Elwin Robinson

What does your temperature an hour after lunch say about your cellular energy? When your cells aren't making enough energy, everything feels like an enormous effort, from getting out of bed to making decisions. Here's a way to help you evaluate yours. Put a thermometer in your mouth about an hour after your second meal of the day, which for most people is lunch, and see if your temperature is around 37 Celsius or 98.6 Fahrenheit. A little either side of that is fine. When your metabolism is up because you're stressed, it often drops once you eat, so the temperature after a meal is the real one. Make sure the thermometer is accurate. Digital ones usually aren't, because they give you a different reading every time, and forehead scanners are the least accurate. A non-digital one needs about five minutes in your mouth. If you're consistently not around that temperature after you eat, that's a good indication that a lack of cellular energy may be a significant factor in why everything feels like such an effort.

Before you start anything that pulls toxins out of storage in your body, like pushing yourself hard in a hot sauna, a niacin flush, chelation or a fast, take your temperature for three days. Take it in your mouth about an hour before lunch and about an hour after lunch, so both readings land somewhere between three and seven hours after you wake. Keep your mouth closed for at least five minutes, and don't talk. Ideally use an old style liquid in glass thermometer, and if you'd rather use a digital one, get one that reads to two decimal places. If you've just come out of a sauna or a hot bath, or just finished exercise, wait, because those skew the reading, and make a note of anything else that could, like high doses of hormones such as testosterone or growth hormone, other medications, or menopause. After three days, average those six daytime readings. If the average is 36.8 C (98.2 F) or above, you've met the temperature part of the check, and 37 C (98.6 F) is the optimum. Between 36.6 and 36.8 C (97.9 to 98.2 F), the safer choice is to wait. Below 36.6 C (97.9 F), wait, and hold off on anything that pulls toxins out of storage. If what you're planning is a fast, the bar is higher: a stable daytime 37 C (98.6 F), because fasting, especially for more than a couple of days, reliably reduces your metabolism. Temperature isn't the only part of my readiness check. You also want a resting pulse of roughly 65 to 85 after five minutes sitting down, bowels that move fully every day, an ordinary meal or a bit of exercise not leaving you feeling worse afterward, and not being in the middle of a bad patch. Helen, one of the people I've worked with, was tired, constipated and pushing herself hard in a hot sauna to detox, and she felt worse after it. Her daytime average came out below 36.6 C (97.9 F), and her resting pulse was low as well. With her metabolism that low, anything that released stored toxins into her blood would probably make her feel worse. So she stopped pushing the sauna, held off on anything that pulls toxins out of storage, and cut down on the toxins coming in instead. If you're planning any kind of detox, get a thermometer and do your three days first.

If you take creatine, your creatinine may come back slightly high on bloodwork. That's normal, and it isn't a sign of kidney damage. The creatine itself raises it. Creatinine is a breakdown product of creatine, so more creatine in means more creatinine out. Doctors who don't know this can mistake that higher creatinine for impaired kidney function. eGFR, the number on a standard blood panel that estimates how well your kidneys are filtering, is worked out from creatinine, so it can come back low for the same reason. Vigorous exercise raises creatinine too, because your body is breaking down muscle, and dehydration raises it as well, but neither of those is kidney damage. eGFR is on standard panels because it's cheap, and if yours comes back low, I'd ask for cystatin C before concluding anything. It's a kidney marker that isn't affected by creatine or exercise.

When a child is really aggressive, it may not be their character. It can be lead toxicity. Lead works differently from most toxins. Your body can't tell lead and calcium apart very well, so if you have a lot of lead, your body starts using it in place of calcium, including on the proteins that control how your nerves send signals, and then those cells don't work. That's an even bigger issue in a growing child, who's still building their brain and body. Lead can cause a lot of behavioral issues. It can also stunt their growth and significantly lower their IQ, which is the biggest predictor of success, and even of health, over a person's lifetime. If that happens when you're young, I'd say it's as ruinous as severe trauma and abuse, possibly even more so, because you can maybe overcome those, but you can't overcome a low IQ. So when I hear about a child who's super aggressive, the kind who might get labeled with oppositional defiant disorder or ADD, my reaction is: test them for lead. Maybe they have those issues and it's nothing to do with any toxin, but aggression can be an indicator.

I started taking activated charcoal after every meal, and I ended up absorbing more nutrients, not fewer. That's the opposite of the common worry, which is that charcoal soaks up your nutrients. I'd been underweight all my life. I started the charcoal as part of a protocol for mycotoxins, the toxins mold produces, and took it about two to two and a half hours after each meal, as the first thing I drank. Once I was doing that, I got hungrier more quickly, because one of the main things stopping me from being hungry, it turns out, was the toxins. If you feel poisoned enough, you're not hungry. The charcoal mopped them up, I was able to eat more, and so I was able to absorb more. Charcoal was a meaningful part of that, and so was bile flow. They worked together. I know it's anecdotal, and I wouldn't generalize from it. But I went from about 70 kilos (154 pounds), and quite deficient in quite a few nutrients according to thorough testing, to having almost no deficiencies two years later in amino acids, vitamins, minerals or essential fats. By then I weighed around 85 kilos (187 pounds), with my waist the same size.

A foot bath with baking soda and citric acid, two cooking ingredients you can get in most stores, leaves me warmer and more relaxed afterwards. You put about equal amounts of each into the water. When they combine they produce carbon dioxide (CO2), so the water starts fizzing and bubbling and smells just like carbonated water. Then you let those little bubbles rest on your skin, and the CO2 is absorbed through it. It's a nice little boost, and it feels really good. CO2 helps to speed up the metabolism, so afterwards I notice my temperature is higher, I feel more relaxed and I feel better. This comes from the work of Dr. Ray Peat and his followers. It's an experimental practice, not a clinically validated protocol, but many people find it valuable. If you want to try it, start with a few tablespoons of each in a foot bath the first time, so you know how your body responds. Using too much can actually give you a panic attack instead of relaxing you, so build up over time. Keep the water around body temperature or slightly lower, not too hot, because the CO2 is better absorbed that way. If you have sensitive skin, test a smaller amount first, as citric acid can irritate some people's skin. And if you have a serious heart or lung condition, don't do this without checking with your doctor first. For most people it's a pleasant, deeply relaxing experience.