During my training in Wudangshan, I found the first six months to be physically the hardest. As my body adapted to the training routine I frequently felt the following symptoms:

• Tired muscles
• Lack of drive
• Powerless
• Concentration weakness

Most of this symptoms originate from an iodine deficiency which results from sweating a lot. You should not forget that Chinese people eat fundamentally different food and in some cases, you might not be able to do the same. For me, I don’t like meat and fish as much, especially in China where fish is served differently and might disturb the digestive system. Our digestive system runs at full blast while we adapt to the hygienic conditions.

All of this results in mineral deficiency cause our body cannot change as fast, and we are unable to nourish our body properly.

The wrong solution which most foreigners do would be to eat more sugar, which is simply a drug that might ease the symptoms for a while. This behavior may result in a sugar addiction and will not solve the problem.

The right solution is the following: Eat food with lots of minerals, especially iodine. The number one minerals- and iodine-bearing food in Wudang is seaweed, there are many products and dishes with seaweed, and you might want to eat them daily. My first choice was vegetable soup with fresh seaweed in a restaurant in Wudang. Everything with vitamins and minerals is a good option. You should also adapt to eat the herbs and plants which are served very often in China as primary vitamin and iodine source.

You should feel a few hours later increase in concentration and power after you replenished your mineral batteries.

If your stay in Wudang is a very short-term or you plan to train like no tomorrow, then you might consider carrying an iodine solution with you for emergencies. Be careful not to overdose! If you feel the symptoms listened above very strong, you may want to take one or two drops of iodine solution with a cup of water once a day. I recommend to take them only for three days and find out if your condition improved, I do not recommend to rely on this supplement for too long since your body should be able to adapt to the situation.

Symptoms of iodine deficiency should not be ignored since this influences the function of your internal organs and the stability of your blood circulatory system.