The most intractable of my hypothyroidism symptoms is lack of energy. I actually was unaware of this until very recently!
Weird, but explainable. I thought i had a willpower or motivational problem, or a tendency to laziness, and so did most people around me -- i could tell, though they were too kind or tactful to actually accuse me. Truth is, i always COULD pry myself from the couch if i HAD to, or wanted to badly enough, and when i'm in action ... i trust i'm not being immodest in saying that i'm GOOD. I'm just not good OFTEN ENOUGH to be a big success in the world.
But the close observation that i've given my health over the past year has opened my eyes to a few things. Wooo's discussion of her childhood was a big help, too. People with "normal" metabolisms have a well-spring of energy that isn't available to all of us, and the seed seems to have been sown in our prenatal environment, or at least in early childhood.
My best friend, M, is only about four months younger than i am, so the age factor is immaterial -- we met in our seventh-grade music class and have been dear to each other ever since; she's the person i've known longest, outside my family. Our natures harmonize together though we're outwardly different in many ways, especially in appearance. I'm short and stocky, and she's leggy and lean. I tease her about being an overachiever, but she's actually just an EXCELLENT achiever of whom i'm jealous because of her abounding energy (and other qualities which are not relevant here). K is another dear friend of us both, and she's very like M -- the amount of work she can accomplish in a short time is phenomenal. My husband J is another one of these workers.
When i'm out and about in the world with any one of them, trying to keep up, i go home at the end of the outing absolutely EXHAUSTED. If J gets me up early to go out for breakfast and run errands all morning, that's it -- i'm done for the day! We return home, i take a beverage to my chair, sit down with a book or my computer, and spend the ensuing hours marshaling my vitality so that the next call on my exertions will actually find me able to answer. In other words -- a moderate amount of energy expenditure is immoderately draining to me ... and probably to a lot of other people, also.
Fitness enthusiasts, professional or otherwise, try to urge us to ignore our instincts and just get up and go for a walk or a run. In some respects, this is good for us as we know that getting some kinds of exercise helps us to create new mitochondria. What they don't understand is that exhausting ourselves in what to "normal" people is nominal exertion, we are draining our scanty resources to the point that OTHER activities (like making a living or taking care of our families) has to pay the price for our exercised-diminished vitality. More mitochondria are GOOD -- but buying them may be too expensive for some of us.
THAT is why i'm on such an obsessive quest to improve vitality through diet, supplementation and lifestyle. Once i improve my baseline energy available for all my everyday uses, i'll have more to spare for the optional ones, which have a potential for enriching my life ... like more exercise.
Wednesday, February 6, 2013
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
more supplement talk -- what i'm going to drop
I could call 2012 my own Year of Diet and Supplementation. I learned what i SHOULD eat, what i CAN eat, and what i'm best off staying the hell away from (may the gods of grammar forgive me). I learned what supplements are essential to my well-being because i obviously don't absorb them well. Finally, i learned what foods do practically the whole job in making me feel like a properly-functioning human being.
My REQUIRED foods actually make for a very short list: grass-fed beef or lamb, wild-caught fatty fish, raw oysters and liver. Everything else is garnish.
Iron is especially necessary to me, a life-long hypothyroid, and one of the quickest ways to send me into Mama Grizzly mode is to whine about iron-overload -- CONTEXT CONTEXT CONTEXT! ...Okay, i feel better. Through long experimentation, i've determined that i don't absorb iron well FROM FOOD. I absorb it just fine when i take a supplement on an empty stomach with cooperating supplements like selenium, B12 and C. Iron is one of the minerals necessary to convert T4 to T3. As a small child AND in my adulthood, moron-doctors prescribed Synthroid for me and i did not thrive. It's easy to see why, with my absorption issues.
But a highly interesting thing happened during my exploration of liver-based cuisine -- day after day i forwent my iron supplement and day after day my hair-loss diminished. The four before-lunch supplements i used to take can ALL go on the back burner. All i have to do is eat liver on a weekly basis. Did i say i don't absorb iron well FROM FOOD? Amend that to "from ORDINARY food."
When i discovered raw oysters -- yet another thing i love N'Orleans for -- i noticed right away that i felt a glow of contentment. Every time. I go through a half-dozen or more raw oysters, and i sit back relaxed with a smile on my face, regarding the world around me with a sense of benediction. Much is made of eating animals snout-to-tail, and i heartily commend it, but eating raw oysters is eating the whole animal all at once, in one convenient bite -- EVERYTHING is in there!
About the grass-fed ruminants (with their butter) and wild fatty fish, i think anything i say will be completely redundant ... except to note that i can safely omit the K2 supplements i've been taking, and i can save the cod-liver oil for when i'm traveling, too. I don't even need to have laxative substances around, for the rare occasions when i eat too much vegetable matter and get stopped up. From Donaldson (of Strong Medicine) i learned that "by regulating his intake of caribou fat, he [mankind] can have as many bowel movements as he pleases." And it works. I am now saving all the drippings from my GFburgers, doing a quick-and-dirty clarification of them, and adding some to my coffee from time to time. The resulting drink is bouillon-like in flavor -- i like it better than with unsalted butter, though that has its virtues too.
Now that i'm armed with my new-found "personal superfoods" i also plan to stop supplementing CoQ10 or acetyl l-carnitine. I never have FELT any benefit from them. It's actually possible that i am able to absorb/synthesize SOME THINGS properly....
So a whole schmear of the bottles on my side of the bathroom counter are going bye-bye! I'll wave them adieu with thanks for a job well done, for most of them have helped me a LOT -- they're just redundant now. The other half of my collection is staying .. but more on that later.
My REQUIRED foods actually make for a very short list: grass-fed beef or lamb, wild-caught fatty fish, raw oysters and liver. Everything else is garnish.
Iron is especially necessary to me, a life-long hypothyroid, and one of the quickest ways to send me into Mama Grizzly mode is to whine about iron-overload -- CONTEXT CONTEXT CONTEXT! ...Okay, i feel better. Through long experimentation, i've determined that i don't absorb iron well FROM FOOD. I absorb it just fine when i take a supplement on an empty stomach with cooperating supplements like selenium, B12 and C. Iron is one of the minerals necessary to convert T4 to T3. As a small child AND in my adulthood, moron-doctors prescribed Synthroid for me and i did not thrive. It's easy to see why, with my absorption issues.
But a highly interesting thing happened during my exploration of liver-based cuisine -- day after day i forwent my iron supplement and day after day my hair-loss diminished. The four before-lunch supplements i used to take can ALL go on the back burner. All i have to do is eat liver on a weekly basis. Did i say i don't absorb iron well FROM FOOD? Amend that to "from ORDINARY food."
When i discovered raw oysters -- yet another thing i love N'Orleans for -- i noticed right away that i felt a glow of contentment. Every time. I go through a half-dozen or more raw oysters, and i sit back relaxed with a smile on my face, regarding the world around me with a sense of benediction. Much is made of eating animals snout-to-tail, and i heartily commend it, but eating raw oysters is eating the whole animal all at once, in one convenient bite -- EVERYTHING is in there!
About the grass-fed ruminants (with their butter) and wild fatty fish, i think anything i say will be completely redundant ... except to note that i can safely omit the K2 supplements i've been taking, and i can save the cod-liver oil for when i'm traveling, too. I don't even need to have laxative substances around, for the rare occasions when i eat too much vegetable matter and get stopped up. From Donaldson (of Strong Medicine) i learned that "by regulating his intake of caribou fat, he [mankind] can have as many bowel movements as he pleases." And it works. I am now saving all the drippings from my GFburgers, doing a quick-and-dirty clarification of them, and adding some to my coffee from time to time. The resulting drink is bouillon-like in flavor -- i like it better than with unsalted butter, though that has its virtues too.
Now that i'm armed with my new-found "personal superfoods" i also plan to stop supplementing CoQ10 or acetyl l-carnitine. I never have FELT any benefit from them. It's actually possible that i am able to absorb/synthesize SOME THINGS properly....
So a whole schmear of the bottles on my side of the bathroom counter are going bye-bye! I'll wave them adieu with thanks for a job well done, for most of them have helped me a LOT -- they're just redundant now. The other half of my collection is staying .. but more on that later.
Monday, February 4, 2013
you know your energy is better when...
That was almost like the old "you might be a redneck if" jokes. ;-)
With me it's the temptation to run up my staircases instead of walk, the impulse to spring out of my reading-chair and do/fetch things in other parts of the house, or to spontaneously play chasing games around the dining table with Spenser. (Of course, for the sake of my iffy knee i find it's a good idea to resist springing up those stairs....)
The supplements i've added, which i'm inclined to credit with this recent improvement, are carnitine, pregnenolone and epimedium -- which, though a little surprising, aren't really too "out there." The last two are boosting my age-related decrease in endogenous hormones, and the first ... long story.
Wooo was taught in her medical training that carnitine binds to thyroid receptors, and is therefore not recommended for improving health in hypothyroids. OTOH, i also read that "Hypothyroidism has been found to deplete the body of L-carnitine stores. A six-month placebo-controlled study cited in the August 2001 edition of 'The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism' examined the effectiveness of L-carnitine supplementation for the management of hypothyroidism. The subjects were given 2 to 4 g of L-carnitine daily, and the study concluded that L-carnitine effectively helped to reverse and prevent symptoms of hypothyroidism. The research is preliminary, however...." *
Whichever is the "true story" i'm not qualified to judge, but all i read gave me sufficient encouragement to TRY carnitine and see what might happen. I started with a small bottle of 500-mg caps, but am now using a BIG bottle of the one gram size. Again, i don't KNOW how it works but i can speculate -- does carnitine perhaps spare thyroid hormone because the receptors it binds to are where FAs are passed into cells for use? That is, after all, what carnitine is famous for doing, and one of the many things thyroid does as well.
Short version: carnitine HELPS. At least, it helps ME.
Pregnenolone, as you may know, is a precursor to a whole avalanche-ful of hormones and neurotransmitters. I was getting SOME benefits from the progesterone creme i was using, but for various reasons i chose to swap over to an "upstream" supplement -- and am i happy i did. The negative effects of my previous progesterone boost aren't an issue anymore, and there are many less-specific plusses! Doubtless, my body is partitioning the pregnenolone to the balance it considers appropriate -- and its judgement seems to be sound. Is it making more estrogen, more testosterone, more progesterone, what? I really don't care which -- i just like it.
But why don't the makers of epimedium supplements label them EPIMEDIUM? It would make things less embarrassing when you have to ask for help in the health-food store! ;-) Actually, i'm joking -- the virtue of being "older'n dirt" is that you care much less for what people think! The common name you find on the supplement bottle is HORNY GOAT WEED, widely publicized for improving sexual performance -- it's splashed in good-sized type across the label. I think all of us users agree, though, that its beneficial effects go far beyond improving blood flow to the penis....
LOL -- it's hard to care too much about the WHY, when the WHAT is so satisfactory! I certainly don't agree with Dr. Lustig across the board, but when he said that quality of life pretty much equates with how much energy we are able to burn, i have to raise my glass to him!
_____
* from www.livestrong.com/article/432486-carnitine-uses/#ixzz23D0J4Kz7 -- and i'm not a fan of the site. :-) if they hadn't quoted a "respectable" source, i wouldn't have credited it as much as i did.
With me it's the temptation to run up my staircases instead of walk, the impulse to spring out of my reading-chair and do/fetch things in other parts of the house, or to spontaneously play chasing games around the dining table with Spenser. (Of course, for the sake of my iffy knee i find it's a good idea to resist springing up those stairs....)
The supplements i've added, which i'm inclined to credit with this recent improvement, are carnitine, pregnenolone and epimedium -- which, though a little surprising, aren't really too "out there." The last two are boosting my age-related decrease in endogenous hormones, and the first ... long story.
Wooo was taught in her medical training that carnitine binds to thyroid receptors, and is therefore not recommended for improving health in hypothyroids. OTOH, i also read that "Hypothyroidism has been found to deplete the body of L-carnitine stores. A six-month placebo-controlled study cited in the August 2001 edition of 'The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism' examined the effectiveness of L-carnitine supplementation for the management of hypothyroidism. The subjects were given 2 to 4 g of L-carnitine daily, and the study concluded that L-carnitine effectively helped to reverse and prevent symptoms of hypothyroidism. The research is preliminary, however...." *
Whichever is the "true story" i'm not qualified to judge, but all i read gave me sufficient encouragement to TRY carnitine and see what might happen. I started with a small bottle of 500-mg caps, but am now using a BIG bottle of the one gram size. Again, i don't KNOW how it works but i can speculate -- does carnitine perhaps spare thyroid hormone because the receptors it binds to are where FAs are passed into cells for use? That is, after all, what carnitine is famous for doing, and one of the many things thyroid does as well.
Short version: carnitine HELPS. At least, it helps ME.
Pregnenolone, as you may know, is a precursor to a whole avalanche-ful of hormones and neurotransmitters. I was getting SOME benefits from the progesterone creme i was using, but for various reasons i chose to swap over to an "upstream" supplement -- and am i happy i did. The negative effects of my previous progesterone boost aren't an issue anymore, and there are many less-specific plusses! Doubtless, my body is partitioning the pregnenolone to the balance it considers appropriate -- and its judgement seems to be sound. Is it making more estrogen, more testosterone, more progesterone, what? I really don't care which -- i just like it.
But why don't the makers of epimedium supplements label them EPIMEDIUM? It would make things less embarrassing when you have to ask for help in the health-food store! ;-) Actually, i'm joking -- the virtue of being "older'n dirt" is that you care much less for what people think! The common name you find on the supplement bottle is HORNY GOAT WEED, widely publicized for improving sexual performance -- it's splashed in good-sized type across the label. I think all of us users agree, though, that its beneficial effects go far beyond improving blood flow to the penis....
LOL -- it's hard to care too much about the WHY, when the WHAT is so satisfactory! I certainly don't agree with Dr. Lustig across the board, but when he said that quality of life pretty much equates with how much energy we are able to burn, i have to raise my glass to him!
_____
* from www.livestrong.com/article/432486-carnitine-uses/#ixzz23D0J4Kz7 -- and i'm not a fan of the site. :-) if they hadn't quoted a "respectable" source, i wouldn't have credited it as much as i did.
AHS-12 videos finally coming through!
I enjoyed the hell out of J Stanton's presentation when i saw it the other day, but i may have been wowed more when i watched Chris Masterjohn this evening
Funny thing, though, i was most interested in an early point he made -- that salivary amylase activity is predictive of glucose tolerance, and that it varies significantly from one individual to the next. Unless i'm much mistaken, this is highly significant for choosing one's life-long dietary path. The only problem is how to know where you stand early enough.... I wonder if this is one of those tests you can just order up on the internet?
To me it also means that all the pro-carb blow-hards who claim everybody ought to be able to shovel down potatoes as fast as they do are DEMONSTRABLY wrong. Hee hee! :-D
The rest of Chris's talk was not only great material, it was very well presented. I had to back up and listen to a few points again, and i paused even more times to peruse his slides at my own pace, but he explained things so well i never actually got lost. Great job, Dr. M!
I'm so glad they "listened to me" [smirk] and provided a microphone for the questions at the end of the talks this time -- the AHS-11 q&a session drove me batty.
Funny thing, though, i was most interested in an early point he made -- that salivary amylase activity is predictive of glucose tolerance, and that it varies significantly from one individual to the next. Unless i'm much mistaken, this is highly significant for choosing one's life-long dietary path. The only problem is how to know where you stand early enough.... I wonder if this is one of those tests you can just order up on the internet?
To me it also means that all the pro-carb blow-hards who claim everybody ought to be able to shovel down potatoes as fast as they do are DEMONSTRABLY wrong. Hee hee! :-D
The rest of Chris's talk was not only great material, it was very well presented. I had to back up and listen to a few points again, and i paused even more times to peruse his slides at my own pace, but he explained things so well i never actually got lost. Great job, Dr. M!
I'm so glad they "listened to me" [smirk] and provided a microphone for the questions at the end of the talks this time -- the AHS-11 q&a session drove me batty.
Sunday, February 3, 2013
physician, heal thyself
I frequently read certain blogs that i don't have on my OWN list (which is long already); PrincipleIntoPractice is one of them. Her recent post reminded me of something that has always bothered me about the medical profession.
THE HOURS THESE PEOPLE WORK are just outrageous! How do they expect people to do good work when they don't have time to sleep enough or eat right ... or go to the bathroom for chrise-sake? Hell, if airlines made their pilots do this, the uproar of protest would echo from the welkin!
Some brave soul on the inside is going to HAVE to start a movement to remedy this situation. Making it a virtue to work 36-hour days is not rational. No wonder fatal mistakes by hospitals and doctors are so numerous.
I used the quote, "Physician, heal thyself" as my title today, but it should have been "heal thy profession."
Saturday, February 2, 2013
the snack that FILLS
I've been on a mission to find more-ish ways to eat liver. Boy-howdy, have i found one! Bacon-wrapped bites of chicken liver: the very IDEA of calling them a snack....
It has long been known to me that one of the few foods that's so nutritious, it's possible to have too much of it, is liver. I also subscribe to the "nutrient-deficiency theory of obesity." My solution to THE epidemic -- get people to eat a mere quarter-pound of bacon-wrapped chicken liver before they eat anything else. After that they can have pizza, they can have Krispy Kremes, they can have any goddam thing they want ... if they have room for it.
Did i say "more-ish"? That was dumb. I'm completely stuffed.
It has long been known to me that one of the few foods that's so nutritious, it's possible to have too much of it, is liver. I also subscribe to the "nutrient-deficiency theory of obesity." My solution to THE epidemic -- get people to eat a mere quarter-pound of bacon-wrapped chicken liver before they eat anything else. After that they can have pizza, they can have Krispy Kremes, they can have any goddam thing they want ... if they have room for it.
Did i say "more-ish"? That was dumb. I'm completely stuffed.
Friday, February 1, 2013
miscellaneous food notes, etc
LATE-BREAKING NEWS! :-) Since it fit in the theme of the day, i decided to just add it in....
Digging about in the refrigerator, i found a yellow squash which i had forgotten about and which needed to be used very soon. In addition, the last of the bottle of cream also cried out to be finished. Hmmmm.... Pseudonoodles alfredo! It was great -- i haven't eaten anything so seductive in a long time! The sauce:
I had a chunk of codfish left after J and i had some of that huge fillet fried last week. Being uninspired by most of the recipes i found (without having to make a sauce) i was rummaging in the meat/cheese drawer of my fridge when ... what did i find?! A snack-pack of salami and other Italian masterpieces! Why wrap your cod with plain ol' prosciutto, when you can do it with HOT CAPOCOLLO! :-D
And it took all of fifteen minutes to make! I don't usually take photographs of my meals, but i'm rather excited to share this one. That's J's sugarless sweet-sour slaw on the side -- i partake of it sparingly, raw cabbage being a goitrogenic substance.
***
Still struggling to perfect shirred eggs! You see, i thoroughly dislike undercooked eggwhites, but i like my yolk liquid. The flavor solution HAS been found -- to about a quarter-pound of cooked sausage and two eggs, two tablespoons of cream and one of SHERRY. mmmmmm....
Next trial, it's ten minutes in the oven and only one under the broiler!
***
New rule for myself: if on day 1 there is no -- ahem -- significant waste disposal, on the second day i DO NOT step on the scales. Just sayin'....
Digging about in the refrigerator, i found a yellow squash which i had forgotten about and which needed to be used very soon. In addition, the last of the bottle of cream also cried out to be finished. Hmmmm.... Pseudonoodles alfredo! It was great -- i haven't eaten anything so seductive in a long time! The sauce:
- 4 tablespoons butter
- 1/4 t. each powdered garlic and onion
- 1/4 teaspoon pepper
- 2/3 cup heavy cream
- 2 tablespoons cream cheese
- 2 ounces parmesan cheese shredded
- 2 ounces provolone cheese, shredded
I had a chunk of codfish left after J and i had some of that huge fillet fried last week. Being uninspired by most of the recipes i found (without having to make a sauce) i was rummaging in the meat/cheese drawer of my fridge when ... what did i find?! A snack-pack of salami and other Italian masterpieces! Why wrap your cod with plain ol' prosciutto, when you can do it with HOT CAPOCOLLO! :-D
And it took all of fifteen minutes to make! I don't usually take photographs of my meals, but i'm rather excited to share this one. That's J's sugarless sweet-sour slaw on the side -- i partake of it sparingly, raw cabbage being a goitrogenic substance.
***
Still struggling to perfect shirred eggs! You see, i thoroughly dislike undercooked eggwhites, but i like my yolk liquid. The flavor solution HAS been found -- to about a quarter-pound of cooked sausage and two eggs, two tablespoons of cream and one of SHERRY. mmmmmm....
Next trial, it's ten minutes in the oven and only one under the broiler!
***
New rule for myself: if on day 1 there is no -- ahem -- significant waste disposal, on the second day i DO NOT step on the scales. Just sayin'....
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