Recovering from Low Calorie Dieting

[bigo]

About a year ago, I started a fairly aggressive cut. I was eating around 1300 calories with an occasional cheat day for a year (i was stupid and didn’t know how to diet properly). I’m 5’8 and I was around 150 pounds at the time, but skinny fat so I decided to cut first rather than bulk or body recomp. I had all the symptoms of low testosterone like severe brain fog, lethargy, absolutely zero libido, no morning wood. I went to get my test checked and it was in the middle range of ~400 ng/dL. Since then, I’ve been bulking. I’m eating 2800 calories everyday for the past three months. During the first week of increasing my calories my sex drive went through the roof, but it dropped since then. I’m back to having no libido. I don’t have crazy brain fog and i’m not lethargic anymore, but my sex drive is shot. I was wondering if anyone knows how long it takes to recover from eating low calories over an extended time.

 

[dawn16]

@bigo It’s complicated to say because recovery from very strict dieting has many aspects. https://www.strongerbyscience.com/metabolic-adaptation/ - part 3 of this article covers recovery for physique competitors after a show, they have severe metabolic and hormonal changes due to cutting to nearly essential body fat. Most of the processes recover within 3-6 months.

 

[lrodrigu1]

@bigo I did an even more extreme diet (800-1200kcal) for the same amount of time and 5 years later I'm still not fully recovered

 

[frank69]

@lrodrigu1 What are your symptom?

 

[lrodrigu1]

@frank69 Hormones out of whack. LH and TSH high, testosterone low for a man with my muscle to fat ratio, myriad of neurological symptoms (tinnitus, visual snow, brain fog etc.), severe anxiety and other issues and pain in nearly every joint.

Some got significantly better, others stayed almost the same. Overall it did get a lot better but never completely recovered.

 

[frank69]

@lrodrigu1 Thanks for your answer have a good day !

 

[lrodrigu1]

@frank69 Good luck on your recovery!

 

[spud1980]

@lrodrigu1 Have you checked prolactin?

 

[leyanis]

@bigo Have done more or less a similar mistake ; underfueled marathon training + weightlifting for 6+ months. Started to bulk at 1000-2000cal surplus once I realized what was going on. Been almost 3 months, still recovering but feeling a lot better. Almost gained zero weight during that time.

Just eat way more. Seriously.

 

[elenamaria_9]

@bigo What's your training like? If you're going wild with high volume training, it might be impacting it.

Additionally, if I'm stalling at the gym in general (from past poor training protocols) i think my test levels maybe stall a bit as well; at least libido seems to.