Good information on metabolism repair:

Orphia

Insomnia is awful. I've had diagnosed stress for a few months, and my weight was up 3 kg.

I don't know if your insomnia is anything to do with the iron deficiency other than causing worry and sleepless nights. Bit of a vicious circle, for sure, and certainly if it includes work/home/financial stress too.

1.5 lb per week is too much weight loss if you only need to lose 25 lb AND have water gain. 0.5 lb per week at most should be the aim.

The brain doesn't work properly with insomnia and under-eating and goes into panic mode, leaving your stomach inert and your muscles and nerves ready to fight or flee.

You may be eating the right foods, but not enough of them.

Check your MFP diary, if logging accurately, and see week by week what your Net Calories have been. (Diary>Nutrition>Calories>Week View>Last 7 Days>Net)

Weekly Net Calories should be AT your calorie weekly limit (per your goal) if you are anywhere near eating according to your goal.

Nearly everyone has to learn to eat back their exercise calories. And re-learn. It's hard. Fast weight loss is very bad! It means you're not eating enough to support your vital bodily functions.

And you must eat the exact amount MFP sets you, because it's telling you how much to eat while losing.

If you have been eating LESS than what you should, AND eating LESS than what you "need" to lose 1.5 lb per week, you have a form of malnutrition that could very well be most evident in the iron level and certainly your lack of energy.

I believe you should stop trying to eat at a deficit. Eat to maintain your weight and boost your iron-rich food intake.

Try and get your sleep routine fixed.

This should mean your stress/water weight drop a lot, and let your body replenish its missing nutrients.

I AM NOT A DIETITIAN, I just have been learning about all of this (a lot via the hard way) nearly every day for 4.5 years. Tell your doctor what I said and see what they say.

Best wishes.

ElizabethKalmbach

Orphia wrote: »

Insomnia is awful. I've had diagnosed stress for a few months, and my weight was up 3 kg.

I don't know if your insomnia is anything to do with the iron deficiency other than causing worry and sleepless nights. Bit of a vicious circle, for sure, and certainly if it includes work/home/financial stress too.

1.5 lb per week is too much weight loss if you only need to lose 25 lb AND have water gain. 0.5 lb per week at most should be the aim.

The brain doesn't work properly with insomnia and under-eating and goes into panic mode, leaving your stomach inert and your muscles and nerves ready to fight or flee.

You may be eating the right foods, but not enough of them.

Check your MFP diary, if logging accurately, and see week by week what your Net Calories have been. (Diary>Nutrition>Calories>Week View>Last 7 Days>Net)

Weekly Net Calories should be AT your calorie weekly limit (per your goal) if you are anywhere near eating according to your goal.

Nearly everyone has to learn to eat back their exercise calories. And re-learn. It's hard. Fast weight loss is very bad! It means you're not eating enough to support your vital bodily functions.

And you must eat the exact amount MFP sets you, because it's telling you how much to eat while losing.

If you have been eating LESS than what you should, AND eating LESS than what you "need" to lose 1.5 lb per week, you have a form of malnutrition that could very well be most evident in the iron level and certainly your lack of energy.

I believe you should stop trying to eat at a deficit. Eat to maintain your weight and boost your iron-rich food intake.

Try and get your sleep routine fixed.

This should mean your stress/water weight drop a lot, and let your body replenish its missing nutrients.

1.5 pound weight loss is the *minimum* I'm allowed to eat. I'm not actually shooting for it as a target. I set myself a range usually and aim for the middle, based on how I feel that day. TDEE with my activity level built in is the usual target (1890 calories - which includes weight training - which I'm not currently doing, so the number should be high enough to be slightly over what I need.), but some days, I just don't get there because I've had too much pain or nausea. The entire reason I *have* eating minimums was when I went through this with the B12 anemia, my nausea was high and I had no appetite at all. It took them a little over 6 months of nagging at a variety of doctors to get the right tests done to even find a problem. It took an entire *year* to convince them that the level of supplementation they had me at was inappropriate. My *current* doctor was appalled to note that while they *did* finally provide me with enough B12 shots to keep my levels in range, they stopped looking into it there and I am unable to tell her *why* I need B12 by injection. Or why I need injections twice as often as the "normal case" patient.

I imagine that the above is why I'm upset. I do not want to spend another year fighting with a doctor and paying through the nose to have them assume I'm a hypochondriac who is just over eating and complaining about gaining weight. I doubt my worry is the cause of the insomnia, though. Every single diagnosis I have already comes with a side of insomnia.

Under normal circumstances, I understand perfectly well how to lose weight, even WITH hypothyroidism. My hypothyroidism wasn't diagnosed until I was completely miserable, because I was thin enough to *look fine* to them. My TSH was 25 by the time someone thought to check it. Per usual I breezed right past "sub clinical" into "HOW ARE YOU STANDING?!"

Currently, pulling a report would be useless because I *normally* only log food if there's a problem or a trend in the wrong direction. (And sometimes the trend I'm tracking with MFP isn't actual calories - sometimes it's macros or a particular nutrient that keeps showing up low in my blood tests. Potassium, magnesium, sodium, etc.) At the moment, my data is garbage because I spent the week tinkering with my tracking hardware and software , and 9/26 tells me that I was supposed to eat 2600 calories because somehow the fitness tracker double reported steps, so I just ate 1580 or so calories and called it a night. (I ordered a new Fitbit to improve the rough tracking I was doing with a MiBand2 and Google Fit. They're cool tech toys, but for *accurate* calorie logging, Fitbit has been proven best - I'm just not a huge fan of the Fitbit hardware, it's expensive and does not survive contact with me for longer than 9 months, for whatever reason.)

At any rate, I've gotten enough commentary to see that I've asked the wrong question and hypothesized in the wrong direction to try and understand my body. But I ask these questions here to gain direction because apparently asking at one's doctor's office makes them think you're crazy.

Thank you for your kindness in talking this out with me. Even if I didn't get direct answers because my question was wrong, your compassion was noted and appreciated very much.

youngmomtaz

I have been severely anemic for years. In fact, once I finally got in to see my obgyn(my reg doc did not refer me forever thinking I was exaggerating) he looked at all the bloodwork over the past 15 years and immediately wrote a letter to all the docs in both my local offices. He was furious and stated that I should have been receiving iv iron and or blood transfusions monthly.

Anyway, newer research cites hepcidin levels are partly interfering with iron absorption in lacking individuals. That is the job of hepcidin, to regulate iron absorption. So when we take iron daily or sometimes twice daily the hepcidin levels raise to regulate absorption. We absorb more when these levels are low. So, take your iron in a slightly higher dose every other day. My obgyn referenced this after I had done reading of the same research. I can’t remember any number but my ferritin, but it was at a 3 (range 25-300) six months ago. I had an endometrial resection at that time. I still have what to classified as severely heavy periods but they are reduced by about half now. I am dosing multiple types of iron in moderate doses every second day and my ferritin is now up to 75. This is reflected in my energy levels, my love of life, and even my hair and fingernails are growing again. So, this is worth a talk with your treatment team. Good luck, feel better soon!

CSARdiver

It's not metabolic (not basal anyway), but seems more of a lack of oxygen transport.

As much as I rail against the supplement industry this is where it has potential for help with minimal risk. Flavenoids have great potential - you can find this is tea - unprocessed leaf & stick or "white" tea. Ferritin is another, but with less documented support - still very low risk.

Tricky question, but how well do you manage stress? This alone can cause incredible imbalances and makes diagnostics incredibly difficult, which is why medical professionals get frustrated, which causes more stress - a viscous cycle.

There are several parallels to anemia and thyroid disorder athletes, so mimicing the same behaviors and disciplines will help - it's not going to hurt anyway. You'll have to implement changes slowly and gradually by comparison. Drastic changes rarely help anyone, but cause harm to those of us with existing hormone disorders. Whatever you do - do it with moderation and ease into it.

Such a rapid weight gain is almost certainly water weight. Hydrate, give it 5-7 days and do whatever you can to destress - sleep, mediate, implement rituals to center and declutter your mind. If after this you don't see a change, the document and speak with your primary physician.

ElizabethKalmbach

CSARdiver wrote: »

It's not metabolic (not basal anyway), but seems more of a lack of oxygen transport.

Such a rapid weight gain is almost certainly water weight. Hydrate, give it 5-7 days and do whatever you can to destress - sleep, mediate, implement rituals to center and declutter your mind. If after this you don't see a change, the document and speak with your primary physician.

I've been drinking my daily water out of a quart jar, which makes it easier for me to keep track of quantities. I average about 3 quarts a day. I had thought maybe I was drinking too much and that was causing the cramping, because I already have to supplement potassium and pay lots of attention to my sodium to keep my blood pressure high enough to avoid annoying blackouts when I stand too fast. (orthostatic hypotension)

The reason I'm suspicious/freaked out by the weight gain is that I put on 10 lbs while camping the previous month (which is normal water retention for that camping trip - I've done it every year for the last 25 years, and the water usually drops away over a couple weeks back in the land of air conditioning.) going from 154 to 164, and THEN, instead of that falling away, after I came home, I put on ANOTHER 12 when I anticipated *losing* the initial 10. I feel like it should be impossible for me to have this much water on me this fast, when I'm being *so conscious* of balance. CAN I ACTUALLY INFLATE LIKE A WATER BALLOON? AT WHAT POINT WILL I EXPLODE IF I GET A PAPER CUT?

How fast can iron levels bottom out? Is it something that happens quickly, or is it something that happens gradually? My B12 deficiency took 3 years to start showing symptoms, and I'm told that my hypothyroidism was probably subclinical for AGES based on how long I went without a normal period. (10 years of 3-4 periods a year, maybe? Though, also sometimes 4 times in 6 weeks.)

CSARdiver wrote: »

Tricky question, but how well do you manage stress? This alone can cause incredible imbalances and makes diagnostics incredibly difficult, which is why medical professionals get frustrated, which causes more stress - a viscous cycle.

I'm generally pretty laid back and as with many ADHD humans, I generally do my best work under stress. Stress doesn't normally cause insomnia for me so much as my medical conditions do. (At this point, I can tell the difference between thyroid insomnia's "can't Fall asleep" and B12 insomnia's "can't STAY asleep.") When I'm stressed out about something, I get busy dealing with it - thus this thread. I have enough test results right now to have an *idea* of what's causing all these problems with my meat suit, so I'm trying to understand what causes the symptoms and how to fix those things and what causes the deficiency and how to fix *that* thing.

ElizabethKalmbach

youngmomtaz wrote: »

I have been severely anemic for years. In fact, once I finally got in to see my obgyn(my reg doc did not refer me forever thinking I was exaggerating) he looked at all the bloodwork over the past 15 years and immediately wrote a letter to all the docs in both my local offices. He was furious and stated that I should have been receiving iv iron and or blood transfusions monthly.

OMG. Totally this. It was my OBGYN that ended up spotting my thyroid disorder, because no one ever really asked me how regular my periods were and why I'd even gone on the pill in the first place.

youngmomtaz wrote: »

Anyway, newer research cites hepcidin levels are partly interfering with iron absorption in lacking individuals. That is the job of hepcidin, to regulate iron absorption. So when we take iron daily or sometimes twice daily the hepcidin levels raise to regulate absorption. We absorb more when these levels are low. So, take your iron in a slightly higher dose every other day. My obgyn referenced this after I had done reading of the same research. I can’t remember any number but my ferritin, but it was at a 3 (range 25-300) six months ago. I had an endometrial resection at that time. I still have what to classified as severely heavy periods but they are reduced by about half now. I am dosing multiple types of iron in moderate doses every second day and my ferritin is now up to 75. This is reflected in my energy levels, my love of life, and even my hair and fingernails are growing again. So, this is worth a talk with your treatment team. Good luck, feel better soon!

THANK YOU for the information about hepcidin. I'd been reading about increased hepcidin released by inflammation, and that's why BOTH athletes AND obese people tend to end up low on iron. The athletes end up with inflammation from training. Obesity is considered a form of inflammation or something as well (I'm not terribly clear on this one, but it was cited multiple places.) I have enough chronic ailments that I'm sure I have a chronic inflammatory response going on somewhere most of the time, so that kind of answers some of this, and the "athletics and hepcidin" bit kind of answers the rest. I don't feel all that athletic most of the time, but everything is relative, I imagine.

The dosing information and timing is EXTREMELY helpful to me. That kind of "trickery" makes sense to me in much the same way that zigzagging my calories up and down helps me lose weight without plateauing. An every other day dosing schedule is going to be a PITA, but I imagine I can work out some kind of mnemonic to help me remember.