But your issues began pre-COVID, right? When you were still biking throughout LA and not losing weight, etc? I was thinking of whatever the undiagnosed underlying issue was, prior to COVID. Ya know... it's the only tool in my toolbox, and it worked on me, so I figured I'd hit you over the head with it and see if it worked for you, too. :-)
Oh, long since. Problem is, part of the "treatment" was a certified, bona fide nutritionist writing me a prescription for "eat lots of veggies, cut out nearly all carbs and increase your protein content by 3-4x" and I gained 15lbs in 4 weeks. When I went "WTF yo" she was firmly in the "that's a sign our plan is working!" camp. So we did it for another month and I gained 25 pounds. There's usually a moment during all this where they go "huh, I'll bet you have some sort of thyroid issue" and then they run blood tests and nope. No thyroid issues they can recognize. That's about the time they start mumbling into the EHR and fob me off on some specialist that refuses to see me. Has happened three times so far. But that's just the metabolism I grew up with. I'm used to it. I know what works there; not eating. Not eating for days weeks months or years. I'm good at not eating. The problem I ran into with biking is "not eating" means "you don't have enough energy to get to work" which put me in trying to triangulate "enough energy to bike 16 miles" with "and none left over such that I'm still hungry" and then some days it was so hot that it took three bottles of gatorade before I stopped seeing stars while sitting down. That shit I can deal with. This new "and eating lunch is going to make you feel like such shit that you need to take a nap" thing is the real drag.