Life long health problems + sleep
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Hey everyone,
I'm new to the world of bioenergetics and I'm struggling with a few things: sleep, brain fog, and weight gain.
Short background: I'm 22, around 95–96kg (some muscle but a lot of fat), 175cm, and male. Most of my childhood I was overweight, ranging from obese to skinny fat. I’ve been coming off a few months (kind of lifelong) diet of fast food, years of caffeine (black coffee) and fasting abuse, hard bodybuilding-style training (which didn’t do much for me, maybe because I was still fat), and months of nicotine abuse. I'm slowly recovering. My digestion went from really bad to somewhat decent with a lot of dates. I’ve been stressed for a long time and often have pretty intense anxiety, though it's been getting better.
My main issue right now is that my sleep is really bad. I’m always sleep deprived. I can’t sleep more than 5 to 6 hours and wake up feeling exhausted. I think it might be related to nocturnal hypoglycemia because I often wake up wired with racing thoughts, and it gets better after some carbs. I usually have kefir, salt, glycine, magnesium, and apple juice before bed, but it doesn’t seem to help much. I’ve tried baking soda too but that hasn’t helped much either.
I feel a bit lost on how to fix this. I had one day where I actually slept well and woke up feeling calm, energetic, focused, and positive. It made me think that fixing my sleep might give me the clarity and energy to solve other problems, including brain fog.
Do you guys know where I could look for more info on how to fix this? Right now I’m basically getting fat and not sleeping well. The physical energy is there in bursts and digestion has improved a lot. I don’t have access to prescription drugs like thyroid meds or LDN. I live in the Netherlands.
I’m loosely following the honey diet but I don’t think it suits me. I get really hungry and end up overeating, like too many dates or too much rice at dinner. I’ve gained 3 to 4kg but feel a bit leaner, maybe because of better digestion.
Current diet is dates and apple juice (with some salt) until dinner. Then I have about 100 to 200 grams of cheese. Dinner is rice and chicken cooked with ghee. Then kefir and apple juice before bed.
Extra info:
- Midday mouth temp: 97.9°F, underarm: 97.5°F
- From 2 years ago:
TSH: 2.52 µIU/ml (potential subclinical hypothyroidism)
Free T3: 3.01 pg/mL (possibly low)
Free T4: 1.65 ng/dL (seems okay) - Pretty puffy face (since childhood)
- I believe I have some gut problems
- Probably low ferritin (51 ng/mL)?
- I take B complex, B1, vitamin K, D, calcium, MSM, HMO
- Vitamin E at 400 IU gave me severe migraines
- Bowel movements are 1 to 2 times a day
- Memory is worse, probably because of sleep
- My nails are blue ish? (maybe lack of oxygen)
- Nicotine abuse was 3 months ago and was just pouches. I still use nicotine but like 2-3 nicorette 2mg gums now)
I’ve never really been productive except during fasting and black coffee, and later with nicotine I got a lot done
Any info on how to fix this would be appreciated.
My main goals right now are improving brain fog, sleep, and preferably weight.
My sleep has been fine throughout my life (well at least better) but the my digestion use to be very bad. Now i have decent digestion but trash sleep.
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Simple thing to check would be snoring during sleep / sleep apnea. Smartphone recording is an easy way. Treatments would be better tongue posture ("Mewing"), sleep posture in general. Mouth taping probably has some drawbacks but I think it is an OK therapy to at least try.
I also sleep /slightly/ worse if I forget to turn off my WiFi Router before bed.
Maybe some of that can help.
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start getting tests done. I did an organic acid panel, maybe you could try that. or just nutrients in general. you need to try and see everything that’s going on
try to understand your cravings, that may give you a hint as to what you need
and I would be careful with what you’re taking… some nutrients will accumulate. you don’t want to complicate things further by creating some toxicity issue
fat slows the metabolism, this is needed in some contexts… before sleeping would be a good example. Relying solely on sugar is very stimulating, not everyone is equipped to handle that
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Have you tried lowering your protein intake?
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@DannyM Apple juice has a lot of phosphorus (it gave me really bad memory when I was drinking too much of it), and it also has high arsenic, so be aware and try to find an alternative.
Double check how much protein and magnesium you eat per day. And if I remember correctly, dates have progesterone, and some AR inhibitor, and maybe some estrogenic compounds in them. I don't remember exactly what my findings were about them, but I do remember that after looking into the active compounds in them, I swore dates off.
Honey, I believe, can be fermented by gut bacteria, so if you do eat it, eat it in small portions. It can also be stimulating if taken late in the day.
And drink dark roast coffee as a thyroid alternative if you cannot access the real stuff
Chicken is high in tryptophan, so in theory, when mixing it with rice an( insulin-raiser) it can allow the tryptophan to pass the blood-brain barrier without other proteins competing, as all other proteins get shuttled to the cells when insulin rises
I recommend spacing the dinner foods throughout the day, separating them and not eating them together(at least a 30)minute break between each. This is just theory and goes into small details, but those small details may help your body more than you know
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Goede avond Danny,
you said you tried substances like glycine and magnesium before bed and it didn't help. Has your sleep not only not improved but perhaps even worsened? I ask because substances that should help with sleep (like magnesium, glycine or taurine) do the opposite to me and worsen my insomnia if taken before sleep. It's often overlooked because they should help in theory (and help many other people in reality).
Do you pay intention to other "basics" in the evening like not having too much blue light (blue light filter on electronic devices or blue light filtering glasses), maybe some light stretching in the evening to calm down? That you have problems sleeping through the night could also indicate liver problems.
From my own experience, a chronic stressed state from fasting abuse, sleep problems and possibly overtraining is hard to overcome and it takes months to feel normal again.
Like others have said, it might be a good idea to space out the solid meals throughout the day while you're recovering. Maybe small snacks throughout the day, but a combination of carbs, some protein and some fat and salt with every meal.
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@DannyM you got sleep apnea my man get double jaw sirgery check out the yt channel jaw hacks
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@DannyM are you waking up in the middle of the night with these stress symptoms? If so, you need to set an alarm for about an hour before you'd typically wake up, have a glass of milk with a heaping tablespoon of sugar, then go back to bed. Do this for a week and see if things improve.
as for the unwanted weight gain, try upping the calcium intake with eggshell powder. you want a 1.2-1 cal to phos ratio.
Low ferritin is generally seen as positive
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Hey man, how ARE you?
Are you doing something you like, that motivates you to be a healthy, fulfilled person?
Do you have good people around you?
Why do you think you slept so good that one nigh, if you try to find reasons besides what you ate?
From reading your post, you sound like you need to change more things than just diet. I think your environment, routines and life situation are just as important factors here. After all, we are more than biological machines
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@nygaardAB Is this a bot chat?
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Not very holistic but still a valid angle.
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Vérité. That you?
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@DannyM Do you dream a lot? or early wakeups without that?
i think its 2 separate things
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is sleeping through the night (enough carb intake and ability to process, 200g vs 300g makes the difference for me, and good enough liver health so glycogen isnt impaired)
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getting right sleep architecture so you actually get restorative feeling sleep (good slow wave sleep duration and not too much REM or REM onset too early, looks more to do with having good t3 for a month+ , maybe thermogenesis capacity during sleep, not having sleep apnea or getting a machine if do while trying to fix baseline hypothyroidism)
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Try sleeping face down (on your tummy) if you can. That’s the best position for your gut (ray said to someone in an email) as well as for breathing.
