Michael569

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  1. Posted · Edited by Michael569

    22 hours ago, Princess Arabia said:

    These foods, and I stress, I BELIEVE, are responsible for diabetes and high blood pressure. 

    Weight gain, solely, is the cause of type 2 diabetes. Having more fat than your body can handle. 

    I know social media love to blame individual food groups for diabetes causality and each of the tribes has their culprit.

    For low carb people it is sugar

    For vegans, it is oils

    For carnivores, it is sugar and grains and oils

    For raw foodies it is "unnatural food" (whatever the hell that means)

    And so on...

    Yet, where total calories are accounted for, no sole group has ever been linked to diabetes pathophysiology. Not gluten, not carbs, not oils and not red meat.

    This is because type 2 diabetes is an energy status disease. Not a food consequence disease.

    Once your body crosses its adipose  (fat) tissue tolerance , things start backing up as circulating glucose and fatty acids can no longer be stored in cells.

    And so pancreas becomes fatty and so does liver. In an attempt to mitigate the damage of unmanaged glucose circulating the body, these organs become wrapped in a layer of deposited fat.

    The glucose and the fatty acids having nowhere to go, start remaining in the circulation for a long time, causing irreversible damage to eyes, kidney, arteries, heart, lungs etc,

    This is because the cells of your body are now insulin resistant, screaming "enough, i can't take more glucose". 

    When this happens the person becomes diabetic.

    For that reason the ONLY way to reverse type 2 diabetes is to lose weight. It really is that simple (in theory, because losing weight is anything but simple). This is a phenomenon that has been proven over and over in Large human clinical trials of the most rigorous standards.

    And this is what all diets that claim they can reverse diabetes have in common, they help people lose weight. That's it.

    There are no magical effects. Managing glucose spikes through glucose avoidance is a popular strategy but unless that strategy produces lasting weight loss, it doesn't work

    You lose the excess weight, your cells start taking up glucose, you remove fat from liver anf pancreas, diabetes is on the remission 

    Unless the damage has become so severe that your pancreas is irreversibly damaged, unable to produce insulin or that your liver, through the effects of becoming fatty, now has a stage of cirrhosis, in which case the patient is entering the final stage of his/her life 

    The interesting thing about that adipose (fat) tissue tolerance is that this is genetically given and while some people can become enormously obese and not get diabetes, other only need to gain a few pounds and become diabetic literally overnight, i once worked with a lady who became diabetic during pregnancy because she gained about 3 kilos of fat. 

    The moment you see someone on social blaming particular foods for diabetes development, independently of total calories, you can pretty much assume straight away they they have never bothered to look into the evidence on diabetology and they have a bias and an agenda 

  6. Posted · Edited by Michael569

    @BlueOak thanks for the reply. Hope you'll get some results soon. If it is indeed heart related they'll find out, NHS are pretty good at that 

    Sometimes it could be other things like GERD or costochondritis.

    What was your most recent blood pressure reading? That's something worth keeping an eye on

  8. Posted · Edited by Michael569

    Your lab results are fine

    I think you're just exhausted from balancing career, personal life and family. Having 2 kids, a house to take care of, mortgage to pay, bills to cover and full time job to handle will easily leave you depleted even if your are a healthy savy person. It's just difficult to find enough personal time with so many dependencies. My heart goes out to you and anyone who can do that.

    Is your sleep still disrupted or have your kiddies grown past the initial stage at this point?

    Yeah, the answer is more likely finding a way to implement some "me time" and eating properly balanced portions to make sure your body has sufficient energy.

    I don't have kids yet but i can imagine it will deplete my energy as well so i can sympathize.

    Btw 129/90 is elevated so you might want to have that looked at. It could be also caused by long term sleep deprivation or if you gained some weight recently. That one is actually really important to keep under control, way more than anything else.

    Also, curious, has your bodyweight shifted?

  9. Posted

    Use condoms, they are extremely reliable and effective. Go fora proper brand like Durex with a long standing reputation not some cheap brand.

    Don't put your girl on OCP just so that you can enjoy an unprotected pleasure, honestly guys who do that are dickheads. However if she wants to do it at her own initiative that's fine. 

    Just make sure, a few seconds before you finish, to check with your hand if the condom is safely attached or hasn't slided. The fail ratio is really really low. Then also check after everything was alright. 

    There is no 100% prevention and in the end if you don't want to feel anxious at all, you can't have sex. Some risks are worth it, some aren't 

     

  10. Posted · Edited by Michael569

    It is possible but as said above, hard to do without proper income.

    A lot of companies offer remote working, although most won't allow you to work from a different country each month (for tax purposes mostly because you are being paid in accordance with the law of country where your employer is based) . 

    So there are a few ways to do this: 

    1. Think about how you could increase your income - maybe get additional training/education so that you could go for a higher-tier income job. This way, after a year or two, you could earn enough to take a sabbatical. I personally know a few people who have done it. The risk is going to far into your savings if you don't have an income and losing touch with the market a bit. 
    2. Get employed by a company with a generous holiday policy so that you can make the most of short retreats (probably not what you wanted) 
    3. Get employed in the travel industry such as a travel guide (requires additional licensing but is a possible and rewarding career for anyone who enjoys travel) 
    4. Acquire a skill that will allow you to become self-employed and work from anywhere in the world
      (digital nomadism) - this might be the most viable way to do this, but it may require you to spend your mornings, evenings and weekends acquiring a new skills that the market cares about and that people will pay you for, It is even better if you could sell this skill to businesses. Easier said than done, I know. I'm in the middle of something similar myself. Leo's Life Purpose Course is a good start of such journey 

    Finally, it is important to understand why travel is so important and whether it simply isn't an escapism from a life that, perhaps, isn't feeling as fulfilling as you would like. A lot of people use travel to escape their problems only to find them waiting for them, once they come back. 

     I have known people who did an escapism trip and ended up broke and out of touch with their inner purpose because they never took time pursue this strategically (e.g. acquiring valuable skill). 

     

  11. Posted · Edited by Michael569

    @shree Why not just try a moderate approach? Moderate carbs, moderate fat, moderate protein. Focus on quality and reduce processed food in favour of whole food—a Mediterranean style of eating, for example. Choose the healthiest of each macro group and leave the rest. You'd probably feel much better, and your energy would come back. 

    Carbohydrate-free diets are notoriously difficult to manage if you don't have deep knowledge of nutrition and can't properly structure them, it is just hell and people end up tired and depressed, not to mention broke on all the pointless supplements. They may not even be necessary if you are a healthy person. 

    Btw I'm not surprised that MCT didn't do anything, frankly I consider MCT an absolute garbage of a health product that is nothing but overpriced, glorified free fatty acids that most likely end up used, by your liver,  alongside free fatty acids from eggs you had for breakfast, in some random metabolic process. The evidence on MCT is so uninteresting and so poor that it is hardly even worth mentioning. 

    Try a better balanced diet and you won't need any supplements :) Not to mention if you do that, you'll have more energy to lift weights, hike, bike, spend time with family/partner and do all the things that you love and enjoy rather than neurotically focusing on juggling an eating disorder diet (which is mostly what non-medically-prescribed keto is) with measuring some random biomarker in your blood that will continuously go up and down. Its just such a neurotic and miserable way of living when people do that 

    Hope that helps. Ignore if this does not resonate 

  12. Posted · Edited by Michael569

    @ZenAlex

    hey Alex, 

    Based on everything you've said so far, the blood tests, the intolerance panel, the dry skin, the mood fluctuation and eye dryness seems to indicate that there is, potentially, something going on,  on the gut level. I can't say what it is, whether there is permeability issue, microbiome imbalance, inflammation or something else but it is possible that at least part of the answer is somewhere in there. 

    There is, I think, also a more neurological component present as well. 

    Histamine intolerance might be going on but that's usually a consequence of something else. The fact that so many foods show high in the IgG tests is a potential indicator of gut wall issue. But at the moment I'm just guessing as I don't know your full health history. You could take some experimental DAO and see if it helps - effectiveness of DAO in improving  symptoms can be an indication that histamine is causing an issue, maybe when present in excess (from high histamine foods in diet). At the same time I don't want to point you that direction so that you don't lose line of sight of everything else 

    There could be an environmental allergy of some sort (some airborne particles, mould presence, dust-mites as somebody else indicated) and maybe all these things are now worse because you've been under more stress and your immune system has been slightly weakened as a consequence of... ??? something → (nutritional imbalance? low grade infection? unmanaged low grade stress - theory of limbic kindling??) - hard to say. 

    Undeather might have a broader perspective on this. 

    The SHBG while interesting, could be a red herring because your testosterone is, at least based on standard levels, not out of balance. SHBG could also fluctuate with respect to lifestyle, diet, stress levels and other. 

    I'm again being deliberately vague because I can't diagnose you and I don't know your health history, only the bits nd pieces you shared. 

  13. Posted · Edited by Michael569

    1 hour ago, Nivsch said:

    I dont know, maybe the TSH is too close to the low treshold, isn't it? Because I feel symptoms.

    Lower TSH vs higher is actually beneficial.

    It depends what professional you speak to but even 0.5 is still considered fine. It is only after you start getting below 0.1-0.3 the normal changes to suboptimal 

     TSH per se is not made by thyroid but by your pituitary gland in your brain. Which is why it is called Thyroid Stimulating Hormone (TSH)  The lower the better, as long as the low is not extremely low. Yours is perfectly fine. 

    Like I said, if you are still worried, consider looking up the full thyroid panel which also includes thyroid antibodies but you may need to pay for it as your doctor will not have this covered by insurance in the absence of abnormal TSH/fT3 panel 

    That being said if you do experience symptoms, continue working with your practitioner to investigate. Your symptoms might come down to other things being slightly out of balance. There are lots of reasons why you may feel a symptom. 

    1 hour ago, Nivsch said:

    But yes, it can be the adrenal and not the thyroid, but since everything is connected to everything I would expect it would somehow involve both in subtle senses.

     The complexity of the human endocrine system goes beyond thyroid and adrenal glands. I know this is what a lot of naturopaths who live in the delusional world of adrenal fatigue focus, but it is an extremely short-sighted view of the body. I know a few herbalists and naturopaths personally and this is basically 90% of their focus - adrenals, thyroid and burnout. They can't see beyond this and they classify all their clients in these symptom clusters. 

    Your symptoms might be caused by nutritional imbalances, sleep deprivation, stress, physical pasivity or excessive physical activity, just to name a few. Your body might also be fighting something off like a low grade infection. 

    Are you eating enough? Is there any chance that you caught something? (Virus/bacteria etc...covid?) 

  14. Posted · Edited by Michael569

    27 minutes ago, Nivsch said:

    I feel annoyed by the dichotomy yes or no approach of the conventional diagnosis. This doesn't help unless you have a very acute case and only then they "see" it.

    Yeah, I can understand that. And there is a lot to be said about everything that lies between feeling good and getting diagnosed, the entire real of grey area where people feel awful yet their tests are not "bad enough" to be sufficient for a diagnosis. It is my personal frustration with the system as well.

    There are things you see on tests and things you don't. The tests you shared don't even seem like there is a borderline issue, they show very healthy profile. But they are a fairly limited picture and for broader picture, there are other thyroid biomarkers you could test, such as the antibodies. Most doctors won't do that unless the above already looks suboptimal. 

    27 minutes ago, Nivsch said:

    Should I trust the whole 'normal' range as a singular unit? I will show you later the range from the book which is different.

    It is important to always seek a bigger picture. Not everything that is metbolism-related needs to come down to thyroid. Is the book you mention, the Thyroid Healing by Medical Medium? 

    Important  to bear in mind that if you are reading a 'thyroid book', it will likely be looking to bundle a variety of symptoms under a single diagnosis. Someone once said to me "to a man with a hammer, every problem is a nail" . You see a lot of that mono-focus approach on the social media and on this forum as welll because being able to see a wider picture and a wider array of solutions is infinitely more difficult and harder to sell. 

  15. Posted · Edited by Michael569

    Certain plants may temporarily have a minor impact on biochemistry but usually those things kick back in after exposure. Your hypothalamus is monitoring essential hormones like testosterone and DHT all the time and calibrating it when needed. Unless there is some human evidence that shows peppermint has negative impact on long term testosterone balance I wouldn't be concerned. 

    Most long term testosterone imbalances are caused things outside of your diet such as obesity, genetics, testicular injuries, chronic stress, prolonged physical pasivity, chemotherapy etc. 

    Still, if it gives you a piece of mind, dump the chewing gum for an alternative :)

  16. Posted

    Your thyroid levels seem well within normal ranges and there isn't anything that screams as red flag there. Although no antiboies have been tested so that could offer more insight. Most endocrinologists would not diagnose you with hyperthyroidism based on the above. The feeling of heat and restlesness could also come down to other things but without further assessment, I wouldn't fall for any major thyroid regulating protocols because you could harm yourself. 

    If you suspect the tests is not correct, consider asking to be retested. 

    2 hours ago, Nivsch said:

    nd last thing, I suspect I have a fat malabsorption. This is what the naturopath thought

    Naturopaths love to operate outside of their scope of practice and throw around medical diagnosis that they are not trained in. But unless this was properly investigated and you match the diagnostic criteria of fat malabsorbtion, i'd be cautious. Fat malabsorbtion is a serious issue usually caused by pancreatic deficiency but this is not something you should self-diagnose with. If concerned, best to consult your medical practitioner. 

    Definitely keep improving your diet and lifestyle just please be careful with jumping on any radical protocols (herbal/supplemental and otherwise) without professional guidance

  17. Posted

    4 hours ago, Schizophonia said:
    6 hours ago, Princess Arabia said:

    Th whole planet. Hehe

     

    I completely forgot this guy is still going.  You gotta admit that this was a pretty savage reel :D

    I used to associate with some of his ideas when he criticised people who were preaching eating disorder but I see his channel has taken a significant downturn and the critic videos are ultra cringe now. I think he can do better.  

  19. Posted · Edited by Michael569

    Somehow I am doubtful that this was true IgE test. If you had true allergies to all these things at such a severe level, you would have known since childhood because you would have possibly experienced anaphylactic shock from eating nuts. Maybe not, maybe it depends on severity but somehow this test seems wrong. 

    I'd double-check with the company if their report was truly IgE or if they might have confounded it with IgG, which the above resembles more. Sometimes people writing these reports might do a typo

    And the fact you said they are trying to upsell you to book a session with NT is a second red flag, because this is what most IgG testing companies do, earn money from pseudoscience. I take it back if this is indeed true IgE 

    Worth checking. 

  20. Posted · Edited by Michael569

    1 hour ago, Schizophonia said:

    I remember that they injected him with iodine intravenously to improve the results.

    Yeah there are ways to trace certain metabolites through injectible isotopes that can then be even coloured and traced, but honestly this way exceeds my scope of knowledge about the subject :D But yes there are (invasive) methods to monitor this

    1 hour ago, ZenAlex said:

    The thing I've been pursuing really for years is zen/peace and beauty. I want to be able to master my internal state and enjoy the beautiful music and nature I was able to enjoy at one point.

    It felt meaningful to be in nature, although I cannot really much now because of my issues.

    At times during my issues I was able to get myself into some pretty peaceful places, although I had to have very strict routines to get such an end result.

    So kind of, although at times I feel like just ending my existence because my symptoms for once haven't improved in several months and I struggle to get peace beyond just calming everything down. It's difficult to be hopeful when you don't know exactly what's wrong.

    (I am just speculating) But maybe that meaning is too internal and too self-focused, and extending your calling to others would give you a more profound sense of purpose. What I mean, is there any way you could extend that journey to other people? 

    Don't underestimate how much life purpose and contribution is tied to your mental health and how lack thereof can negatively affect it. 

    Sometimes a long term apathy can be an indication that something deeper is being ignored which might have nothing to do with your biochemical profile (e.g. B12, androgens etc) and everything to do with a more spiritual starvation (as I write this, I acknowledge that it all sounds a bit 'out there' so ignore if this doesn't resonate). 

    Perhaps you need to take a step back from all of that. Do you hike? Could you do some local solo travel for a few days? Hike/camp type of thing 

  21. Posted

    1 hour ago, ZenAlex said:

    I am a loner. I feel content in it. I don't get lonely. I have a social job that though requires me to speak to people daily.

    I have never had a relationship, I have no real sexual drive, have never really found anyone significantly attractive.

    I have tried to socialise more at times. I set up an online group for people with social issues in the later stages of covid and it helped a lot of people make friends. I find that I'm a bit socially anxious, but not that much that I cannot socialise.

    I simply notice that i just don't have much interest in socialising. It doesn't excite me, the only thing that interests me is activities that may involve being social like attending football games etc. 

    I find that I'm a bit awkward (potential autism/schizoid), but I can people myself for the most part, but I often don't speak much, not because I hate people or that I'm holding back, I just notice I simply forget I'm around others because they don't interest me that much.

    I do notice though a lot of my thoughts that I'm discussing with my therapist are negative social thoughts, so hopefully I'll gain insight. But when I'm around people I'm not usually very antagonistic. 

    Do you feel a sense of meaning in life? Do you feel you are heading towards something else besides a job and survival? 

     

     

    14 hours ago, Schizophonia said:

    You might do an urinary test testing neurotransmitters.

    They only show peripheral nervous system activity (outside of the central nervous system), which is why urine tests should be considered unethical in people who want to understand their brain neurotransmitter balance, such as in depression. Yet many companies continue testing people despite the results being mostly useless.  So when you test for vanillyl mandelate or homovanillic acid or 5-HIAA in urine (metabolites of your main neurotramitters), what you are getting might be completely out of synchrony with what is going on in the brain. 

    The true CNS measurements are very costly and extremely invasive ad are only done when the outcome benefit is higher than the risk of crippling a patient by draining a sample of their cerebrospinal fluid for true measurement. 

    I think there are also scanning methods to do this tho but not sure about the excact accuracy  and the cost 

     

  22. Posted · Edited by Michael569

    Part of it is that students, especially young men in teenage years, will test the limits of your tolerance. This is their way of establishing themselves in the local hierarchy (the class), becoming prominent alpha males (basically a primitive mating strategy) and it is part of their own growth and development. I think we were all like that at one point - this can't really be avoided

    Maybe with you, some of that difficulty comes from your agreeable nature. Being agreeable, in general, will make you more likeable in certain establishments (like corporate environment for example) but can make it difficult to have sufficient control when you need to be the one to lead. 

    For you as a teacher, it is important to acknowledge that but not allow it to dominate the lesson. You need to be assertive enough to get your word out there but without needing to enforce obedience through fear and punishment. Respect in academia can come from two areas: 

    1. it can be forced through through fear of consequences for disobedience (typical education style in post-communist countries of Eastern and Central Europe where I grew up
    2. it can be earned through delivering the content in a way that it resonates with your students on a deeper level that they actually choose to listen to you because listening, compared to rebelling, is, in that case, a better survival strategy

    The latter is probably something you would want to go for. You can start by actually getting to know your students (if the schedule and the structure of the university allow it). People will respect you more if they feel more connected to your human side, if you show interest in the individual people. So rather than being a slapstick teacher, open up conversations that invite genuine input. Have students actively participate and contribute opinions, exchange ideas etc. Maybe even do some out of class activities if the university approves it, the way company would do teambuilding. 

    While this is happening, it needs to be known who is in charge (you) and you must not let that power balance slip or they'll start treating you as their mate and lose respect for you. I have no practical advice on how to get started, my experience of a lecturer are very limited to a few lectures I hosted where people participated willingly but I have experience with power imbalance where my clients constantly challenged everything I said because they were too insecure to let go of control despite paying for it. 

    There are cases where nothing you do helps, in which case you may need to involve someone who can exercise higher power (like the university dean etc), sometimes students can be arrogant assholes and being compassionate is the worst strategy 

     

  24. Posted · Edited by Michael569

    On 07/03/2024 at 10:09 PM, Huegeleisen said:

    The problem is: I literally can’t sit down and concentrate. For the last 2 months I‘ve been wasting my time with YouTube Shorts or normal YouTube videos after school every day.

    Because you are treating your mind as a dumpster (forgive the language) , just dumping down shallow content and expecting it to work 100%. Its like being completely untrained and then attempting to squat 250 lbs or driving while being extremely intoxicated or climbing Everest in your socks and sandals. 

    Your brain is unprepared to handle that because you haven't trained it to, you've trained it to have 15 second attention span and that is what you get in return. Don't worry most of us struggle with this but it can totally be reversed you just have to start taking your attention as a currency, something not to be squandered around for the benefit of shallow content creators. 

    It may take you 2 years to reverse this, not 3 weeks so be prepared for it. 

    Some practical steps for the long run 

    1. Study Cal Newport's work 
    2. Actually start reading actual books - any books 
    3. Treat your body as a temple (solid nutrition, strong sleep routine , clean environment) 
    4. Start working out 
    5. Start a meditation habit 
    6. Uninstall all the apps you don't need and consider investing int some sort of app blocking software
    7. Invest some money into creating a focus zone in your house where phones and crap aren't allowed. This is where you'll be purging your mind to start focusing again 

    That's just the beginning but if you can do some of them you'll start seeing major improvement in your ability to focus 

  25. Posted · Edited by Michael569

    Even if you don't directly, as long as you work for some larger corporate entity you are indirectly supporting trade with pharma companies, big oil, cheap clothing manufacturers, offshore exploitative services, greedy auditing firms etc. In some shape or form most of those are connected to defense industry even if only by supplying some form of  3rd party software. You can't avoid it. Even just by shopping at large supermarkets, you're part of that albeit indirectly - those groceries were delivered to you by a vehicle with a fossil fuel emision, that fuel was purchased from company like Shell who buys it from some multinational corporation, who probably also supplies fossil fuels for navy, airforce and military vehicles all over the place. 

    If you want to have a reasonably well paid career, you can't avoid it completely but ofcourse you can always choose to be employed by a highly reputable company like Patagonia, for example who have extremely strict policy on their supply chain and have scored the highest B-Corp rating ever recorded. But businesses like that are extremely rare. 

    Or you can go solo, but even then complete disconnection from this chain might not be possible as you'll likely need 3rd party software, hardware tech, subscriptions of all kinds, payment platforms etc etc. 

    So if the position is well paid and you can maybe offset that "evil footpring" elsewhere such as eating fewer animals, recycling more, composting, driving less & cycling more and just being a better human being. Then go for it and forgive yourself.