticed my gut began to distend to pretty much the size it is today. I'm not convinced that this belly is due to Lipodystrophy.
The end game at the present is where I am now. I've had a rough couple of years, and I have a back injury from a bad car crash in late 2006 which resulted in trauma to two bulged disks. Here I am now at 255 lbs.
I've made peace with the gut more than less, I do know there is some cutaneous fat I can get rid of, but I never was a bodybuilder in the sense of trying to shred to compete. At the time of my accident, I was all about core strength, and I was beginning to powerlift, unfortunately, at this point in my life I can barely squat and deadlifts are a long lost dream.
I just want to build my legs and upper body back to a nice solid size so that I can carry this fucking gut not look like an old alcoholic. Irony, I don't even drink.
.gif "IP Gear")
!!
