Do you perhaps visit adult websites often through the day? The result might affect in mental fogginess.
If your body has picked up bromine contamination, iodine replenishment [IR] can displace the bromides that have been occupying site where iodine is normally found. The bromine will be excreted, meanwhile you can feel poorly. One guy reported today that his wife said that his breath smelled like rotten fish, and his farts were very horrible too. So that is a possibility.
I think that I have read that unsteady temperatures can be associate with adrenal issues.
[quote]NikH wrote:
Do you perhaps visit adult websites often through the day? The result might affect in mental fogginess.[/quote]
Haha not through a work day usually. But your right. The shame would ruin the rest of my day
[quote]KSman wrote:
If your body has picked up bromine contamination, iodine replenishment [IR] can displace the bromides that have been occupying site where iodine is normally found. The bromine will be excreted, meanwhile you can feel poorly. One guy reported today that his wife said that his breath smelled like rotten fish, and his farts were very horrible too. So that is a possibility.
I think that I have read that unsteady temperatures can be associate with adrenal issues.[/quote]
Okay. Maybe that’s what has been going on. Looked into it. Seems really possible considering I live in L.A.
KSman, I know you probably don’t like the idea but I think I’m going to assume I have some kind of adrenal issue and try using the methods from Wilson’s book and a few good articles/threads I’ve found on this site. I will keep taking iodine as well as eating lots of cholesterol. At least until I can get the bloodwork you recommended. Unless there is anything else you think I should be doing?
I do feel a little better. Mornings are not as hard and I sleep better in the night. I haven’t napped or even laid down in the middle of the day in three weeks. Also food cravings seem to have disappeared.
How is your digestion? Do you have heartburn, constipation, diarrhea, etc? If you’re not digesting food well, then you can eat all the cholesterol you want and it won’t matter.
I raised my cholesterol from 116 to 149 by taking some digestive enzymes and betaine HCL.
Edit: I eat a mostly paleo diet w/rice and potatoes. Also removed gluten from diet and cut back on omega6 (vegetable oil)
3/15/13
9:00 am 97.4
3:30 pm 97.6! 97.7! 97.5!
First crash in weeks. Really bad today at around 3. I had to lay down. So tired out of no where. I got like 10 hours of sleep last night too. Took a temp reading right when it happened. Sure enough my temp was stupid low. So weird. I have heard this could be an effect of adrenal fatigue. This shit is so annoying.
[quote]nomadic wrote:
How is your digestion? Do you have heartburn, constipation, diarrhea, etc? If you’re not digesting food well, then you can eat all the cholesterol you want and it won’t matter.
I raised my cholesterol from 116 to 149 by taking some digestive enzymes and betaine HCL. [/quote]
It varies from day to day. I don’t get eat a lot of carbs but movements are for the most part pretty solid. Never have heartburn.
When I was drinking green smoothies taking a shit was beautiful.
When I got that bloodwork I was taking a lot of pro-biotic supplements and drinking kombuchas. Haven’t been taking anything for a while now.
Did you do anything else other than taking the digestive enzymes?
Shit I forgot, I eliminated gluten as well! Not a trivial step. I also try to eat more fermented foods/take some probiotics sometimes. I had IBS symptoms before and now they’re gone.
Does “half day timed carb diet” mean intermittent fasting? Also you mention a refeed. I think you’ll see in Wilson’s Adrenal Fatigue book that he recommends small meals throughout day, each with balanced but small amounts of carbs.
I am coming from the same place as you - lost 50lbs through low carb dieting. Low carb dieitng = less gluten too. I wonder if the weight loss and/or low-carb natura can cause some of the hypothyroid issues. Personally have gone to a more moderate carb diet (150g/day) and slowed weight loss from 1.5lbs/week on lowcarb to 0.5/lbs now. It sucks to slow the weight loss but I have started to feel a lot better.
It’s too bad you didn’t get the 4-time cortisol test to help look at adrenal fatigue. And the GH test…echo what KSMan says about wanting IGF-1.
[quote]nomadic wrote:
Shit I forgot, I eliminated gluten as well! Not a trivial step. I also try to eat more fermented foods/take some probiotics sometimes. I had IBS symptoms before and now they’re gone.
Does “half day timed carb diet” mean intermittent fasting? Also you mention a refeed. I think you’ll see in Wilson’s Adrenal Fatigue book that he recommends small meals throughout day, each with balanced but small amounts of carbs.
I am coming from the same place as you - lost 50lbs through low carb dieting. Low carb dieitng = less gluten too. I wonder if the weight loss and/or low-carb natura can cause some of the hypothyroid issues. Personally have gone to a more moderate carb diet (150g/day) and slowed weight loss from 1.5lbs/week on lowcarb to 0.5/lbs now. It sucks to slow the weight loss but I have started to feel a lot better.
It’s too bad you didn’t get the 4-time cortisol test to help look at adrenal fatigue. And the GH test…echo what KSMan says about wanting IGF-1.[/quote]
I hear a lot of bad things about gluten. I try to avoid it completely. Isn’t very hard to do living in L.A. while on a low carb diet haha.
No, I stopped posting on forums before intermittent fasting became really popular. Would like to try it someday.
A half timed card diet is basically eating carbs before noon, after your workout and then re-feeding every 1-2 weeks. I had a high carb day like once a month. I was very overweight though. Didn’t need re-feeds that often.
Congrats on your weight loss. I believe once you get to a decent weight/body fat percentage it’s probably better for your body composition and over all well being to start eating very close to maintenance and focusing on strength gains in the gym. Even going over maintenance every few days. I think the increases in strength would do more good than any calorie or carb deficient.
Will probably start doing that once I get to about 17% body fat. Eating carbs again felt good. Workouts and strength were MUCH better. There is something to be said about that.
If I do have adrenal fatigue then I don’t think being very strict on carb restriction is going to help. I imagine it is very stressful on the body. I am getting leaner every week though. I just feel like shit. Just going to try to get a lot in post workout.
I know weight loss can certainly cause thyroid and adrenal issues. The only reason I don’t believe my second major weight loss caused anything is because I did it pretty slowly and utilized a lot of re-feed days. Plus, I was feeling bad long before the second weight loss.
The first weight loss when I was 15 I am pretty sure left me with some serious problems. But I was fucked being that fat in the first place. Biggest regret of my life. But there was nothing I could have done. I was still a kid. I had no control over my diet or lifestyle really.
I got the cortisol test through a pharmacist I knew. He was so sure that I had adrenal fatigue that he didn’t even want to test for it. That was very much influenced by my lack of money to pay for the extra test. He thought it would be more useful to spend my money on dhea, test, and preg testing. I appreciated his help very much. He didn’t make a dollar off of me.
If you don’t mind me asking, what is your story? Did you also find yourself feeling very bad all the time? Have you fixed it?
My story is basically symptoms of low T and adrenal fatigue, with labs to back both up at 30. I got here through a combination of bad genetics, too much dieting, poor digestion, and bad sleep due to work.
I did feel bad all the time at the end of my last heavy dieting phase - all the adrenal/hypothyroid symptoms and basically all loss of morning wood. I really focused on making sure I was getting good sleep and the right nutrition. 10 weeks of that and things have improved, but definitely not back to baseline.
One problem is being caught in the middle - I’m 28% BF like you (5’8", 215lbs). The obvious solution for the adrenal/hormonal problems is to stop dieting, but then you’re still stuck being fat.
The good news about adrenal fatigue is that you can easily work on some very low cost solutions without going into the full depth of testing. Even if you don’t have adrenal fatigue, most of this stuff is not going to harm you.
-take a break from dieting so hard
-fix your sleep - early bedtime, sleep in a dark room or w/sleep mask, 8+ hours
-smart supplementation
-herbal adaptogenics
-work on a way to relax: go through some of the mental exercises in Wilson’s book, mediate, etc.
-track your body temps
Risks for harm:
-Licorice can effect blood pressure.
-Iodine is a little tricky. MDs don’t like it because it’s not a prescription drug. I would do a lot of reading on this, read through all the articles KSMan links to in the thyroid sticky.
[quote]nomadic wrote:
My story is basically symptoms of low T and adrenal fatigue, with labs to back both up at 30. I got here through a combination of bad genetics, too much dieting, poor digestion, and bad sleep due to work.
I did feel bad all the time at the end of my last heavy dieting phase - all the adrenal/hypothyroid symptoms and basically all loss of morning wood. I really focused on making sure I was getting good sleep and the right nutrition. 10 weeks of that and things have improved, but definitely not back to baseline.
One problem is being caught in the middle - I’m 28% BF like you (5’8", 215lbs). The obvious solution for the adrenal/hormonal problems is to stop dieting, but then you’re still stuck being fat.
[/quote]
Being fat sucks man. Nobody ever talks about it but once you get to a certain weight, you’re pretty much not going to feel good for a long time if you lose it. It’s something you see a lot. I have known a lot of people who managed to lose tons of weight but don’t look good and if you really pressured them, they would admit to not feeling very good either.
I know it may seem impossible to imagine, but have you considered stopping the dieting for a month or so? I don’t mean eat what ever but a 40/40/30, so your not stressing about food selection, at slightly above maintenance. Probably gaining a couple pounds. I wonder how you would feel. Would probably drop the volume in the gym significantly for the month.
I would do the same but I felt terrible long before starting to diet again. And when I think about it I didn’t really feel that good when I was a kid. Plus I did take very long breaks from dieting (hence the weight gain again)
[quote]nomadic wrote:
The good news about adrenal fatigue is that you can easily work on some very low cost solutions without going into the full depth of testing. Even if you don’t have adrenal fatigue, most of this stuff is not going to harm you.
-take a break from dieting so hard
-fix your sleep - early bedtime, sleep in a dark room or w/sleep mask, 8+ hours
-smart supplementation
-herbal adaptogenics
-work on a way to relax: go through some of the mental exercises in Wilson’s book, mediate, etc.
-track your body temps
Risks for harm:
-Licorice can effect blood pressure.
-Iodine is a little tricky. MDs don’t like it because it’s not a prescription drug. I would do a lot of reading on this, read through all the articles KSMan links to in the thyroid sticky.
[/quote]
I’m just not sure if I’m sold on the whole adrenal fatigue thing. I haven’t really seen many success stories from people who cured it using herbs and supps. When I think about it, it seems like a great way to sell people supplements. You find some specific symptoms but a lot of them seem pretty general. I know Lyle McDonald seems to think it doesn’t exist and in most cases has observed that people who thought or were told they had it, actually had some sort of underlying thyroid issues.
But I try to stay open minded. I’ve adapted a full fledged adrenal fatigue supplement routine. So I’m hoping it works.
Today was a pretty rough day. Tired and had INTENSE cravings for sweets. Like fuck all this I want some chocolate cravings. Managed to avoid it though.
Look around the threads here by guys who are 20-30 and almost all them could have hypothyroid issues. I definitely might - TSH over 2 and low waking temps. I started taking a T3/T4 thyroid pull last week to see how that feels. I used to follow Lyle a lot, but I needed to layer in some better food quality.
I’ve been off the strict diet for 10 weeks, eating to satiety. I kept my food choices limited though which has meant at least a little ongoing weight loss and hopefully overall increased health.
But I wonder - What is the point of stopping in the middle though just to encounter more difficulty after starting again? Especially if the extra weight is contributing to the hormonal problems. I’m probably going to start back up again but at least do weekly refeeds to try and blunt down the metabolism damage.
[quote]nomadic wrote:
Look around the threads here by guys who are 20-30 and almost all them could have hypothyroid issues. I definitely might - TSH over 2 and low waking temps. I started taking a T3/T4 thyroid pull last week to see how that feels. I used to follow Lyle a lot, but I needed to layer in some better food quality.[/quote]
Good luck with that man. Who recommended the t3/t4?
[quote]nomadic wrote:
I’ve been off the strict diet for 10 weeks, eating to satiety. I kept my food choices limited though which has meant at least a little ongoing weight loss and hopefully overall increased health.
But I wonder - What is the point of stopping in the middle though just to encounter more difficulty after starting again? Especially if the extra weight is contributing to the hormonal problems. I’m probably going to start back up again but at least do weekly refeeds to try and blunt down the metabolism damage.[/quote]
Stopping in the middle of the weight loss? I guess it would only be useful if dieting for to long causes you to feel bad, which it probably will. Sometimes you have to take a step back to take two forward.
It would probably be useful to give your body the break. Then start trying to lose weight again while re-feeding every couple of weeks or so to prevent it from happening again.
I used to visit irodaddicts a lot. One thing IA recommended was never dieting for longer than 12-16 weeks. Can’t remember exactly. He would recommend eating at maintenance for a period of a few weeks.
So I guess the idea is that if weight loss is slow enough, and met with breaks periodically, you shouldn’t ever start feeling bad.
I’m just conversing. haha. Please dont’ take any of this as advice.
3/19
9:00 am 97.6
6:00 98.8
10:0 99.00 (post workout)
This seems good. This just be the iodine. Highest temps yet.
Yesterday was a rough day. Took the weekend off but Monday I felt fucking terrible. It felt hard to move. Like walking through sand. Had to nap. I don’t know why I felt so bad. Didn’t do anything over the weekend. Got plenty of sleep. Days like that make me want to die. Not litteraly.It feels like your a useless pile of shit. I hate it so much.
Today was better. Still more tired than last week but definitely better than yesterday. Had to nap a llittle.
Workout today felt great though. Felt decently warm. Muscles were contracting hard. Felt strong. Very surprised. Pause squatted 295 pretty easily.
I don’t think I can handle much volume right now. Especially during the weight loss. Going to try to keep workouts under an hour, not including foam rolling, and no more than 10-15 work sets. Maybe 5/3/1
Woke up this morning looking leaner than I’ve ever been. Still fat but kinda cool.
If anyone is wondering why I’m logging stuff here, it’s because I want to one day have people look at this thread and see I was confused an eventually (hopefully) found out what was wrong and completely changed my life. I don’t see a lot of threads like that.
Feeling like shit sucks. I think it would be cool.
You mention depression and apathy. Do you have resources to get help for that? Wilson talks about finding ways to handle stress and a professional might help in that regard.
“Hard to move, had to nap” stuff and spiked morning cortisol sounds a lot like adrenal fatigue to me. There has to be a sense of urgency for recovery at this point. Workouts and leanness don’t matter. Eat to satiety and take a week off workouts.
It seems like your supplements are missing half of what Wilson talks about. Also isn’t caffeine off limits?
[quote]nomadic wrote:
You mention depression and apathy. Do you have resources to get help for that? Wilson talks about finding ways to handle stress and a professional might help in that regard.[/quote]
I’ve felt like that for a LONG time man. Since I was 12 or 13. My parents are depressed people. Had kinda a hard time as a kid. Wanted help but we couldn’t afford it. Recently I started thinking maybe what ever is going on now has been going on since I was a kid. It’s just gotten worse over the years.
There is no way I could afford it now. Even if I could, I fucking hate the idea. For every 10000 “professionals” there’s probably 1 good one. I imagine it makes what most doctors know about general health look pretty good. I’d rather do yoga.
Idk, I may be shooting the idea down to quickly. If money wasn’t an issue I would definitely try it out. Couldn’t hurt.
[quote]
“Hard to move, had to nap” stuff and spiked morning cortisol sounds a lot like adrenal fatigue to me. There has to be a sense of urgency for recovery at this point. Workouts and leanness don’t matter. Eat to satiety and take a week off workouts.[/quote]
But Bro, I don’t think the weight loss has caused anything. I felt just as bad 9 months ago when I was fat, eating like crazy and hardly lifting.
My diet isn’t really that stressful. Or lifting routine. I’ve got other things that are stressing me out more.
Recovery is one of the most important things to me right now. I just don’t really have the resources to do whatever I’d like. I wish I could get more bloodwork. Better supps. I wish I could fly KSman to L.A. and have him personally look at everything. But I can’t. I have to move a little slower.
What else can I be doing?
[quote]
It seems like your supplements are missing half of what Wilson talks about. Also isn’t caffeine off limits?[/quote]
When did I say I was taking caffeine? I have a small cup of coffee in the morning and pre workout. A little bit smaller than a small at starbucks. I’ve been doing that for 3-4 weeks now. Also the green tea. I don’t take any pre-workout supps. They fuck me pretty good.
6,000 mg fish oil twice daily
1,500 mg vit c twice daily and post workout
400 mg magnesium citrate morning and 100 mg at night
200 mg DIM twice daily
240 mg Grape seed extract twice daily
1,450 mg licorice twice daily
1,500 mg inositol twice daily
10,000 mg vit d in morning then 5,000 mg night
30 mg zinc at night time (trying to get up to 50mg)
15 ish mg or 15,000 mcgs iodine twice daily (will progress to 50 within a week or so)
Rhodiola
Bovine Adrenals
Alpha GPC
Holy Basil
B-Complex
This is what I was taking every day. I’ve run out of a few things. Ordered some more already.
This shit is expensive.
Wilson recommended a lot of things that seem to do the same thing. I planned on revolving them throughout the next few months.
What would you say is missing that is important?
This shit is so annoying. Was tired all day. Like dragging my feet tired. Walking around the market at like 9:30pm. Get home at 10:00 and I’m wired. Walking fast, mind racing. Tried grappling with my friend.
It’s really frustrating. Right when I should be going to bed.
Classic adrenal fatigue bullshit.
Things have been rough the past week. Tired tired tired.
I’m trying to learn as much as possible. Kinda funny. When I can’t sleep at night, I try to research this stuff.
Things really have not improved at all. I thought they were for a while but not anymore.
KSman, I’ve been reading into optimal thyroid levels. http://www.drrind.com/therapies/thyroid-scale
It seems like I have “poorly effective thyroid hormone”
Iodine and eating more cholesterol hasn’t seemed to help. I feel awful.
I bought some raw thyroid. I want to see how that makes me feel.
Are these levels a sign of what could be causing me to feel this bad all the time? What caused fucked up levels? A fucked up hypothalamus?
What should I do now?
Labs would be good. You can order these on your own at lef.com | products | blood testing
Labs will be on sale there in April. See suggestions from 3/27
Adrenal fatigue → elevated rT3 → blocked fT3 → TSH can be up while other thyroid hormones are high
Are you still watching body temps?
[quote]KSman wrote:
Labs would be good. You can order these on your own at lef.com | products | blood testing
Labs will be on sale there in April. See suggestions from 3/27[/quote]
I’m working on getting the remaining lab work. I kinda put all the money I had into adrenal fatigue supps. It’s about $400.00 for everything you recommended on privatemdlabs. Then the saliva cortisol testing is another $120.00
On lef.org everything came out to $550.00. Do you know how much of a discount the sale will give?
[quote]
Adrenal fatigue → elevated rT3 → blocked fT3 → TSH can be up while other thyroid hormones are high[/quote]
So you think everything is being caused by adrenal fatigue?
Also, I was looking at that iron link you posted.
Seems like I have iron poisoning/iron overload/hemochromatosis. You think I should donate some blood?
[quote]
Are you still watching body temps?[/quote]
Not as often. Once every few days. Averages 97.4-97.6 in the morning. Then 98.6.98.8 in the evening. Just tested yesterday. The evening temps seem good but the morning seems too low.
I supplement with the iodine every few days now. After dosing 30-50mg a day for three weeks it started messing with my stomach. I was REALLY bloated all the time and digestion felt horrible. Started taking pro-biotics and betaine hcl to get things back to normal.
I use a lot of iodized salt now and the eggs I eat list iodine on the label.
Your iodine should be good, so go with a maintenance dose.
Iron can be hard to work out, I suggested ferritin lab. Your hematocrit is lowish. Memo is not high. See my comments from before.
Adrenal fatigue. If one does a trial of cortisol and that feels a lot better, that provides some interesting conclusions. If you have AF, then rT3 might be blocking fT3 and affecting body temps.