Marc Lou@marclou
This was a mistake.
In 2024, my wife and I started a low-carb / low-calorie diet.
For me, the impact wasn’t critical:
+ Low testosterone (133 ng/mL)
+ Lack of energy for heavy workouts
+ Low body fat, but muscles were maintained
+ Felt good overall
My wife had a very different experience:
+ Significant weight loss
+ Wrecked sleep (wakes up at 2 a.m., can’t fall back asleep)
+ Lack of overall energy (not just for workouts)
+ Female hormones dropped to extremely low levels
+ Reduced libido, missed periods
It took us almost 2 years to find the culprit.
At first, we blamed her sleep habits: We stopped eating a while before bed, stopped drinking coffee, etc. Then we blamed her workout intensity—so she stopped doing Hyrox and switched to lighter training like pilates.
Two months ago, during our usual 6-month blood test in Korea, she decided to also check her female hormone levels (Estradiol & Luteinizing).
They were at an extreme low (3.5x lower than minimum normal levels)
We then saw a gynecologist in Korea, who explained that the low-calorie diet was the source of all her problems. Wonji has been eating more (and reintroduced carbs), and her symptoms are disappearing step by step:
+ More energy
+ Close to perfect sleep
+ Reasonable muscle and weight gain
+ More libido (nice!)
+ Periods are back
We blindly followed @bryan_johnson’s ethos: “every calorie must fight for its life.”
It was our mistake to assume that what works for a 48-year-old man with medical care would also work for a 33-year-old woman.
