Male Athlete Triad in D1 Athletes

Listen to your doctor and coach. You need testosterone to be successful. It's time to start fueling correctly. Less weight only helps in the short term, you'll have no energy eventually.

Yes i have. Eat more and get a bit heavier, then slowly start to lift weights a bit (not bodyweight) until mid-season. depending on the severity of your sitation, you may feel better at this point.

If you feel better, lose weight for the end of the season, no more than 5 pounds (assuming you have gained back weight.)

Generally, losing weight quickly is what causes this kind of thing. so either do it more progressively or don't do it.

What works for me is the following:

train heavy, race light. Better to train aerobics when heavier then in season lose weight to race faster. Less time at race weight is closer to healthy. Can run slower when heavier and train heart/lungs the same, then lose weight when workouts begin to transition to faster than subtempo.

you should probably work out with your coach and or nutritionist a good way to train effectively, maintain nutrition, and stay healthy. Different training plans call for a different approach.

Don't beat yourself up, I've thinned down too much and crashed for weeks and I'm a 30+ hobbyjogger.

The advice so far seems very sensible, eat more and better, I would say be careful not to pile weight on through sugar try to eat lots of protein carbs and fibre.

The advice to lift weights is in my opinion a great one. It's a very powerful way to raise testosterone. You can scale back as you get into the running season. Go for heavy weights low reps you arent shooting for hypertrophy.

OP I suffered similarly. I lost about 5 lbs and set PRs in college for 2 seasons. I was OK but not great for D1. Anyways I got greedy and decided in the off-season to lose more weight and ended up not coming anywhere close to my times senior year. Race weight is exactly that, peak weight. It is not sustainable long term or for hard training.

After graduating I put weight back on and got back into training. I am late 20s and 7lbs heavier than I was in college. I can actually finish workouts now and run more mileage. I am also faster at everything over 10k. I think if I did 5k training I could break that PR also but I’m focusing on the marathon now. I have energy throughout the day and turns out I like girls now whereas before I had no libido or desire.

Moral of the story is gain some weight back and ease back into things. It’s OK to be heavy at the start of the of the season. An extra 3-5lbs is worth being able to train harder and recover better. Lose the scale also. I keep mine in a cabinet and weigh myself only once a week. Good luck!

Check in with your doc for some "supplementation." Wink, wink. ;-)