Combating Elevated Cortisol & Histamine Resulting From Jogging & Sprinting

[Velve921]

except the majority of the most successful athletes in the world eat starch. you can’t refill muscle glycogen as well with fruit because the anabolic effects of insulin are crucial for muscle recovery.

I am telling you what I witnessed in working with a professional team/teams for 8 years.

In my experience, all of my athletes were previously eating starch because that’s what they were told to do from previous generations. Once they started eliminating starch, not only did they have more energy, but all of them stop losing muscle during the season and I had many that gained 5-8lbs of muscle during the season in a high lactic acid sport (hockey).

In terms of recovery, when they started eliminating starch and replacing with fruit, many went from sleeping 3-5 hours a night to sleeping 7-9 hours per night. So in terms of recovery, it appeared that this trade off was working.

Now, with all that said, I fully believe that many athletes/people can do fine or even well on starch. In this person’s cases, he said that he was trying to lower cortisol and histamine after workouts. From everything I’ve learned through my experiences and Peat’s research, it seems that there are a lot of reasonings that starchy foods have a higher chance of causing elevated levels of the stress response due to endotoxin and polysaccharides.

This is how I came to the reasoning in response to this post.

 

[Velve921]

Foods like white potatoes and white rice are a staple for me- but I can try cutting it down by half, and replacing it with sugar or eat foods like sourdough bread that have a slower glycemic response.

I am a fan of raw carrots. I think eating them in the mornings could help filter out gut serotonin that can accumulate

I will read up on theanine. I am a fan of Haidut's supplements

Thanks

No problem my friend. Happy to be supportive.

 

[yeggim]

Why Caffeine after and not before workout? Curious to know, I just reintroduced it back into my diet.

Caffeine mobilizes fatty acids. I don't want that pre-workout. Personally I don't like the hit or miss ergogenic action of caffeine. A lot of studies seem to suggest coffee results in a free testosterone boost but so does a nap.

I think the more solid studies indicate caffeine post workout is more beneficial for glucose uptake. The sweet spot seems to be 400 mg. Trash your CNS and caffeine could be like throwing gasoline on a fire. Recovery is most important to me these days so sodium bicarbonate is my favorite.

Glucose uptake, partitioning, glut4 receptors are important for the body recomp guys. These days at my age it's all about remaining strong and lookin good in a shirt. I tend to leave more in the gym than going balls to the wall. A big meal and a couple three double espressos after a decent workout does tend to make me glow.

 

[yeggim]

I appreciate you considering weights, as I have primarily worked out with machines and barbells years ago. I switched to calisthenics for the past ~5 years, and started using Peat's advise ~3 years ago. Like Joe Rogan said, all you really need is your body and push-ups, pull-ups, and squats, done correctly.

Bigger muscles burn more fat at rest. Light weights and body weight after a point need speed to make the muscle bigger. Hypertrophy is easier with weights.

 

[Zoiros]

A few big issues I see with your approach:

1) diet: reduce starch/fat intake. Get carbs/protein primarily from citrus fruit, low fat dairy, and gelatin. Coke is chemical laced garbage. Sugar in the form of honey/fruit is far superior.

2)supplements: the listed hormones and drugs are not conducive to healthy hair or athletic performance. You’ll be better off without them.

Aspirin and vitamins/minerals in reasonable amounts are all you need. Certain herbs and amino acids(ie. taurine) can also be beneficial. I personally use aspirin, ginger, d-limonene, and phosphatidylserine.

3)exercise: high volume workouts of pushups/pullups are a waste of time and are not going to make you stronger or increase muscle mass.

You need more challenging exercises like the front/back lever, handstand, L-sit, and pistol squats. I recommend yoga as well. Less volume, higher intensity is what you want. Buy a set of gymnastics rings. Fat loss will occur much faster and you will become much stronger.

Sprinting/running distances under 5km is not metabolically compromising. Low intensity, steady state cardio 1hr+ is what you want to avoid.

I personally went from being fat and balding, 240lbs, to 175lbs and lean while regaining almost all of my hair in the process.

 

[theDao]

Itching is due to underactive thyroid and lymphatic stagnation of the head.

Dark circles under the eyes correlate with kidney weakness. The kidneys are also the primary gateway for lymphatic flow.

I've heard that in accordance with traditional Chinese medicine, the kidneys are associated with strength. It's not surprising that they would be further weakened during exercise whenever they're already being put under such a heavy acidic load given your diet that you listed... The caffeine pre-workout is just icing on the cake as it promotes an adrenaline response that defers blood away from the acidic filtration organs & systems.

Thanks for mentioning this. I never considered that my lymph activity may be bottle necked or that the dark circles can be associated with exhausted kidneys. I also experienced some sneezing after the workouts; along with the itching, I thought it was an allergic response to histamine release. I've also heard that in Chinese medicine, asian pears are used to brighten dark circles under the eyes; perhaps from their copper. I can try supplementing to see if there's an effect.

What's so acidic about my diet? I'll cut out the caffeine pre-workout but wouldn't the exercising already induce adrenaline?

Citrus are all high histamine and people with low levels of DAO will have problems. I struggled with restless legs for 5 years no medicine or anything else helped. Soon after adopting a low histamine diet did it stop. Peating is a very high histamine diet.

I'll see about reducing citrus fruits. Do you avoid orange juice?

I have no idea on whether you are a truly high histamine or low histamine individual, but if you are actually high histamine, you can sharply increase intake of copper and vitamin C from food and eat foods higher in methionine and that will lower histamine. I really don't think its a good idea though to do that though but better than taking cypro. Histamine helps keep you lean (among many other important functions) and lowering it too much will make it easy to get fat or in your case regain fat. If you actually want to lower histamine do it the natural way as I described.

Carb intake is the obvious way to reduce cortisol response, I don't personally think its a good idea to blunt the natural stress response to exercise with medicine.

Good point. It's possible that I was using too many supplements. Asian pears have copper and vitamin C. At any rate, I will have a different approach to the training/diet this time.

I agree, it could be a mistake to blunt natural cortisol with cypro before training.

Don't low carb diets actually increase cortisol???

I'd say one of your problems is jogging. Jogging can be very bad for your health and chronically spike stress hormones. It doesn't look like your jogs are very long (short jogs are fine or even beneficial) but it is something to watch for. Sprinting can be great for you if not overdone. If you are sprinting 5km that is very much overkill. A good sprint session should only take about 20 minutes with plenty of rest in between sprints. HIIT style sprints will burn a lot more fat than jogging will without the adrenal burnout. You should generally feel good after a workout. If you are exhausted and feel terrible after working out then your probably overdoing it.

Hmm... I will have to alter my runs to have more sprinting than jogging, and definitely read more into the methods of other athletes, historically and in current times. Sprinting gets exhausting, but feels good at the end. That must be the cortisol and serotonin too. I was wondering if there's anything specific you would take immediately after such a HIIT workout.

 

[theDao]

Bigger muscles burn more fat at rest. Light weights and body weight after a point need speed to make the muscle bigger. Hypertrophy is easier with weights.

I'll put weights into consideration for my new training plan which I will be developing soon. A big reason why I workout outside is that it is free, and there is the added benefit of sunlight and vitamin D absorption.

Have you heard of Pavel Tsatsouline? Do you like kettle bells?

A few big issues I see with your approach:

1) diet: reduce starch/fat intake. Get carbs/protein primarily from citrus fruit, low fat dairy, and gelatin. Coke is chemical laced garbage. Sugar in the form of honey/fruit is far superior.

2)supplements: the listed hormones and drugs are not conducive to healthy hair or athletic performance. You’ll be better off without them.

Aspirin and vitamins/minerals in reasonable amounts are all you need. Certain herbs and amino acids(ie. taurine) can also be beneficial. I personally use aspirin, ginger, d-limonene, and phosphatidylserine.

3)exercise: high volume workouts of pushups/pullups are a waste of time and are not going to make you stronger or increase muscle mass.

You need more challenging exercises like the front/back lever, handstand, L-sit, and pistol squats. I recommend yoga as well. Less volume, higher intensity is what you want. Buy a set of gymnastics rings. Fat loss will occur much faster and you will become much stronger.

Sprinting/running distances under 5km is not metabolically compromising. Low intensity, steady state cardio 1hr+ is what you want to avoid.

I personally went from being fat and balding, 240lbs, to 175lbs and lean while regaining almost all of my hair in the process.

View attachment 16589

Wow. Incredible! What's that device on your lower back?

65 pounds is alot of weight to lose; how long did it take you? Which vitamins/minerals have helped you? Which supplements?

Are there any books or articles about those exercises that you could recommend?

 

[Motif]

Citrus are all high histamine and people with low levels of DAO will have problems. I struggled with restless legs for 5 years no medicine or anything else helped. Soon after adopting a low histamine diet did it stop. Peating is a very high histamine diet.

So what Are you eating now? How much calories?

 

[Motif]

I have no idea on whether you are a truly high histamine or low histamine individual, but if you are actually high histamine, you can sharply increase intake of copper and vitamin C from food and eat foods higher in methionine and that will lower histamine. I really don't think its a good idea though to do that though but better than taking cypro. Histamine helps keep you lean (among many other important functions) and lowering it too much will make it easy to get fat or in your case regain fat. If you actually want to lower histamine do it the natural way as I described.

Carb intake is the obvious way to reduce cortisol response, I don't personally think its a good idea to blunt the natural stress response to exercise with medicine.

How much copper and C would you recommend and with what food can I reach high doses of this ?

 

[Elize]

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I use the list above and eat low histamine foods. Have 2000 calories a day. Trying to gain weight as am 104 pounds. Have Hashimoto and Celiac's.

 

[Elize]

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...FjAOegQIAhAB&usg=AOvVaw3BOdQNOvizx9FTAOVLvIDN

 

[Zoiros]

Wow. Incredible! What's that device on your lower back?

65 pounds is alot of weight to lose; how long did it take you? Which vitamins/minerals have helped you? Which supplements?

Are there any books or articles about those exercises that you could recommend?

Thanks. I lost the weight in about 6 months. I was going through a particularly stressful time in my life so I went all out with diet and training. No cheat meals, no days off.

I did mostly gymnastics training, with some yoga and some weights. Large emphasis on stretching/mobility work.

As for supplements, I only take what I need to make up for shortages in diet. I occasionally use K2, magnesium glycinate, B vitamins, D3, selenium, C, and E. I take aspirin, phosphatidylserine, ginger, d-limonene daily to manage serotonin and cortisol. Creatine, BCAA’s, taurine, tyrosine, work ok but I rarely use them.

Overcoming Gravity by Steven Low is a book that I personally recommend. It has almost all the body weight exercises available with progressions for each. It’s a huge amount of information, but studying and learning the material will set you up for success. Plus, it’s only $50. Best fitness investment I ever made.

The thing on my lower back is a belt with a weight pack from a scuba harness. I use it to add small weights for certain exercises.

 

[redsun]

How much copper and C would you recommend and with what food can I reach high doses of this ?

Any fruit high in vitamin C can achieve high C intake quickly if you eat enough. Keep in mind vitamin C will block copper absorption. Copper should not be with vitamin C together if you take as supplements. 4-5mg of copper in one sitting (from say liver/potatoes if you want to keep it to food) and up to 2g of vitamin C seperate to the copper should lower histamine.

Vitamin C actually lowers histamine in the moment (when you take it), but overtime may chelate copper out of the body besides also preventing absorption. So high copper food like liver, potatoes, dark chocolate are the main necessity for DAO. Then there's methionine intake for HNMT (deactivating histamine via methylating). Milk, yogurt, eggs, chicken, are generally 1 to 1 methionine to histidine or more favored to methionine.

 

[Motif]

Any fruit high in vitamin C can achieve high C intake quickly if you eat enough. Keep in mind vitamin C will block copper absorption. Copper should not be with vitamin C together if you take as supplements. 4-5mg of copper in one sitting (from say liver/potatoes if you want to keep it to food) and up to 2g of vitamin C seperate to the copper should lower histamine.

Vitamin C actually lowers histamine in the moment (when you take it), but overtime may chelate copper out of the body besides also preventing absorption. So high copper food like liver, potatoes, dark chocolate are the main necessity for DAO. Then there's methionine intake for HNMT (deactivating histamine via methylating). Milk, yogurt, eggs, chicken, are generally 1 to 1 methionine to histidine or more favored to methionine.

Cool, thanks.

So putting fruits , Joghurt, dark chocolate in a blender and eat/drink it is not a good idea because of the vitamin C / copper mix?

 

[Elize]

Would making tea in a copper tea pot from Kashmir provide a level of copper to ingest rather than using supplements

 

[redsun]

Cool, thanks.

So putting fruits , Joghurt, dark chocolate in a blender and eat/drink it is not a good idea because of the vitamin C / copper mix?

You would still absorb copper, but I don't know how much copper you would absorb. I don't think the natural ratio of vitamin C and copper present in foods are that much of an issue. You would need ridiculous amounts of vitamin C usually in the form of supplements to cause issue. But fruits have both C and copper, and likely you can absorb copper from fruits pretty easily.

If you hate the idea of liver (most do) and don't think you can eat much potatoes and very dark chocolate, copper from a good supplement may help. There are other foods highish in copper you can check out online, maybe there are some you like but copper in plants is not as bioavailable as copper from liver. If you pay for higher quality liver it may taste better, thats what I hear all the time.

Would making tea in a copper tea pot from Kashmir provide a level of copper to ingest rather than using supplements

Any copper that it would provide would likely not be significant.

 

[Elize]

Thanks for all you share redson

 

[Motif]

Dark chocolate daily is no issue.

I can’t eat liver too often and my main issue - I can’t eat a lot and least of all potatoes

I could add oats?

 

[Such_Umami]

After exercise I usually have a fruit drink to alkalize the body a bit, a pea protein shake and then some carbs. Stretching and meditation will also help you eliminate the acids that trigger cortisol.

 

[Elize]

Could you please recommend a copper supplement that would not trigger Histamine. Thanks