To Eat or Not To Eat Catch 22

[logicallefty]

My whole life I have been one who ate breakfast maybe once every other week, and only ate lunch maybe two times a week tops. As bad as it may have been, I did this for many years.

As I have got older, I can no longer do it like that. Most days now I go eat in the cafeteria at my work which has a good salad bar. It seems like no matter how healthy I make the salad, I get tired later in the afternoon, nasty tired. Not right after lunch like a "I just over gorged" tired, but a burning in the eyes, just want to nap tired. Today I ate some spinach and a quarter sized blob of Ranch dressing, thinking there would be hardly any carbs in that and it should not make me tired, but it still did.. So tomorrow, I could skip lunch and not get tired, but then later in the day I will get dizzy and be unable to focus until I eat something. It's a nasty catch 22. I wish I could do like I used to and just not eat all day, not get tired, and then eat dinner when I got home.

Am I experiencing some kind of vitamin issue here or something? Or is there anything I can do to be able to eat and not get so tired later ?

 

[Billtx49]

Your metabolism could be slowing.

 

[guru1000]

Sounds like it relates to either one of two problems:

1. Insulin regulation is critical. If you are not triggering enough insulin, you will accumulate excess sugar in your blood and not push these vital sugars into your cells for energy, thus feeling tired. Check your glucose level; might be borderline hyper-glycemic.

--or--

2. Your symptoms also mirror low testosterone symptoms. Considering you are 40 and this is a recent phenomenon, it's definitely a possibility. Seek a HRT doctor and check your free and total testosterone levels. If your total T is less than 600 ng/dl, irrespective of what tests consider the norm (300-1,000 ng/dl), I would consider it low.

But before jumping the gun on any insulin/testosterone treatments (if blood tests confirm the above), try stabilizing your hormones with a clean diet comprising high-fat (for T augmentation), and low-glycemic carbs spread over 5-8 meals to stabilize blood sugar levels.

 

[dasein]

Some other things that have not been mentioned.

1. May not be the diet or anything internal. Climate control in workspace and environmental factors instead. Can't count how many place I worked over the years where I would feel crashed due to it being too hot, poor air circulation, "sick" HVAC via mold, dust in the vents, carpets, allergens, cleaning fluids, bacteria, breakroom pathogens, ozone from copying machines and other electronics, noise pollution, cologne, heavy electromagnetic field (Yeah I watch Better Call Saul lol, but talking real demonstrated effects from really heavy fields). Do you have the same kind of reaction when working cop work outside? If not, could be one or some of these.

2. Are you stretching at least three times a day for at least five minutes? Look into The Pomodoro Technique for breaking up time. It works great for me. Is there more of your work you can do standing instead of sitting? Take a medicine ball to work and pick it up whenever you can. Even if you are working manual labor of some type, that kind of repetition without stretching and alternate motion can wear you down.

Good luck fixing this.

 

[logicallefty]

Thanks for the replies. Much appreciated.

@Espi I saw a doctor about two months ago, even had a blood test done. She said I could afford to loose 10-15 lbs, that my cholesterol was better (I take medicine for it), and that I needed to watch my sodium. At the time I was thinking that my afternoon tiredness was due to carbs and we discussed it. But I am now realizing that there must be something more to it.

@Guru low T is something to consider. I never thought of that. I have never had a real high sex drive, but that's something that has been with me for my whole adult life. My father was the same as me, only needed it every few weeks and he was good to go. I don't know if the T level was in my standard bloodwork or not, I will have to look. If it was, she didn't mention it as a problem area.

@Dasein I don't stretch per se but I can leave my desk whenever I want and I walk to the cafeteria which is in another building across the office complex. And often time I take an extended walk to get there. In my own building I sometimes walk to a bathroom thats not the closest one just to take a few extra minutes away from my desk. It could be a climate issue in my office. I'm on the corner of the building on the 2nd floor and my office is often too warm or too cold, there are many days it doesn't feel perfect for me which would be about 65 degrees. I have only worked one shift at my new part-time police job and it was only for 5 hours and I didn't get tired at all, I felt outstanding the whole time.

@billtx49 - how do you know your metabolism is off? Is that in bloodwork?

I'm going to really be careful with my diet more so than before, and check on the low T and see if I can fix this. I really hate it, and have got to where I dread afternoons at work. At home on weekends I take a 1-2 hour nap whenever I get tired and then I'm good to go for the rest of the day.