I started training about a year ago, finally completely stopped smoking 2 months ago and have significantly reduced my alcohol intake. I have a drink every now and then but I have cut out binge drinking. I try my best to stick to a healthy diet.

Basically I am happy with how my health and fitness is progressing but I have really baggy eyes all the time. People who haven't seen me in a while as if I have a black eye or something. I am wondering if this is perhaps related to my fitness regime.

Overtraining perhaps?

It could be related to fatigue. Some questions:

- When is your last meal of the day? Do you snack at all before bed?

- Have you lost a significant amount of sleep lately?

- Are you regularly stressed?

- How often do you train?

- How many hours of sleep do you get a night?

- Caffeine intake?

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"I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all the kinds of things you can't see from the center."

"I'm going to give you a definite... maybe."

The most common and easily noticeable symptom of over training is actually diminished self worth and grumpiness. Sounds more like a vitamin deficiency or a sleep problem. If you have lost a significant amount of weight weird shit like that can happen too.

credentials
ACE certified trainer
Competitive athlete

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You can't forget about me, stupid. Everywhere I go ima have my own theme music.

- I get to bed for midnight. My last meal is usually around 10, half 10.

- My sleep is often interrupted by noisy pets. I guess I have trouble sleeping but on days when I've jogged or worked out I sleep well.

- Yes I am regularly stressed. This is probably self inflicted and has more to do with my mindset than anything else!

- I train three times a week. I am following what I can of stronglifts at home. I used to switch one of these sessions for cardio or a martial arts class each week but have not done that for around a month in an attempt to bulk up.

- Typically I get 7-8 hours sleep per night. When I was doing cardio I was drinking loads of water through the day to keep hydrated but this was getting me up several times a night.

- I've cut out caffeine apart from on nights out when I sometimes drink soda.
I hear you on the grumpiness! I have always been the laid back type but now the smallest things really get me annoyed. I am a few kilos lighter than when I started, nothing drastic.

I have been taking a multivitamin everyday for 2 or 3 months.

Mood change usually indicates over training. Just cut back a bit because you are also diminishing your results and tempting injury. Check out the product juice plus. There are a lot of guys in my field who think there is no such thing as over training only under recovery. It's an interesting concept and I am mostly of the same opinion. I put a solid 5 hours a day in the gym with BJJ,Conditioning,Boxing, Strength, and SAQ training and I still don't ever feel over trained. Toss the multi and start trying to put the right shit in your body through proper diet.

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You can't forget about me, stupid. Everywhere I go ima have my own theme music.

Chances are, it's stress related. Prolonged stress can fuck with your system like you would not believe, having huge negative impacts. Definitely try and do everything you can to reduce it.

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"I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all the kinds of things you can't see from the center."

"I'm going to give you a definite... maybe."

Okay guys, thanks for your input. It is much appreciated.

Yea mate had the baggy eyed problem when i was training for a competition, lack of decent sleep, over training ,stress and had to cut my caffiene intake which was in the weightloss supps,this combination was causing high cortisol levels giving me the baggy eyed look so high cortisol levels might be a factor to look at.
good luck champ.

try using an ice mask and undereye cream

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life sucks and then you die! deal with it

i know what you mean and how annoying it can be to have the bags under the eyes as ive had them pretty much forever with breaks here and there of course. anyways, i brought it up not too long ago when i was visiting my doctor and pretty much what he said sounds pretty obvious yet it is most likely the reason behind it. there can be quite a few factors why you have them

-thats just how your body is

-sometimes the area under the eyes may act as allergy indicators

-lack of quality sleep

-dehydration

-stress indicators

these are just the most common ones. so if you wana get rid of them there are a few things you can do.

-aim to drink at least 2L of water a day. the more the better, especially if youre under a heavy training regime its better if you try to get about a gallon of H2O a day. how do you know whether you are hydrating properly? if you have to take a pee so often that it starts to be annoying:D
(soda and other soft drinks including juice you can buy at the store are not substitutes for water! freshly squeezed fruit juice is a different story of course...)

-sleep. you will need to get the right amount of sleep at the right time! especially if you are training hard! even if you get your 8-9 hours of sleep every night it does not necessarily mean that you are getting quality sleep! (not to mention annoying pets, being waken up by others, etc.) the most beneficial time for sleeping are the hours before midnight so if you go to midnight you will still feel a lot more tired in the morning than if you went to bed at 9-10 and slept for the same amount of time! just try goin to bed at 10pm, sleep for 8 hours and see how you feel in the morning...you`ll feel the difference no doubt.

-and thats where stress comes in too...if you are not well-rested, you are obviously tired and tired = stressed. so, if you get your quality sleep and your sleeping schedule worked out chances are youll be less stressed as well. also, try getting the things done that may stress you out as soon as possible instead of putting them off. it`ll pay off in the long run. if its people who stress you out mostly...it might be time to cut them off...after all you have to know whether the prize is worth the fight or not

-you could also get an allergy test done when you go to the doctor`s next just to be on the safe side. if you can also get tested for lactose/protein/etc intolerancy








-oh and another thing that you could do to hide the spots under your eyes until you get it sorted out is to use a concealer before you go out. yes, i am talking about make up. and on men...wtf?! isnt that gay? you might ask. the matter of the fact is that it hides the dark spots, blemishes, zits, etc amazingly therefore making you look a lot better which in the end can only benefit you especially when it comes to women. if you have no experience with make up, try it a few times at home before you go out until you figure out how much you need and how to apply it so it wont be too obvious...

cheers mate

He clearly just wants to give you wings... wah wah wahhhhh

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You can't forget about me, stupid. Everywhere I go ima have my own theme music.