Dr. Kruse has been busy writing some monster posts. This time it's  about adapting your body to cold by immersing yourself into ice cold water. Well, to be honest when I first read this blog post: The Evolution of the Leptin Reset I saw this:

I hope you all realize that not everyone will need it. Some will need it because they have special needs that they face. This blog is designed for those who have been previously left out of the the reset protocol. Those people are gastric bypass patients, HCG users, those on exogenous steroids, chronic pain patients, and those with T2D and metabolic syndrome as a few examples.

And I thought to myself, this doesn't apply to me. As I read over the blog post that first time, I didn't pay a whole lot of attention, apparently. Because the next time I read it all the way through, more carefully, I found this:

If you have a gastric bypass, T2D, chronic pain and on narcotics, adrenal fatigue, or poor sleep this addition will likely shock you at how well it helps you.

Adrenal fatigue. Poor sleep. That's me…

And then in this blog post: The Holy Trinity CT-4 I saw this:

When it shreds fat mass,  it makes leptin fall dramtically while increasing TRH in the hypothalmus and demolishing reverse T3 levels. No, you do not need to eat Moose thyroid to have reproductive fitness if you are cold adapted  as was recently reported in a podcast. You might have to eat that moose thyroid if you are warm adapted mammal though!!!

In cold, it is like throwing gasoline on your thyroid gland. It just wakes up no matter what its prior condition,  because the brain takes full control of it all by driving all thyroid production by its hypothalamic TRH spike driven by the cold stimulus! This happens even if your thyroid gland is in a surgical pan in some Operating Room in the world.

You will radiate heat in cold, even though your body temperature is lower. My wife can’t believe how I radiate heat from my body now. You might be asking how do we bypass T3, T4 and rev T3? It up-regulates all thyroid function regardless of the T3, T4 or reverse T3 status because the brain is driving the thyroid function. It does not even require an intact thyroid gland!

Demolish reverse T3 levels?

Fix your thyroid even if it has been removed by surgery?

Whoa.

I gotta confess. After being so strict on the leptin reset in November, December and the first part of January I started sliding. During February I went a little hog wild with carbohydrates, after all some people seem to think it's such a buzz kill to eat low carb. But as I've discussed on my blog before, I apparently do not tolerate carbohydrates well at all. Eating too many carbs can push me right into a depressive funk and it's difficult to find my way out. I've been having trouble sleeping again and one night last week I told my husband trying to get a full night's sleep has become one of the hardest things I've ever tried to do in my life. Because if I can't sleep, I can't make myself sleep. I just lay there and it's sheer torture knowing I have to get up and go to work the next morning. I have to stay in bed twelve hours, just to get 6 to 8 hours of sleep. Thank God my boss has given me permission to set my own hours or I would have had to quit my job and right now I'm the sole breadwinner. Quitting my job is not an option at this point in time. Maybe at some time down the road, but not anywhere near that I can see. It used to be that I could just get up and go. Force myself to get out of bed and face the day. Sure I cried in the shower, begging God to help me find the strength. But now I cannot even force myself. Please remember if you are new here or not completely familiar with my journey thus far, that I had great improvements in the first six months on GAPS. And I felt better than I had for years at my one year anniversary, but then 2011 was a very difficult year wherein my husband did his best to try and make his business success, but in the process it was super stressful for me, tons of chronic stress, and finally in August there was the Attack of the Jalapeno Peppers which landed me in Urgent Care after three weeks of pain, itching, and swelling to my face. I've been trying to get back to where I was in December 2010 since about September of 2011.

I am pretty sure my current sleep problems are related to the higher consumption of carbs… Monday night my sleep was horrid and in spite of staying in bed until 8am on Tuesday morning I had to drag myself out of bed and get dressed and go to work. While driving to work on Tuesday morning I sobbed on the phone (using my earbuds) to my wonderfully sympathetic and understanding friend, and it hit me right in the gut that I had to get off the carbs. I had to resume eating less than 25 grams of carbs and this time I had better pay attention. How many times will it take until I understand?

I feel much better tonight, and I was even able to skip lunch today. That fast. Just two days on low carb and I see dramatic changes.

Now back to the cold thermogenesis… I've decided to give it a whirl. Dr. Kruse says to start with your face, and he outlines the process and the stages here: The Evolution of the Leptin Reset.

I'm set up in my bathroom with a bowl that is big enough to hold about 1 gallon of water. My husband has been helping me. He's been putting a bucket of water in the freezer to get it super cold and he has all the fun tools for measuring temperature. Actually, this one belongs to me:

I bought it a couple of years ago to ascertain where the leaks were in our home – this product works great for detecting air leaks around your doors, windows and even cracks in the wall. It also works well to figure out the temperature of your skin. You could also use a Kitchen Thermometer.

After you read Dr. Kruse's outline, here are some tips I'd like to share with you from my experience thus far:

1. Take a deep breath before you lower your face into the water. (Duh. But I didn't think of that initially).
2. Use a bowl or dishpan on the counter next to your bathroom sink. It is the right height for me, and comfortable placing both my forearms on either side of the bowl, resting on the counter while immersing my face.
3. Have two receptacles so that as the water in one warms up due to your face being immersed you can switch out to the second one.
4.  I have a battery operated clock hanging on the wall in my bathroom and it is pretty loud as the second hand moves, so I can count the seconds that I'm holding my face in the water.
5. So far the longest I have been able to hold my breath has been 60 seconds. The other times are 35 or 45 seconds.
6. I've been dunking my face 7 to 10 times in the cold water.
7. Have a towel and tissues nearby, and a clean top (water drips down your chin onto your shirt). The tissue is for your nose… if it's anything like mine it may begin to run profusely with the 4th or 5th dunking.
8. It's going to hurt at first, so just dunk until you can't stand it, wait a few seconds or a minute and try again.
9. After 4-5 dunks your face will begin to get cold enough that it won't be so painful.

Click here for a few more tips I've found over the days.

Here are the articles at Dr. Kruse's, some of these are HUGE posts. I have been copying and pasting them into Word, enlarging the font to 16, printing them to PDF and sending them to my Kindle. (This saves paper and gets me away from the computer screen).

• The Evolution of the Leptin Reset – the Cold Thermogenesis Protocol
• Cold Thermogenesis Part 1
• Cold Thermogenesis Part 2  Reader summary: Are you aware that you can easily change your metabolism at home? Do you know that you can change your calorie needs, too?
• Cold Thermogenesis Part 3  Reader summary: What is evolutionary strategy based upon? Why is circadian biology critical?
• The Holy Trinity – CT4
• Cold Thermogenesis Part 5
• Cold Thermogenesis Part 6

Patty over at Loving My Guts is having a cold water challenge beginning on March 12th. Hop over to her blog and join in with her challenge if you are into it.