{Learn how to fix your low basal body temperature – a guest post by Matt Stone of www.180degreehealth.com}
Donielle contacted me recently because so many of her readers were complaining about having a low body temperature – something that is very common, practically universal, among women with standard menstrual and fertility issues. Since I’m notorious for making women hot, yeah baby, and I even have a “Hot Chicks Club” for all the women who have obtained a consistent waking luteal phase body temperature of 99 degrees Fahrenheit or higher… I guess I’m the go-to guy on this issue.
While I could soften it and explain the particulars of the science and massage you into accepting that the advice I have has validity, I think it might be best if I just keep it simple. And slap you upside the head with it. If you would like to find out more about the basis of why the following information works so well (and I have 30,000 comments on my website confirming that it does indeed work very well – for raising body temperature, restoring menstruation, improving fertility, and many other metabolism-related disorders), I have put out several materials on it – the best and most recent being Diet Recovery: Restoring Hormonal Health, Metabolism, Mood, and Your Relationship with Food. (available on Amazon)*
So let’s get on with it.
The quick explanation of the problem at hand is that if the human body goes through the supply of something faster than it is being delivered, the body down-regulates metabolism to slow down the rate at which it burns through stuff (namely calories and nutrients). There are other factors involved, most of them hereditary in nature (but can still be overcome with the right approach).
In a world in which we have developed serious calorie phobia, carbohydrate phobia, fatphobia, couch potato phobia, saturated fat and cholesterol phobia, and more – almost all women in today’s society have grown so accustomed to actively eating below appetite, with dietary restriction, and exercising vigorously that they don’t even realize that they are basically engaged in disordered eating.
This is particularly harmful to women who are already coming into the world with a suppressed metabolism, which is becoming increasingly common due to our nutrient-poor diet, the dieting our mothers did (kids of dieting mothers have a known increased risk of obesity and type 2 diabetes), chronic physiological stressors, and countless other factors.
To make a long story short, if you have a reduced morning body temperature (this is the most important time to check as this is the best indicator of your absolute lowest metabolic rate), cold hands and feet (another powerful indicator of low metabolism), or other signs of a low metabolism (constipation, frequent infection, yeast issues, chronic fatigue, low sex drive, abnormal menstrual cycle, thinning hair, puffy eyes or water retention, poor fingernail growth, poor strength, hypoglycemia, and others) – the typical modern approach of beating yourself into submission with dietary restriction (even just being a health nut) and lots of “cardio” exercise will take you much farther away from a healthy metabolism. It is counterproductive and worsens the underlying disorder.
Dr. Atkins perhaps said it best when he wrote…
“…remember that prolonged dieting (this one [meaning the Atkins diet], low-fat, low-calorie, or a combination) tends to shut down thyroid function. This is usually not a problem with the thyroid gland (therefore blood tests are likely to be normal) but with the liver, which fails to convert T4 into the more active thyroid principle, T3. The diagnosis is made on clinical ground with the presence of fatigue, sluggishness, dry skin, coarse or falling hair, an elevation in cholesterol, or a low body temperature. I ask my patients to take four temperature readings daily before the three meals and near bedtime. If the average of all these temperatures, taken for at least three days, is below 97.8 degrees F (36.5 C), that is usually low enough to point to this form of thyroid problem; lower readings than that are even more convincing.”
Keep in mind that the metabolic rate – the active thyroid in your system being a primary factor in your metabolic rate, determines the rate at which pregnenolone is converted to progesterone – the pro-gestation hormone. That’s why, when metabolism is low, fertility is poor. When metabolism increases, your chances of conception and a successful pregnancy skyrocket. I highly recommend going through the following steps to anyone looking to get pregnant – whether having problems or not. Having a high metabolism going into pregnancy, and producing abundant progesterone has all kinds of benefits to the offspring – from increased brain size/development to increased ratio of muscle mass to body fat. And it’s good for moms too. Progesterone increases the elasticity of cervical tissues! Making childbirth a LOT less painful.
Alright, so we’re finally getting to the useful stuff. If you consistently have a body temperature below 98 degrees F when you wake up in the morning (rectal temps being the most reliable), you can fix this. It is not hard unless you consider being on vacation and spa days hard. It is very common for people of all ages, male and female, to see increases in body temperature from as low as 95F to 98F and above in less than 30 days. It really is that simple and reliable. The hard part is getting people to try it because it sounds so strange in contrast to the exercise more/eat less, ‘carbs are the devil’ and/or ‘saturated fat is the devil’ and ‘no pain no gain’ brainwashing that has taken place over the last half-century.
How to raise body temperature and increase your chances of having a successful pregnancy…
- Eat as much nutritious food as you can every day. Emphasize the more calorie-dense unrefined carbohydrates like root vegetables, fruit, and grains in particular, but also eat a satisfying amount of meat, fat, dairy products (milk is incredible for body temperature), and whatever else that you find enjoyable. But keep it as nutritious and unprocessed as possible.
- Eat beyond appetite. This is key. Eating more than you want to eat is what forces your body to get out of its low metabolism rut.
- Go at least 12 hours straight per day without food – you don’t want to be overeating for more than half the day. So if you eat dinner at 7 pm, have breakfast at 7 am. I believe this practice can make the body more responsive to the hormone leptin, probably the most important hormone in fertility (because it raises thyroid and progesterone).
- Get as much sleep as possible. Sleep is an incredibly powerful tool for raising metabolism.
- Avoid vigorous exercise. This is not a permanent recommendation obviously. You can resume getting more vigorous exercise once your body temperature is fully restored.
- Emphasize saturated fats over unsaturated fats. Dairy products, red meat, and coconut products are the best source of dietary saturated fats. You should eat these preferentially over nuts, seeds, vegetable oils, avocado, and other plant fats – as well as pork and poultry, when possible.
- De-stress. While eating a lot, sleeping a lot, and avoiding excessive exercise is inherently de-stressing, it also pays to spend time doing something that you find leisurely or enjoyable and mentally and physically relaxing, which is highly individual. Massage and sunbathing would be my two personal favorites!
And, well. That’s all there is to it.
Enjoy.
Note – you will probably not feel well when you start doing this but will feel bloated, hungover, and extremely fatigued and drowsy. Those are not bad signs, but signs of deep physiological relaxation and/or signs of adjustment to the new transition. Be patient. Give it a full 30-day trial.
Matt Stone, author of 7 books, is an independent health researcher who emphasizes the dangers of dieting and restricted and restrained eating of many varieties, and raising metabolism naturally. He is the voice of www.180degreehealth.com
Note from Donielle – I use the iBasal* for checking daily basal temperatures and love that it also keeps track of my cycle and fertile days for me. Matt uses this thermometer*.
