Stress and Testosterone

[kandykane1544]

Hey everybody,

I recently bought a paleo diet book. The diet is brutal...ha especially being a college student surrounded by pizza and beer all of the time. I also am not the type of person who needs to be losing weight, I am naturally very skinny. Nonetheless, I am going to give it the diet a try for 60 days and see how I feel. To be honest, I will cheat from time to time. At a large midwestern college, commonly beer ends up in your hands without even having to ask for a drink. That being said, I will follow the diet as best I can. I have already been semi-following the diet for the past 3 weeks or so. To give some background on myself, I tore a ligament in my knee playing basketball 2 and a half years ago. I got surgery, started playing on it WAY WAY too soon, and unfortunately messed it up again. After that, I have (depressingly) been convinced I was going to have a inflamed, puffy, lame-feeling knee for the rest of my life.
But, in the last 3 weeks, the swelling and functionality of my knee has noticeably improved. I spent months with very skilled physical trainers, and nothing against them, but I accomplished more progress on the paleo diet and very minimal exercise than I did in months in the gym doing physical therapy. I know this has nothing to do with eyes, but I have had a messed up knee for years now and when I say there is noticeable improvement I mean it. It's as if a "window" has opened up for my body to heal and it has taken advantage of it. In virtually any paleo book that you read, the words "inflammation" and "systemic inflammation" seem to be on every other page. I am a firm believer that everything in the body is interrelated, so if the diet has helped my knee, maybe it can help my poor diseased meibomian glands as well. Nothing to lose right?

P.S. I know I said I would update everybody on my lipiflow results, but my doctor said give it 2 weeks (currently 10 days since the procedure) so I will give it that time until I pass judgment on it.

[kandykane1544]

Oh and here is an interesting article I found about stress and testosterone. I have had a lot of ups and downs these past few years, and I can honestly say I was pretty stressed and depressed because of some of the things I was dealing with in my personal life. Maybe my body just finally had enough haha. I'm sure a bunch of you have already read about this, but for those who haven't check it out! Cortisol and stress are huge aspects of the "paleo lifestyle" as well. Ha having somebody giving you the advice of relaxing and sleeping more is one part of the diet I was actually pretty excited about.

http://www.utexas.edu/news/2010/09/27/stress-hormone/

[Rebecca Petris]

Nothing to lose right?

Nothing of value anyway! And everything to gain when you start feeding your body the fuel it wants rather than clogging it with stuff it doesn't. I had to read up on paleo diet as I wasn't familiar with the term but the concepts are common sense to me and what my family's aiming for with raising more of our food including meat. Your 'college student' food really isn't noticeably worse than the national average diet these days. I mean just look at the shelves at the grocery store: Somebody's eating all that crap.

I think everybody should try just for one week to live without any form of prepackaged food. Very revealing.

Re: diet and the MGs - just a general comment on this topic: People hunting for the latest desperation cure on DEZ will often try a diet modification and say "I did [xyz extreme diet] for [x long] and it made no difference" - unfortunately harm that has occurred gradually is repaired gradually. Even when symptoms start suddenly, often the harm that led to them has accumulated over a much longer period. So it's a long slow process that takes real commitment to healthy living - and of course for most people, they have to continue other remedies and seek out new ones while they're on that road. Hard to stay motivated. So one of the positives in your situation, I'd say, is you've got a major non dry eye motivation in that knee... which is showing much more immediate improvement than I would expect from eyes... keep eating good and ya never know, you may see that benefit carrying over to your eyes in time.

[kandykane1544]

I think you are absolutely right. I was actually considering playing basketball in college before I injured my knee. As a mentioned earlier, I am naturally very skinny, so for years I was literally on a calorie diet...ha meaning I was given the green light to put whatever the heck I wanted in my body whenever I felt like it. All through out high school, every meal I would not eat until I was satisfied, but instead until I was almost sick to my stomach. If my body was telling me it wasn't hungry (upset stomach, constipation, gas) I didn't listen because my goal was always to put on size and mass for my sport. Combine that diet with high stress, bouts of depression, and extreme exercise virtually every day... ha I'm not an expert but that doesn't sound like a recipe for good long term health.

If I was gradually doing damage to my M glands, then it is absolutely true that I need to remember that I should not expect sudden, overnight results. I will stick to this diet as best I can for as long as I can, because after researching more about the paleo diet and paleolithic humans, I have confidence that the "lifestyle" works and is very healthy. The only book I have read so far is called The Paleo Solution written by Robb Wolf. Some of the facts mentioned in that book are astonishing. One, just off the top of my head, discusses how after civilization adopted agriculture (wheat, refined sugar, etc.) the average height of humans decreased by several inches, and things like degenerative diseases and cavities/tooth decay became widely prevalent. In essence, the author argues that although agriculture has allowed human civilization to grow and prosper, many foods we now eat which are considered "staples" of the human diet in reality do not align/coincide with our biological history. It is very interesting to read about and I highly recommend for people to read the book themselves.