Hi everyone! recent lab showed free testosterone of 300 ish. I had it in the 100-200 range once.
symptoms: brain fog, low to no libido, no morning wood, difficulty concentrating, mental fatigue and many other stuff.
I have seen my SHBG in the 50-70 ish.
I’m 6’1’-2’’
weight around 155
weightlift 3 days a week.
I eat a lot of omega 6 fats like nuts, olive oil as well.
foods: carbs are mostly bread, oatmeal, fruits, veggies, and some other stuff mostly natural.
protein, red and white meat, fish, shrimps.
fats: a lot of peanut butter, almond butter, butter, olive oil.
I really want to fix my health problems. I want to feel alive again. I’m 30 and have depression, anxiety and other stuff.
also my cortisol is at 18.5 which is out range.
if my cortisol is high, should I drop weightlifting?
Affecting SHBG is a difficult thing to do, especially if it’s genetic or from liver scarring. If it’s either of these, lowering it is not going to happen.
possibly. any recommendations?
also does peanuts and fiber haves anything to do with testosterone?
I do eat a lot of omega 6, fiber and sugar but from fruits.
Unless you’re training like a lunatic, then that’s not a problem. How’s your sleep? Anything else in your life that could be causing high cortisol? What have you tried diet, supplementation, and life style-wise to lower your cortisol?
I lift 3 days a week for around 45-1 hour workout. full body. my sleep is around 8 hours waking up to go to the bathroom most of the times twice.
several labs shows high cortisol. I have OCD and probably other mental stuff going on.
diet is pretty good from what labs shows and I eat most of my stuff natural. fats are high on omega 6 tho idk if that makes any sense?
diet is mostly chicken, egg whites, red meat, salmon for protein
olive oil, butter, tons of peanut butter and almond butter for fat.
carbs, bread, oatmeal, rice, veggies.
I didn’t covered everything in the list but thats what generally I would eat for protein carbs and fats.
I supplement 250 mg magniseum, multi vitamin, Vit D im under therapy for ocd and mental health.
Man I completely lack the medical credentials to say this with confidence but from a wholistic perspective I’d be shocked if the drawbacks of lifting three days a week outweighed the benefits.
I suspect the body treats acute cortisol spikes from exercise way differently than high cortisol due to persistent or chronic stress or illness. I’d get the stress/illness/metabolic health stuff tackled before cutting out lifting.
I think weight training for short sessions would be more of a positive for stress relief, it is definitely a positive when it comes to testosterone levels.
Maybe try an adaptogenic supplement like Ashwagnadha or Rhodiola for cortisol control? Probably won’t make a huge difference, but some people respond well to them.
Also, you mentioned some mental health things, are you on any medications? Some psychiatric medications can raise shbg, including Antipsychotics (both typical and atypical), Antidepressants, (SSRIs, Tricyclics, MAO-Is), both by increasing prolactin (do you know if your prolactin is elevated?), as well as Xanax and Buspar.
Edit; Thinking about supplements that lower shbg directly, there are several which have varying levels of human research to back them up, but off the top of my head, Boron (around 10mg/day), Nettle root extract or its active ingredient Divanil, Tongkat Ali (also a good test booster with human research backing it up), and DIM (Diindolylmethane).
gotchu thanks for replying. my thing is that i feel fatigued and mental exhaustion from it sometimes that makes me feel so bleh for the rest of the day.