New member intro, very long story

Hi it’s my first post here. I need advice.

About 2 years ago I decided to get in the best shape of my life. My progress has been very slow. Too slow. But I’ve been consistent about some things and Ive researched a good amount.

Here’s my stats:
45 year old male
6’2”, 250 pounds, probably at my heaviest weight ever.
Type 1 Diabetic

Binge drinks one night every 5-10 days, I’m talking more than a pint of straight booze.

I have estimated 25% body fat
My goal is 12% body fat
My lean body weight is 179 pounds
My goal weight is 200 pounds
Meaning, I have to lose 60 pounds of fat
Yikes
If I did everything perfect my goal might be reached in 8 months time.

Quitting drinking has been particularly difficult, and it’s basically the reason for having 60 pounds of fat. Plus I have Type 1 Diabetes, thus, it’s a tough combination. Having T1D is literally a different kind of fat loss journey than people without T1D.

So I got a gym membership about 6 months ago. I am in there 3-5 mornings per week for like 45 minutes. I do the tread mill lightly and then so some weights in between the tread mill. So it’s a deliberately light but consistent workout. If I workout hard, my cravings for alcohol go way up, so I have to be consistent but light workouts.

Then I tend to do a good amount of walking eachday and about 3 days per week I add in some body weight exercises. One of my goals is to do pull ups which I’ve been trying to get for about 1 year, but I’m carrying 60 extra pounds of fat from booze so the pull ups are not quite there yet.

My diet is all over the place. I have to go back to doing a low carb diet but it’s hard to not get alcohol cravings when I’m limiting carbohydrates. So diet can be tricky for T1D’s.

I’ve spent many many hours trying to calculate calories and carbs and proteins and measuring everything and I GIVE UP WITH CALORIE COUNTING. It’s the most maddening thing, and most packages are WAY OFF on the calculations written in packages. So I’m done counting.

I’ve got a scale for my weight, and a scale for food (that I don’t use) and a ruler for measuring my waist

I’ve taken photos of myself as before photos but I’ve never made any progress to see myself losing weight.

My blood sugar is not always on target. I dunno what to say other than T1D is a massive, massive undertaking. Constantly researching and trying to balance blood sugar with exercise and diet is not the same ball game as a non-T1D. It’s such a huge undertaking.

So I binge drink one night about every 5-10 days it happens. The craving gets the best of me. So I drink like a pint or more of booze. Then when I wake up I get back into a healthy routine until around 5-10 days I slip again. So the booze completely highjacks my ability to cut fat. It probably takes 5-10 days for my fat burning metabolism to kick into gear and once it does my body must panic so I end up getting drunk again. So it’s a cycle I’ve been trying to quit for a while now.

My fat burning heart rate is around 120 so I’m starting to target that number on the tred mill each morning.

For a while I was dry fasting through the morning. So I’d wake up and not drink anything and just head to the gym real early. My intention was that dry fasting in that pattern would burn fat faster. It’s feel okay for several days but then my body would crave booze.

So I’d estimate more than 100% of my exercise gains are eliminated by a night of binge drinking. What the booze does to my hunger hormones and my insulin absorption and the entirety of my metabolism is just completely high jacked by a night of drinking hard. So I’m really frustrated with my time working on myself and seeing no improvement.

I live in a tiny apartment with no refrigerator. but I have a cooking setup in my apartment. So I grocery shop 3-4 times per week getting fresh stuff. I can prepare some good meals but it’s time consuming cooking and cleaning so often and not having meals ready to go in the fridge. Thus not having a fridge kinda makes me overeat whatever I cook fresh.

My diet is generally very simple and all natural, low carb to very low carb. Lots of eggs, meats, nuts and seeds (I’m specific about which ones), healthy fats, low carb veggies. Almost no fruits other than avocado. A few weeks ago I removed cheese from my diet because I overdo it with cheese and it messes with blood sugar. So my diet is relatively healthy until I drink a pint of whiskey and eat a whole giant pizza, or something similar to that from a night of drinking hard.

But Type 1 Diabetes limits what I can do in the gym. On the bright side I’ve got no physical handicaps. All my bones and limbs work good and I’ve got no gym injuries. And maybe once per week I will do quick sprints outside, in quick bursts of activity, which I heard helps burn fat. I guess my real goal is burning off this fat and keeping it off, and balancing my overall health and completely kick alcohol for good.

To sum it up: It’s a tough balancing act with diabetes. Alcohol use disorder derails all my progress. And I must be eating too many calories (or when I eat too little it triggers cravings). So my hormones are out of wack.

I’ve got no workout friends, it’s just me.

My sleep is pretty terrible. I try to be at the gym early but some mornings I feel yucky. It’s hard to maintain a steady sleep schedule. Plus neighbors can wake me up frequently. And alcohol destroys my sleep architecture so it’s just this constant inadequate sleep. Often if I exercise in the morning I’ll come home and sleep very deeply for 30 minutes, wake up and be hungry.

I seriously cannot calorie count. It drives me insane trying to balance fiber and carbs and fats and protein. I’d need a professional calorie counter to prepare all my meals and I can’t afford a personal chef.

But I’d like some advice from members here because I’ve done research, read books, calculated everything and I’m not giving up on this. My life’s goal is to slim down and maintain a good physical shape into my older age. Thanks