[surferjoe2007]

Thanks everyone for the responses! I appreciate all the feedback.

Hopefully my next hormone test will be more comprehensive so I can shed more light on the internal workings of my body. But until then, I will keep chugging along and tweaking my lifestyle (with the help of your suggestions!) to see what works best for me.

I'd also like to say - I do maintain a healthy lifestyle (apart from my desk job, which can't be helped) but I never claimed my body was healthy. I have always been frail and gotten sick easily so I've paid attention to factors such as diet and exercise to control what I can. Having a clean diet and an active lifestyle can only improve health. I know I don't have it down perfectly, but who does?

But what's actually a good diet? There's a lot of misinformation.

This site is nice because it takes the data from the USDA to show you food nutrient content, and it has a fancy nutrient search engine too: http://nutritiondata.self.com/foods-0001...00000.html

That way you can find anything you might be missing that you need. If your diet is missing various nutrients then what looked like a healthy diet could be hurting your health and causing your body to be lacking what it needs to heal whatever issues you may have. Especially if you're focused on which foods to avoid rather than focusing on which foods you need to get. Even refined foods are proven unhealthy only because they have had their nutritious portion removed. They aren't the slightest bit harmful, rather they are missing what is helpful. That's what makes people who live primarily on them unhealthy. Merely avoiding them means nothing towards whether or not your diet is healthy. What kind of nutrition are they replaced with?

[SapphireRain]

Ella -
I took a saliva hormone test. Although now I am looking into a blood panel to test for issues with my thyroid. I'd love to have lab results and not just guess at the issue.

Joe -
Thanks for your input! I typically eat clean and balanced (organic/cage-free eggs, mostly grass-fed/organic meats, lots of fruits and veggies, healthy fats like avocados, seeds, coconut oil, etc etc) but I get your point about nutrition. Part of my issue is that I have a poor digestive system and even when I intake nutrients, they're not always absorbed like I'd want. That makes things a lot harder for me but I'll keep trying to sneak those pesky nutrients in! I read through the thread you posted and have some questions about your seeds recipe. But I'll ask those over on your thread so others can see as well.