I may have gotten myself into a hole due to heavy stimulant use (and one alcohol binge) the last month.
I would like to figure out the depth of the problem to a certainty. Don’t want to tie myself to the bed for a while unless it’s absolutely necessary.
What’s a non-subjective/conclusive way to figure this out? Is it affordable , as in under $200? Maybe, possibly covered by insurance if you present it in the right way?
Not really sure what you want here…like a blood test of some kind?
Best way may be to just go out for a run for 3 miles and see how you feel. Really does not matter what a test says if your body say “no” Conversely, if you feel great, go s/b/r.
This doesn’t sound like overtraining to me. It sounds like you did something which you shouldn’t have but that thing wasn’t training. Lay off of that stuff and do some light exercise.
Not really sure what you want here…like a blood test of some kind?
Best way may be to just go out for a run for 3 miles and see how you feel. Really does not matter what a test says if your body say “no” Conversely, if you feel great, go s/b/r.
Yes, any silver bullet lab blood tests and/or saliva tests?
Yes I know I should use my own judgment but after losing 35 pounds in 6 months it wouldn’t hurt to get the test done.
had the quickest weight loss in the last month (8 pounds) which I’m sure everybody would agree is “generally not healthy” at bare minimum.
Not that I know of. You say from stimulant use, then 8 pd weight loss in a month. Well not knowing how heavy you were its really hard to say. When I was sick a few years ago and ballooned up with meds, I lost more than 35 in that period of time with no problem training. In fact I bike 40 a day, everyday.
So how are you feeling right now? Exhausted? How many days in a row have you felt like this? Have you trained at all this past week? If lost to much to fast, have you been eating well with rest for a week?
Not that I know of. You say from stimulant use, then 8 pd weight loss in a month. Well not knowing how heavy you were its really hard to say. When I was sick a few years ago and ballooned up with meds, I lost more than 35 in that period of time with no problem training. In fact I bike 40 a day, everyday.
So how are you feeling right now? Exhausted? How many days in a row have you felt like this? Have you trained at all this past week? If lost to much to fast, have you been eating well with rest for a week?
6’2 dropped from 198 to 188 in 5 weeks. Heavy use of coffee helped as it took me way longer to go from 208 to 198
Hey, a BIG congrats on that weight loss. Sounds like overall it was within very healthy boundries in the time to shed that. Again, I know of no test. I go into over reaching all the time, sign to me is I get grumpy. I week of light training usually does the trick for me. Good Luck. Again, I really do not see that weight loss as necessarily unhealthy
How do you imagine alcohol/stimulant could have contributed to an overtraining hole-- unless you abused stimulants to the point of avoiding sleep? By the very definition of the syndrome you are not overtrained-- true overtraining will necessitate a minimum of a 3 week break to be defined as such. Also, it takes around 2-3 months of an imbalanced training/recovery load typically to generate overtraining.
In response to your question there is no conclusive test to determine overreaching. There’s a lot of little things that may inconclusively point to it: resting elevated heart rate, excessive HRV, excessive cortisol:test ratio, irritability, mood swings, sleep disorders, increased appetite, lethargy, lack of motivation, and on and on.
What you could get tested is a basic hormonal panel (including sex hormones), adrenal levels, and iron-- all three of these have a tendency to get out of wack with endurance athletes and can be further complicated by dieting-- congrats on the weight loss by the way! None of these tests would indicate overreaching but out of range levels can cause some of the same symptoms. If any of these come up abnormal you can develop a plan of attack to fix them with your main doctor.
However, there is a free way to determine if you are overreached-- take some time off. If you start to feel better after a few days then there was nothing wrong. If you still feel like crap take the rest of the week off. If you feel better then you were indeed overreaching. If you still feel awful you have bigger problems to deal with. http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/training/overtraining-overreaching-and-all-the-rest-part-1.html/ this article series presents a good basic understanding of overreaching/overtraining syndrome and how to deal with it.
I was losing weight that fast for most of this year, couple of docs had nothing to say about it but praise. At this point, we’re pretty close in height/weight as well.
some suggestions out there about measuring orthostatic drift as a decent index of overtraining, though maybe it’s a bit inaccurate/old fashioned. on the plus, you can do it at home with your heart rate monitor.
similarly some suggestions about using blood cortisol levels as an index of overtraining.
-mike
Not really sure what you want here…like a blood test of some kind?
Best way may be to just go out for a run for 3 miles and see how you feel. Really does not matter what a test says if your body say “no” Conversely, if you feel great, go s/b/r.
Yes, any silver bullet lab blood tests and/or saliva tests?
Yes I know I should use my own judgment but after losing 35 pounds in 6 months it wouldn’t hurt to get the test done.
had the quickest weight loss in the last month (8 pounds) which I’m sure everybody would agree is “generally not healthy” at bare minimum.
Your weight loss isn’t excessively rapid nor extreme, unless you are starting with an abnormally low weight to begin with. That’s 2 lbs per week over the last month, right in line with medication.
Not sure what you are classifying as excessive stimulant use, but it seems like you’re referring to drinking a lot of coffee? As long as you aren’t developing ulcers or have a caffeine sensitivity, that usually isn’t what I would refer to as problem behaviour.
You may just be tired. Take a day of 2 off. Cut out coffee for a few days, see how you feel. If symptoms persist, there could be any of a number of things going on, which is best left to a discussion with your doctor.
How do you imagine alcohol/stimulant could have contributed to an overtraining hole-- unless you abused stimulants to the point of avoiding sleep? By the very definition of the syndrome you are not overtrained-- true overtraining will necessitate a minimum of a 3 week break to be defined as such. Also, it takes around 2-3 months of an imbalanced training/recovery load typically to generate overtraining.
In response to your question there is no conclusive test to determine overreaching. There’s a lot of little things that may inconclusively point to it: resting elevated heart rate, excessive HRV, excessive cortisol:test ratio, irritability, mood swings, sleep disorders, increased appetite, lethargy, lack of motivation, and on and on.
What you could get tested is a basic hormonal panel (including sex hormones), adrenal levels, and iron-- all three of these have a tendency to get out of wack with endurance athletes and can be further complicated by dieting-- congrats on the weight loss by the way! None of these tests would indicate overreaching but out of range levels can cause some of the same symptoms. If any of these come up abnormal you can develop a plan of attack to fix them with your main doctor.
However, there is a free way to determine if you are overreached-- take some time off. If you start to feel better after a few days then there was nothing wrong. If you still feel like crap take the rest of the week off. If you feel better then you were indeed overreaching. If you still feel awful you have bigger problems to deal with. http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/...he-rest-part-1.html/ this article series presents a good basic understanding of overreaching/overtraining syndrome and how to deal with it.
Thank you, very informative.
Had a stressful month and there were a couple alc binges. Caffeine use went from zero to 800-1000mg a day. Training already was kind of rigorous (lots of high intensity type stuff, a few crossfit type workouts). I don’t think I’m in the overtraining zone, but perhaps a deep overreaching hole. Don’t know, like I said after 4 months of hard training a hormone check wouldn’t hurt.
If you dropping weight that fast, you’re on the edge in terms of glycogen stores. If your doing high intensity, I’d almost theorize that if you have a descent training base, it’s not possible to over train in that situation, as you’ve be bonking really bad. Actually you might feel like crap because you in a constant flux of low blood sugar.
Over training/overreaching comes with you increase or sustain a training load (objectively quantified) that’s higher than your can tolerate. I find this is really easy to measure using TSS and a Performance Management chart. When you acute training load (ATL) reaches a certain percentage higher than you cumulative training load (CLT), you can predict that you’ll be crushed and at a high risk of injury, overtraining, getting sick, etc.
Unfortunately I think it was the bad kind of weight loss. Arms are noticably twiggier, trunk sags out a bit more, joints going snap crackle pop, and noticeable decline in strength training.
There were gaps in training, and not restful gaps. Caffeine heavy stressful gaps. My radar for sleep, consistent eating, and hydration thrown out the window for a month.
As far as pure weight loss caffeine has always been good.
I sleep the same number of hours, but I never seem to feel well rested after sleep.
No scientific bases for this, but I’m been under the impression that you can only drop a certain percentage of body weight over a 3-6 month period without you body fighting the change and getting “out of whack”. There are so many secondary systems involving metabolism regulation and hormone regulation that if you put your body into distress, these systems no longer operate normally.
Well screw me dead, it was a minor case of caffeine induced overreaching and/or low glycogen.
I locked myself inside and went cold turkey from my 1000mg caffeine habit for two days (if I stepped outside in such an irritable state I would have ripped out the throat of the first guy I bumped into for god knows what reason).
Went two days of actually feeling what having an appetite feels like and just let it flow. Think I gained like 4 lbs eating copious amounts of natural peanutbutter, skim milk, steak, and olive oil. Felt pretty decent the 3rd day. I decided to caff (just two cups) and go for a 7 mile run. Felt like I ran to my mailbox and back.
I still want to get the hormone test wouldn’t hurt. Maybe I’m still in an overreaching state and will being crying for my mommy again soon…just gotta make sure I eat lots of fat and protein and keep caffeine to minimum, as that seemed to help tremendously.