Your Thoughts on My Labs? What Am I Missing?

Pharma TRT
42

I’m thinking that you’ll find that if you pull a CMP you will see what’s going on. The note you made about the elevated state of the Glucose Metabolism (the one about time of day effecting the numbers) could be well and true, but most likely the metabolism is suffering from daily cardio and dietary deficiency.

It’s going to destroy your metabolism… You will lose some fat, but you are also going to lose muscle tissue. If given the choice over ketones and glucose, your body will choose glucose EVERY time…Why do you think that is?

Another thing to consider as your body cannibalizes itself in a long term effort to overcome a deficit…As muscle tissue dwindles away, think about what your heart is…A MUSCLE!!

If you want my opinion, I would up up my caloric intake and drop cardio to no more than 3 10-20 minute sessions a week. Once you have sufficient muscle mass and your body’s metabolism is firing like crazy, THEN do a 4 week cut to drop a little fat.

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43

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Well here’s the CMP which I did take that day.

Given that my thyroid hormones are actually up (ft3 and ft4) what makes you suspect that my metabolism is suffering? CMP looks pretty normal to me as well.

I’m getting somewhere between 125-170g of carbs per day as well, so it’s not exactly ketogenic.

Open to what you’re saying I just don’t see it besides the elevated LDL.

44

Do you have a CMP from when you were not in a deficit for a while to compare to?

Creatinine looks low, and albumin is at the higher end…These things are not indicating an immediate problem, but they are telling you that you’re headed for one.

Edit to clarify…Low Creatinine and higher Albumin implies that the numbers probably weren’t skewed due to dehydration, so you can be pretty sure that your Albumin is actually a little high…

Didn’t mean to imply that you were on a ketogenic diet. I used that statement in a general case of caloric deficit to state that when calories are low, the body is going to prefer converting muscle tissue over creating ketones (converting fat to energy). It was meant as a crude explanation of why the body will always lose muscle tissue along with some fat in long term deficit scenarios.

45

yessir – here’s one from december 2019, before I did any restriction. I was about 20 lbs heavier.

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46

Was your diet pretty clean back then?

Another thought to add is that IF can cause a little bit of metabolic havoc as well, adding to that the fact that you are in a slight deficit. Am I correct in stating that you usually skip breakfast (going from your dietary notes above)?

If so, I will add to my opinion (and this is my opinion mind you lol) that 6-8 smaller meals a day beginning shortly after waking seems to be the best way to keep the metabolism firing on all cylinders, well…at least that’s what I have found in my own experiences…

47

Just one more thought to add…

I definitely do not want imply that I know exactly what is going on here, and I for damn sure won’t tell you “here’s your problem. Do this and you’ll be all better”. I’m more just trying to logically think through it and hope that we can ask the right questions to make this all make sense…

There are only two things that I can tell you for sure…

  1. I am no doctor, and as such my posts are strictly my opinion based on my own experience… and
  2. A long term caloric deficit is one of the WORST things you can do to your body.

As a matter of fact, it’s one of the MAIN reasons that my hormonal profile took a shit, and I am on TRT now.

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48

Correct, still on the IF and eat two meals between 2pm-9pm.

I can say that it l does make more sense to go into deficit with cardio.

(I still need to learn more about energy homeostasis and exercise, I only know about the glycolysis and ketosis pathways right now.)

49

I’m guessing there’s a thread i can go read that has your story?

50

Lol. I’m sure it’s scattered around the forum in multiple threads as I usually only tell it (and specific parts of it) as it applies to someone else’s problem.

I’m not interesting enough to expect people to read through it if I laid it all out in one place lol.

51

Can you tell me what happened to your hormones after your deficit, and your reasons for going on such a long deficit? how long was it?

52

I have heard this many times and what I experienced myself. My question is, How is someone overweight supposed to lose weight without being in a long term caloric deficit? Anytime someone is overweight we tell them to start by losing weight to try to increase their levels but at the same time say a long term caloric deficit lowers levels. I was never massively obese but quite heavy, Highest was low 240’s at 5’10 doing a lot of heavy lifting natural. 385 bench, 500 squat, 575 dead. As I got older I decided to lose weight. Did keto, intermittent fasting for a while and I think that is what messed me up. Got to 175 with abs and looked like I was in the best shape of my life in my late 40’s but was weak AF. I chalked it up to getting older and dropping weight but my bench literally was cut in half. Got tested and my levels were 254. Based on this logic it seems like once you get overweight you are screwed. How else can use lose weight without a caloric deficit?

53

I was at 1600-1800 calories for around a year or so. I should have been at 2500-2700 just for maintenance.

I went through a series of stressful issues in 2016, and was coming out of that ok when I decided that it was time to “get back to healthy”. So me, just like most people decided that hitting the weights hard, and starving myself to get the fat off would be a great thing to do. What I didn’t realize was that my already overworked adrenals we’re going to be taxed even higher because if this very bad decision.

If your adrenals have to work overtime for long enough, they will become fatigued. We can go into as much detail as you want about the effects of how imbalance effects feedback loops, one hormone drives the other, and how the body is always trying to achieve hemostasis, but suffice it say for now that ultimately the body sacrifices things like healthy testosterone levels in favor of trying to survive.

54

It’s definitely much harder the older you get, but if I knew then what I know now (here we go with old adages lol), I would approach it much smarter.

Anytime I went into a caloric deficit, I would lift just enough to let my body know that it still needs the muscle that I have. I would NEVER stay in a deficit for more than 4 weeks, and never more than a couple hundred calories. My plan would look more like this…

Let’s assume that my maintenance caloric intake was 2600 Kcal, and I was at around 25%+ BF.

Week 1
Slowly drop calories (20-50 per day) for around a week. HIIT cardio 3 days a week for 10-15min per session. Weight lifting 4 days a week (PPL type split) light to medium weight on a 3 set / 10-12 rep routine, 1-2 exercises per muscle group.

Week 2.
Level off the calories at around 2200-2300 and keep the training the same except for increasing the cardio time per session.

Week 3
Add 2 more days of cardio. So a total of 3 days of HIIT and 2 days (the days I’m not hitting the weights) of SS long duration cardio.

Week 4
No change.

Week 5
Slowly start ramping calories back up 20-50 per day and drop the 2 added days of cardio.

Week 6
Level caloric intake off at around a 100-200 calorie surplus and add 1-2 more days of weight training.

Week 7
Start transitioning back into a more traditional building routine, incorporating heavier sets.

Weeks 8-16
Stay the same varying workout and cardio styles (but keeping no more than 3 days a week on the cardio)

Week 17
Start over.

I would repeat this cycle for as long as it takes to drop to around 16%-18% BF then forget about deficits again forever and focus on muscle building alone. The more muscle you ultimately build, the more calories you will require to maintain that mass so it’s important to re-evaluate your RMR from time to time.

Also to note, after a while, when your metabolism is in a healthy place, you really don’t have to count calories so much. Just listen to your body and it will tell you when it’s time to refuel. If you create habits of eating the right kinds of food, enough of it, and at the right macro ratios, the body will start working WITH you, instead of fighting against you.

Hope this helps to answer your question.

55

He might not even need to diet to lose fat. He should be able to just lose fat with more muscle on the frame. It’ll be slower. But it’ll burn off like mine did. Just eat semi clean.

Totally agree with your suggestion though. Build then chisel.

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56

Gentlemen, I was able to drop my LDL down about 40 points (184 → 147) by changing the type of cooking oil that I use.

Went from Olive oil to Avocado – higher smoke point, and now using lower temperatures.

It’s not perfect but it’s progress. Will repeat the lab again in a few weeks to confirm.

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57

I can’t see how this can decrease increase Cholestoral so much.

It very well could be that your body is just getting healthier over time? I mean unless you eat food 5 times a day with this oil.

You should find some of the new talk around C and see if that helps.it sounds like the old school of thinking on cholesterol has changed.

FYI: TRT lowers lipids. Men who have low estrogen usually have a crappy lipid profile and end up with other CV issues Like high heart rate and BP. Most serious cases end up with even worse issues.

Alternatively, I know a bunch of guys whose lipids, heart rate, BP all came back to normal when they got their levels up or stopped blocking estrogen :slight_smile:

58

Truly it was that. I’m going to do another lab to confirm but I essentially did a controlled experiment to confirm this.

Kept everything else the same and changed cooking oils to a higher smoke point, and had the olive oil raw instead.

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59

BMbrady,

Are there common causes for elevated albumin?