Cold Hands & Feet During The Day But Overall Warm/hot At Night - What Does This Mean?

[Ukall]

Can anyone give me an approach of what this could possibly mean? Specially regarding stress hormones.
Firstly, is this normal? Shouldn't be the opposite: warm during the day and cold during the night?
I feel like my hormones aren't working properly... This is, if I eat I should get warmer, but I don't. Then at night, I am really hot. And whatever meal I take, I always feel like this.

I must add that I am not being able to sleep well lately... I'm waking up several times during the night.

 

[James IV]

Have you drastically changed your diet in the last few months?

 

[Ukall]

Well, first of all and as far as I can remember, I have always been a feeling cold type of guy. This is well explained why, during Winter, I cannot leave without a fan heater. Actually, 5 years ago I got my hands burned because I fell asleep with one near me.
I am having some flashbacks from my past and I remember I used to have several discussions with my parents because of the fan heater for two main reasons:

1. Consumes lots of electricity (bills, money issues...);
2. "You're crazy! It's almost already Summer and you are still using that!? Turn off that ***t immediately, it's a sunny day and it's really hot today!". They used to hide it from me and I did something similar: using it before they knew. They were always warmer than me, of course they could never understand how can I still be using it.

When I got burned, well, that weren't good news at all... In their perspective it was like they were right all the time, that I was crazy and that I shouldn't be using that ***t so frequently, specially when I was in bed... I can perfectly understand that. Indeed, they are right because it's really dangerous if one fall asleep... But I was always cold and feeling the warm from the heater was always such a relaxation to me to make me sleep.
(Actually, there are several stories of kids getting burned because they fall asleep using heaters too... Could be that they are feeling the same as me?)

Have you drastically changed your diet in the last few months?

Nevertheless, yes, this is true.

10 months ago, I removed some foods from my diet (I went to a medicine alternative consult). I removed:

• Milk
• Sugar
• Gluten
• Started eating Seeds, more Nuts and more fish (specially Salmon, Mackerel and Sardine)
• Supplemented Omega-3, took some vitamins supplements and probiotcs

I followed that very precisely, without any cheating day.

Then, one of the things that I used to hate was falling asleep after lunch. IF appeared in my life and I started doing it in January. I felt great because I never fell asleep anymore after lunch and my mind was a bit more sharp (I did IF by myself. She had never said to me to start doing it. I simply couldn't handle the fact of falling asleep after lunch. I may also add that I was taking Prozac that time).

Though, on March, I finally quit Prozac and she said to me that I was "cured". However, when she said that to me, I never felt like that, because I still had OCD and ADD problems and I was constipated all the time. But she said to me that was a matter of time to that to disappear.

Eventually, the supplements and probiotcs that I was taking when I was being consulted by her, ended.
(I was still doing IF)

But then, being constipated all the time and having bowel movements with poop+blood (sorry about TMI) made my hemorrhoids come back.
I felt frustrated. I had to find an answer.

I searched a little a bit about constipation and I ended up finding the Wai Diet (Fruits (OJ essentially) + Fish (Salmon) + Egg Yolks). It was said there that my concentration problems could disappear. So it would be like killing two birds with one bullet.
I was on that diet for 3 months and I must say that:

• Finally, yes!, I was not constipated anymore!
• However, I started to feel even more cold (my nails were always purple because how cold they were), stressed/uneasy (I couldn't stand still literally. I felt like I had to run miles and miles everyday), weird and fearful, insomnia started appearing more and more, my heart was beating like a hammer, shortness of breath, throat and chest tightness.
• I lost most of my muscle mass on my legs essentially: there were days that I felt like an old man needing a cane to stand still. (probably this was because I was not eating that much protein...)
• My skin turned orange/yellowish probably due to all the beta carotenes
• OCD and ADD problems were still there and in the beginning I felt somehow confident. But I don't know if because of all the stress it created to me that made me 'move' more. Like when I start doing IF. Now, I can only say it was a false energy...

Now I am eating 'normally'. Learned some things from Wai, I am learning things from here, but I still don't have the courage to start experimenting again or doing a (crazy) radical change on my diet. All you say in this forum, I completely agree with you.
And there are very odd things here I must agree too xD

So, backing to your question, yes, I did some changes on my diet in the past few months, but I feel like the issue of having cold hands/feet was already present way before starting this journey.

 

[James IV]

May I ask how large you are and do you monitor your caloric intake?

 

[Ukall]

I am 25 years old, 183 cm, 74 kg.
Since I return to eating 'normally', I feel like I can't manage that well my caloric intake. When the diet is very restricted is so much easy to monitor.
I wanted to rely on my hungry signals, but since doing IF and all these adventures of mine, I can pretty much stay a day without eating and I could even run a marathon without feeling hungry. My body signals are really poor... So I have to eat using my mind which is a lot harder. And because of this, I always feel like I am not eating enough.

A day of mine would be something like:

- Breakfast: 1-3 eggs / meat with some Carbs (usually fruits)
- Lunch: Green Salad dressed with EVOO/CO (sometimes I use an avocado instead), Vinegar and Salt. Meat/Fish with Carbs (usually rice or potatoes) and some vegetables. Dessert: some fruits
- Dinner: Pretty much like lunch though sometimes I eat some soup instead of a green salad.
- Snack before bed: I usually don't have it. But if I have some, it is usually honey.

Since I do not drink milk, I have to rely on a vegetable milk (rice milk) that has some extra calcium from Lithothamnium Calcareum (120mg/100ml).
Maybe, in the future, I will switch to some calcium supplements if I find some good ones.
2 cups or 500 mL of it is my normally my max. dose per day.

I still don't feel comfortable and convinced enough to start eating dairy products.

- - - After reading some stuff here, I incorporated liver once a week and I also started to eat some Hydrolyzed Gelatin (1 tbsp. max per day and usually at dinner). Getting some oysters is being a little harder thought... - - -

Now, the complicated part is that I don't know how much potatoes or rice I am eating, for example.
I am not eating alone, so even if I measured the quantity before, after cooking, the weight is completely different from the raw state.

Besides not being hungry, when I eat, I don't feel full also. I could literally eat without stopping and not feeling full after.
I don't remember having the feeling of 'I ate enough already' or the pleasure of being full after eating.

 

[aquaman]

I'd say you're not getting enough calories early in the day.

And not enough protein at breakfast. Your fat outweighs protein in grams at breakfast.

Well-cooked starches combined with fruits and protein warm me up and keep me warm.

I'm guessing but you're probably only having 1000 calories by dinner? Assuming the above is typical of your diet. You're warming up at the end of the day probably as you pass a calorie threshold. I try to eat 3 times by 5/6pm with around 80-100 grams of carbs per meal.

Slowly work up to getting more like 1500/2000 calories in by 6pm.

 

[Peaterpeater]

I agree with aquaman that you should try to bulk up your calories earlier on. Try to get 800-1000 calories by noon. I don't agree with him about being cold/warm......I think (the same is happening to me) is that you are running on stress hormones hormones during the day keeping you very cold and then at night your body signals adreneline/cortisol to breakdown tissue (muscle and organs) to convert to sugar to keep you alive while you sleep. Adreneline is what makes your heart beat fast and makes you hot at night. You may have a sluggish liver that cannot store enough glycogen to provide your body enough sugar while you are sleep fasting. Low thyroid & stress hormones can cause you to have a sluggish liver. You may need to take thyroid, eat way more food, especially carbs and protein and check to see if you have any underlying, undiagnosed infections lurking in your body causing additional stress. If you have been cold most of your childhood, you may have become hypo early on. Your parents think you're crazy because they have a normal functioning thyroid which keeps them warm enough, forgive them because they know no better. You also may not be able to digest the lactose in milk because when you are hypothyroid, you lose enzymes that help you to digest that sugar. There are ways to help your thyroid function better without taking medication, you should try to find out for yourself how to do that by reading Ray Peat and the forum extensively before you try medication because taking thyroid meds can be difficult to dose, some people have reactions, etc. If you have Hashimoto's then medication is probably your best bet (along with a good sufficient diet) because your thyroid may have already be reduced/damaged. Good luck, you can do this. Btw, many naturopaths don't really know what they are doing.....some do, most don't.