u/BossKitchen8054

I’m a 25-year-old male trying to understand a set of symptoms that have been affecting my daily life for a while. One of the biggest issues is that I often feel abnormally cold, especially in my hands and fingers—they can feel freezing even after eating. I’ve also noticed that when I push myself physically or mentally, I don’t respond well. If I do more intense exercise at the gym (especially lifting), I often crash for several days afterward, and the same thing can happen if I push myself mentally at work. However, I can walk 10–15k steps without any issue and don’t seem to crash from that. When I do push myself, I also develop very noticeable dark circles under my eyes and look pale to the point that other people comment that I look sick. On top of that, I often wake up feeling unrefreshed and sometimes feel like my brain is “off,” with energy levels that fluctuate a lot—sometimes I feel normal, other times completely drained. For background, I had a period of restrictive eating in my early 20s but have been weight-restored (around 160 lbs at 5’8”) for nearly two years now. My hemoglobin has been normal, but I haven’t had my ferritin checked.

I’m wondering if anyone—especially other males—has experienced something similar and found it was related to low ferritin or iron stores even without anemia, and whether low ferritin could cause this kind of cold sensitivity, visible changes with exertion (dark circles/paleness), and delayed crashes after pushing yourself.

Any insight would be extremely helpful. Thank you so much!

I’m wondering if anyone here has experienced something similar, especially after a period of restrictive eating.

When I was around 20–21, I went through a phase of pretty significant restriction. I was barely eating, and I became very hyper-focused on hitting a certain number of steps every day. I would even interrupt what I was doing just to make sure I hit those goals. Over time, I lost a lot of weight.

During that time, I saw multiple doctors, but none of them really connected how I was feeling (low energy, depressed, etc.) to my weight. I was eventually prescribed sertraline. I was on it for several months, but I’ve since come off it.

Now, 3-4 years later, I’m back at a healthy weight and have been for a while. But I still deal with some really strange symptoms that are honestly affecting my daily life.

If I go even a few hours without eating, I start to feel freezing cold. Sometimes I get very anxious out of nowhere. Other times, if I push myself mentally or physically (even something like focusing hard or playing a game), I feel like I “crash.” Before that happens, I’ll sometimes notice physical signs—like I look very pale or get dark circles under my eyes, to the point where other people comment on it.

I also seem to have a weird pattern with exercise: if I do something like walking, I can handle many steps in a day with no problem. But if I push myself more intensely at the gym (especially muscular effort), I often feel like I crash a day or even two days later, and those crashes can last for several days.

What’s been really frustrating is that this feels like a cycle I’m stuck in. I’ll crash for a few days, then gradually recover back to feeling normal—good energy, stable mood, able to function—and then something like work stress or a harder workout will trigger another crash.

The severity is significant—I’ve had to take time off work because of these crashes.

I’ve been to doctors, but they usually just run basic bloodwork and everything comes back normal. No one has really given me an explanation.

I’m trying to figure out if this could be related to blood sugar, my past restriction, or something else entirely.

Has anyone else experienced ongoing symptoms like this even after being weight-restored for a long time? Did you ever figure out what was causing it?

Any insight would really help.

I’m wondering if anyone here has experienced something similar, especially after a period of restrictive eating.

When I was around 20–21, I went through a phase of pretty significant restriction. I was barely eating (sometimes just something small like a piece of fruit for breakfast), and I became very hyper-focused on hitting a certain number of steps every day. I would even interrupt what I was doing just to make sure I hit those goals. Over time, I lost a lot of weight.

During that time, I saw multiple doctors, but none of them really connected how I was feeling (low energy, depressed, etc.) to my weight. I was eventually prescribed sertraline and went up to 200 mg. I was on it for several months, but I’ve since come off it.

Now I’m 25 and back at a healthy weight and have been for a while. But I still deal with some really strange symptoms that are honestly affecting my daily life.

If I go even a few hours without eating, I start to feel freezing cold. Sometimes I get very anxious out of nowhere. Other times, if I push myself mentally or physically (even something like focusing hard or playing a game), I feel like I “crash.” Before that happens, I’ll sometimes notice physical signs—like I look very pale or get dark circles under my eyes, to the point where other people comment on it.

I also seem to have a weird pattern with exercise: if I do something like walking, I can handle 10–15k steps in a day with no problem. But if I push myself more intensely at the gym (especially muscular effort), I often feel like I crash a day or even two days later, and those crashes can last for several days.

What’s been really frustrating is that this feels like a cycle I’m stuck in. I’ll crash for a few days, then gradually recover back to feeling normal—good energy, stable mood, able to function—and then something like work stress or a harder workout will trigger another crash.

The severity is significant—I’ve had to take time off work because of these crashes.

I’ve been to doctors, but they usually just run basic bloodwork and everything comes back normal. No one has really given me an explanation.

I’m trying to figure out if this could be related to blood sugar, my past restriction, or something else entirely.

Has anyone else experienced ongoing symptoms like this even after being weight-restored for a long time? Did you ever figure out what was causing it?

Any insight would really help.