(07-10-2023, 11:46 PM)volkansazan Wrote: Hey Guys,

I am writing this post in order to help someone who might have similar problems as I have.

I am from Istanbul / Turkey, 42 years old, Certified Medical Personal Trainer and dealing with clients mostly on Metabolic Diseases like Diabetes, Hypertension and Metabolic Syndrome. Moreover I work with some clients with Parkinson’s Disease and Cerebral Palsy. As you might guess I am very well equipped in Nutrition, Biomechanics etc. After my University, I read and learnt a lot from books, from Dr. Scott and John Meadows and many other different sources.

I am being in sports seriously for 25 years. This last 10 years I am doing mostly weight training (Traditional BB and Kettlebell Complex) and Cardio (HIIT, Plyometrics, Steady State Walking and some running). Before I was mostly running long distances e.g marathons and half marathons for about another 15 years and was doing a little bit of weight training.

First of all I am not interested in competing and never have been. I am also not interested to gain too much muscle getting big etc. I just like to be a bit muscular to have a nice physique and seeing my abs is quite enough for me.

My problems started after I have divorced. I was married for 5 years and the divorce period was a big mess. This was a big trauma for me and I have started to juggle myself since then

When I was younger I had some weight problems e.g easy to gain weight and hard to loose fat. However my willpower is incredibly strong which allow me to control my weight and my body composition quite well.(Around 10 - 12% BF year around) Actually Dr. Scott told me that I am actually single digit BF% according to pictures that I sent him The thing is that I see myself fat probably due to body dysmorphia.

However recent years, in order to keep or loose the weight / body comp., I have been doing excess amount of exercise and eating very low calories of food which really hurts me on many different levels both psychologically and physiologically.

Especially from last 2-3 years until now things are started to get out of control. I was really chronically under eating and doing too much exercise in order to keep my weight and BF%. I am really training hard on my weight training sessions (5 - 6 times a week) and doing long walks. (3 hours daily) Last 2 years I have also developed some eating disorders.

Due to reason that I was under-eating, I was constantly hungry and at some point of time I was binging food mostly just before sleep since I could not sleep due to being incredibly hungry and next day in order to compensate this I was running and walking like crazy around 60-70 K steps and fasting that full day. You can imagine next day. I am a walking dead

I have been also dealing with low T last 7-8 years (Total T around 100-200 range which is a joke). You might think why the hell you did not see a doctor? Actually I tried many of them but unfortunately we do not have good Endocrinologists in Turkey like also in Europe and I have forced to learn everything by myself.

I have started to read a lot of books about hormones. With the help of the books and different podcasts, I understood that I have to check my LH, FSH, Prolactin, IGF-1 and FT3 and FT4 levels in order to identify whether I have some problems in my pituitary and have primary and/or secondary Hypogonadism.

In the end I saw that the problem is on my LH levels. It is quite low very close to lower end range. As a second step I have taken Arimidex and Klomen in order to stimulate pituitary prescribed by a doctor in Turkey. After 1 month, my total T was around 700 so I have seen that I have secondary hypogonadism. However since I have been using AI’s, I have many side effects on my joints (lots of pain) and also felt very depressive and having hard times to control my anger. When I checked my Estradiol level, it was obviously very low. Therefore I had to stop using them. As a result my T level dropped again but joint pain gone and also started to feel much better psychologically.

Until here I wanted to explain my history in order you to understand what is going on.

Before I write Dr. Scott, I was thinking there is something wrong in my metabolism but I could not figure it out until then. Maybe I am slowing down my metabolism and maybe I am my own enemy. Maybe I read a lot of stuff probably way too much and become information blind.

Just to give you some numbers, my calories was literally a starvation mode (around 800 - 1000 kcal) with the same amount of exercise and my aim was what the heck I still cannot loose weight with these amount of calories. I was aware that this is not sustainable but what if I really eat like a normal athlete. Will I become a fat human being? What I mean is that, things really got out of control. I tried some Doctors / Dietician's in Turkey and man the nonsense they were telling was unexplainable

I was following Dr. Scott for at least 10 years and apart from his knowledge, his sincerity got my attention all the podcasts he was in and decided to write a long e-mail to him. He kindly answered all my questions and guided me. We built a nutrition plan from scratch (calories, nutrition timing, macro distributions etc.) Our aim was to find my maintenance calories. Of course I have also started using Fortitude Training system as an exercise plan

In 2 weeks we have increased my previous calories at least 50%, changed all macro distribution and most importantly timing of nutrition around weight training - cardio and the rest of the day. I am telling you guys its been 1 month now and I am a new person. Strength increase is abnormal, even lost some weight/fat even with a higher calorie diet. Most importantly I am a 100% different person psychologically

We are following now also T levels whether it can naturally increase without any medicine since I eat much much better and train much smarter using FT system. I am telling you guys, read FT book at least 5 times. It is a treasure.

Starting from September I will start lean gaining period with the help of Dr.Scott and until September I will continue to learn my body and build a solid routine both for nutrition and training.

This was a long post but I hope I might help some people who might have similar problems like me and thanks a lot to Dr. Scott. Without him I was a lost cause.

(07-10-2023, 11:46 PM)volkansazan Wrote: Hey Guys,

I am writing this post in order to help someone who might have similar problems as I have.

<SNIP LONG, AWESOME POST>

This was a long post but I hope I might help some people who might have similar problems like me and thanks a lot to Dr. Scott. Without him I was a lost cause.