I was interested in 10-12-15 NY Magazine article I Am Training for a Marathon. So Why Am I Getting Fat? I thought they might at least allude to what I see in athletes sometimes, where a common cluster of imbalances: gut dysbiosis, thyroid & adrenal hypofunction, sex hormone imbalances, vitamin/mineral depletions, subclinical mitochondropathy can show up as weight loss resistance or weight gain despite pushing oneself through intense exercise. Alas, there wasn’t a hint of a mention of underlying metabolic/biochemical/microbial disturbances in the article. Rather, the focus was on calorie consumption & perception of exertion vs real exertion. This notion is true enough, and I personally experienced it when I was in school and rode my bike avidly: I wasn’t immune to weight gain if I ate too much, despite a ton of exercise. But I’ve also seen athletes suffer profoundly when the underlying imbalances are not identified and corrected; they gain weight, fatigue easily and turn out poorer performances despite a full training schedule. The psychological examination and push to exercise harder in these instances can rebound and become a form of self-abuse. Here’s just such a case that we turned around in a fairly straight-forward way using FxMed.
Author: Kara Fitzgerald, ND
https://www.drkarafitzgerald.com/ Kara Fitzgerald, ND, received her doctor of naturopathic medicine degree from the National University of Natural Medicine in Portland, Oregon. She completed the first Counsel on Naturopathic Medicine-accredited post-doctorate position in nutritional biochemistry and laboratory science at Metametrix Clinical Laboratory under the direction of Richard Lord, PhD. Her residency was completed at Progressive Medical Center, a large, integrative medical practice in Atlanta, Georgia.
Dr. Fitzgerald is the lead author and editor of Case Studies in Integrative and Functional Medicine and is a contributing author to Laboratory Evaluations for Integrative and Functional Medicine and the Institute for Functional Medicine (IFM)’s Textbook for Functional Medicine. With the Helfgott Research Institute, Dr. Fitzgerald is actively engaged in clinical research on the DNA methylome using a diet and lifestyle intervention developed in her practice. The first publication from the study focuses on reversal of biological aging and was published 04-12-2021 in the journal Aging. She has published a consumer book titled Younger You as well as a companion cookbook, Better Broths and Healing Tonics and has an application-based Younger You Program, based on the study.
Dr. Fitzgerald is on the faculty at IFM, is an IFM Certified Practitioner and lectures globally on functional medicine. She runs a Functional Nutrition Residency program, and maintains a podcast series, New Frontiers in Functional Medicine and an active blog on her website, www.drkarafitzgerald.com. Her clinical practice is in Sandy Hook, Connecticut.
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