5 ms·

I have health issues, a hormone inbalance which caused havoc on my body. One of the symptoms was extreme craving to the point that I drank half a pint of dilute

I have health issues, a hormone inbalance which caused havoc on my body. One of the symptoms was extreme craving to the point that I drank half a pint of diluted orange juice (one part juice, three parts water) with phyllium husk and hydrolised guar gum every hour to create goop to fill my stomach. I couldn't stand the craving. I ate lots of fried mushrooms, too (not deep fried, just a little bit of butter). Then I asked my doctor to give me a different medicament, because I suspected a variation of a deficiency. Her answer was: I don't have experience with that medicament, but after four months she relented. One week later my craving was much, much less. This experience astounded me extremely deeply. I have come to the conclusion that there are some body processes, let's say instincts, that can go astray. Compare this to drowning. Even if people know that there's only water, they try breathe. It's just too strong an instinct. Having experienced this, I now respect obese people. They just have the bad luck that their instinct of eating derailed. Now they not only lost body fitness but also respect.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
bl4ckm0r3 2y ago
quick question, do you do any physical activity? or if your hormone imbalance did not allow you to do it, now that you have a different medicament, have you started doing sport? Not just a walk in the evening, like minimum 3 times a week 1 hour of high intensity workout, possibly supervised?
- _nalply 2y ago
  Yes, I started doing a lot of hiking. Today I walked more than 2000 foot up to a hill and back and still felt fine and had a quick stroll along a river the evening. I shoot many pictures of mushrooms, and a friend told me I caught a rare mushroom (lycoperdon echinatum) and Thursday I am going up again with him because he never saw one. Why?
  - bl4ckm0r3 2y ago
    that's great, but it's not proper training, it's a hike, fantastic activity but (especially growing older) our life is mostly sedentary and it helps a lot to do a proper sport or intense activity at least 3 times a week (i personally workout every day, but sat and sun, for 1 hour with a high intensity sport, not weightlifting). The older you grow the harder it is for the system to process the amount of stuff we eat (especially high calories, highly processed food that is available nowadays) and doing a high intensity activity (heartrate up, muscular stress etcetc) is, in my opinion, fundamental and often ignored by people.
albrewer 2y ago
> One of the symptoms was extreme craving to the point that I have a kidney disorder that causes me to waste potassium. Without a supplement, I can't get enough in my natural diet without eating like 10-20 avocados a day, or 6 cups of spinach. A fun side effect of hypokalemia is that your muscles get really sore, like you just did a full body workout. So, you can literally feel when your potassium is low. The low salt coincides with some of the most intense food cravings I've ever experienced. I don't crave foods high in potassium, however; just foods with a lot of regular NaCl. So, my body does its best to tell me I need to eat something, triggering a psychological compulsion to get it, but the compulsion is to eat the wrong thing. I'm just one data point, but I think this might extrapolate out to more people than just me. If you're compelled to overeat, you might be missing some key nutrient that just isn't present in abundance in your current diet. The trick is finding out what it is. Random related thought - awhile back there was a series of blog posts that got pretty popular (I can't remember the blog's name) trying to investigate the root cause of obesity. They settled on some odd conclusions, but one of the things they noted in their meta-analysis of extant obesity research is that places with lower obesity have more of a particular dissolved mineral (they asserted lithium was the root cause, but I didn't find their conclusions convincing) in their drinking water. It could be that there are trace elements that, if you don't have mineral-rich drinking water, are otherwise hard to get from a standard diet that drive this craving behavior that I've experienced.
- _nalply 2y ago
  I am not sure but I think my body couldn't generate enough of a specific hormone and then the body's reaction was as if I was starving because that hormone is controlling the metabolism inside the organes. So, probably nothing was missing in my food but because my metabolism was low it was like I was starving but I wasn't.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

bl4ckm0r3 2y ago

quick question, do you do any physical activity? or if your hormone imbalance did not allow you to do it, now that you have a different medicament, have you started doing sport? Not just a walk in the evening, like minimum 3 times a week 1 hour of high intensity workout, possibly supervised?

_nalply 2y ago
Yes, I started doing a lot of hiking. Today I walked more than 2000 foot up to a hill and back and still felt fine and had a quick stroll along a river the evening. I shoot many pictures of mushrooms, and a friend told me I caught a rare mushroom (lycoperdon echinatum) and Thursday I am going up again with him because he never saw one. Why?
- bl4ckm0r3 2y ago
  that's great, but it's not proper training, it's a hike, fantastic activity but (especially growing older) our life is mostly sedentary and it helps a lot to do a proper sport or intense activity at least 3 times a week (i personally workout every day, but sat and sun, for 1 hour with a high intensity sport, not weightlifting). The older you grow the harder it is for the system to process the amount of stuff we eat (especially high calories, highly processed food that is available nowadays) and doing a high intensity activity (heartrate up, muscular stress etcetc) is, in my opinion, fundamental and often ignored by people.

albrewer 2y ago

> One of the symptoms was extreme craving to the point that I have a kidney disorder that causes me to waste potassium. Without a supplement, I can't get enough in my natural diet without eating like 10-20 avocados a day, or 6 cups of spinach. A fun side effect of hypokalemia is that your muscles get really sore, like you just did a full body workout. So, you can literally feel when your potassium is low. The low salt coincides with some of the most intense food cravings I've ever experienced. I don't crave foods high in potassium, however; just foods with a lot of regular NaCl. So, my body does its best to tell me I need to eat something, triggering a psychological compulsion to get it, but the compulsion is to eat the wrong thing. I'm just one data point, but I think this might extrapolate out to more people than just me. If you're compelled to overeat, you might be missing some key nutrient that just isn't present in abundance in your current diet. The trick is finding out what it is. Random related thought - awhile back there was a series of blog posts that got pretty popular (I can't remember the blog's name) trying to investigate the root cause of obesity. They settled on some odd conclusions, but one of the things they noted in their meta-analysis of extant obesity research is that places with lower obesity have more of a particular dissolved mineral (they asserted lithium was the root cause, but I didn't find their conclusions convincing) in their drinking water. It could be that there are trace elements that, if you don't have mineral-rich drinking water, are otherwise hard to get from a standard diet that drive this craving behavior that I've experienced.

_nalply 2y ago
I am not sure but I think my body couldn't generate enough of a specific hormone and then the body's reaction was as if I was starving because that hormone is controlling the metabolism inside the organes. So, probably nothing was missing in my food but because my metabolism was low it was like I was starving but I wasn't.