Did anyone overcome exercise intolerance?

General Discussion
#1

I know this is a fairly common symptom, where guys on here report feeling terrible after weightlifting. For me it makes me feel exhausted, gives me intense brain fog, and when I sleep it leaves me incredibly groggy and almost disassociated from the prior day. Another thing I notice is that it triggers an allergenic response in my body where I sometimes sneeze and get a runny nose.

I posted about this last summer where I’d say I worked out steady for about 4 months (I actually made a post about this last summer in 2021). School started back up and for 8 months my exercise was much more minimal. I am back going to the gym and immediately notice a return of these symptoms.

My question is whether anyone on here found success in just pushing through it? Did your body eventually adjust? I’m willing to suffer through it if there’s hope of me acclimating.

#2

I don’t know about exercise
but i suffer fluctuations about what i tolerate or what not… so in my case is variable with time

#3

I have improved a ton in this area. I can now lift weights and play sports multiple times a week.

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#4

Exercise intolerance hasn’t improved for me.

#5

I had almost zero exercise tolerance for several years (exercise caused me almost the same symptoms as you). For over a year now, I have been able to exercise every day. Each session is relatively short (15-20 minutes). I exercise in such a way as to produce an anabolic effect without over stimulating the adrenal glands. Of course, I don’t have a ready-made solution - it’s a synergistic effect of diet, lifestyle and supplements. If I stop sticking to my protocol, exercise tolerance goes down.

And one more note: regardless of the benefits of my protocol as a whole, I broke through the intolerance very slowly. At the beginning I was able to lift a light dumbbell (8 kg) once during one training session or run 50 meters (that’s all my body would allow me to do - with a lot of effort). Now I have no problems to run 5 sprint distances (each about 100 meters) or do 100-200 push-ups. For me, this is a great success that I didn’t even dream about in 2017 or 2018.

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#6

@Sugarhouse

By exercise intolerance, what do you mean exactly?
What do you consider exercise? a 30min walk, is considered exercise in your cases?

#7

I can handle light exercise such as walking or even riding a bike for 15 minutes. But if I do weights or anything medium or high intensity, I suffer greatly the day after.

#8

What symptoms do you experience the next day?

#10

Thank you for finding the answer to my question.

Hm, sounds exactly the same as it looked in my case. For several days after exercise I experienced intense brain fog, anxiety, increased gynecomastia (and body fatness in general), near inability to do work, pain in the adrenal area, headaches, icy body, constipation, more bloating, digestive problems, etc. Something similar has happened after orgasm.

I think the key in my case was the adrenal glands being over stimulated after exercise. For years I feared that I was suffering from some kind of adrenal fatigue, but it wasn’t until an all-day urine cortisol test showed that my problems were more due to excessive cortisol output. Even diet and a very healthy lifestyle in general was not enough. The key to overcoming exercise intolerance was breathing exercises, meditation, and changing exercises so that a single exercise or series of exercises (requiring medium to heavy effort) would not last longer than 15 seconds for me.

In fact, all of these symptoms that I listed at the beginning above still accompany me, but only when I overtrain my body. However, it almost never happens (and when it does, my body recovers much faster), because I have my established training pattern.

#11

Yes I did, it took me about 2 years after my crash for my body to finally respond in a positive manner. I started slow, just walking on the treadmill, eventually started running, then introduced weight lifting a few months later.

I’ve been working out consistently for almost 8 years now, no problems.

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#13

How are you nowadays compared to the beginning of the disease?

#14

Much better, I would say I’m about 75-80% of what I was before my crash. Can’t complain much about the physical symptoms at this point, in all honesty it’s the emotional disconnect/blunted feelings that are my main problem at this point.

#15

I did overcome this.

Took a long time with careful exercise though.

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#16

Not sure I’d call it intolerance but I notice accelerated wastage after exercise. Like my body is cannibalizing structural tissue for energy and not rebuilding like before PFS. Tissue that was once nurtured and replenished is now expendable.

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#17

@mstone same here, all we can do is hope it plateaus at some point. Frankhenstein and his friends have really fucked us over

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#18

This is a factor in those with muscle loss.

Insulin not only lowers blood sugar levels, but promotes the growth and proliferation of cells; insufficient action of insulin has been thought to result in the suppression of growth and proliferation of muscle cells, which in turn contribute to the decline in skeletal muscle mass.

The development of insulin resistance correlated with the dramatic onset of my muscle, tissue loss. Fasting is one of the best things we can so to get over this and has often been key to the recovery stories.

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