Gaining

Pioglitazone can be prescribed to prevent diabetes. Tell your doctor you're gonna get fat, with or without their help, and say you heard pio can help prevent issues. Get your A1C tested at the same time, it's never a bad time for that.

I very much wish I'd had the balls to do it earlier in life

Pioglitazone can reduce diabetes risk by 66%. It does this by increasing fat cell production, as a PPAR-Y activator. An otherwise healthy person is more likely to recover from any of the common side effects than to recover from diabetes.