Ironically, as I'm writing this final post about adrenal fatigue and stressors which affect our health and energy levels, I had to endure a stressful week myself. Being someone who is very conscious about my own body and soul, I was relieved a bad week in my workplace had passed, and lots of healing and restoration needed, as I'm trying to get back on track to balance out my autonomic nervous system. I just realized how some of my friends have to endure for years, working in a stressful job day in day out, even on weekends, these folks do not have peace of mind. Most of these people I know are either in high position managerial status or working in sales department. In today's post, I will try to blog with a mildly foggy brain (still recovering), about energy levels in relation to mitochondria and adrenal functions, as well as how blood sugar dsyregulation is vital to maintaining health and fitness.
Low energy cannot always be traced to low adrenal function per se. The fault, in fact, may lie at the very foundation of cellular energy, your mitochondria. These are the bean-shaped powerhouses within each cell that use oxygen to convert the energy in food to chemical energy in order to fuel the cell's activity. Therefore, any significant damage or alteration in mitochondrial function has the potential to greatly affect your energy levels.
Many forms of stress and/or toxic exposure can damage our mitochondria, not the least of which includes other damaged mitochondria. As mitochondria age in our cells, they become progressively inefficient and potentially toxic, and acute damage can trigger the permeabilization of mitochondrial membranes to initiate apoptosis or necrosis. Another major source of mitochondrial dysfunction is prescription and over-the-counter medications, which may explain many of their adverse effects. All classes of psychotropic drugs have been documented to damage mitochondria, as have statins, analgesics such as acetaminophen, and many others.
Damage to mitochondria is now understood to play a role in the pathogenesis of a wide range of seemingly unrelated disorders such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, dementia, Alzheimer's, epilepsy, migraine headaches, strokes, neuropathic pain, Parkinson's disease, ataxia, transient ischemic attack, cardiomyopathy, coronary artery disease, chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, diabetes, etc.
If your mitochondria are not working right, then you don't work right either. In fact, energy-intensive organs like the heart and the brain are especially dense with mitochondria which means they are especially vulnerable if the mitochondria are compromised. Mitochondrial respiration produces adenosine triphosphate, better known as ATP, a storehouse of chemical energy. However, the process also generates damaging free radical activity.
Scientists recognize mitochondrial dysfunction as a key biomarker of aging. And researchers have recorded evidence of 50 percent more mitochondrial damage in the brain cells of humans over the age of seventy compared to middle-aged people. Mitochondrial dysfunction and death are now definitively linked to the development of virtually all killer diseases of aging, from Alzheimer's and type 2 diabetes to heart failure.
Consider for a moment that one of the characteristics of seemingly depressed adrenal function is a state of chronic fatigue. What we choose to eat for energy can make an enormous difference in terms of how our body regulates our physiological energy levels. When it comes to energy availability, we need to ask ourselves the following question: What are the two fuels the brain and body are able to make primary use of? The answer is glucose and fat. Dietary fat is eventually broken down into what are called ketones or ketone bodies. The body's principal ketone is beta-hydroxybutyrate, which is burned for fuel, along with free fatty acids (outside the brain).
I look at a carbohydrate-based diet and metabolism as keeping your metabolic woodstove going by using little more than kindling. Starchy foods like brown rice, beans, whole grains, and sweet potatoes, all effectively operate functionally like twigs on that metabolic fire. White potatoes, white rice, white bread, pasta, and cereal are more or less like crumpled paper thrown on that fire. Alcohol and sweetened beverages are like gasoline or lighter fluid.
 |
Blood sugar fluctuations throughout the day on a
carbohydrate-based diet. Fat burning keeps you in the solid, green
zone. Are you sugar or fat burner?
|
All of us, even slender people, have a supply of fat on our bodies that could potentially keep us going for close to a month, though I wouldn't necessarily recommend it. But almost nobody stores more than a couple thousand calories of glycogen at any given time, at least not very efficiently. You can burn that off rather quickly, so it needs to be constantly replenished.
And think about this. Who do you suppose might profit from you constantly having to replenish your energy levels with metabolic kindling? I would submit that a carbohydrate-based diet or metabolism is a better way to serve multinational corporate interests than it is to serve your own best health. Considering that all print, radio, and television media is presently owned and monopolized by no more than about five of these corporate interests, don't expect to hear about the virtues of what I am describing in the mainstream news anytime soon.
Which diet is the healthiest?
As we browse through any bookstore in diet section, we find ourselves pondering which diet book is really good or rated as the healthiest amongst all. Some of us may feel confuse as most books contradict each other and of course all authors claim that their diet protocols are the best and everyone should be follow what they proposed in the book.
The question is, is there one size fits all diet? From Paleo to Vegan, or Atkins to 20 bananas a day diet, which one will be crowned as the undisputed king of all diets? Well, sorry to burst your bubble, but there is no one size fits all diet. Each individual has his or her own metabolic type, different biochemical and physiological responses, and even different body type structurally. If there is really a single diet which is the most effective and healthiest, everyone would be symptom-free and achieve the best shape of their lives.
For instance, person A may do alright eating predominantly vegetables in a meal, but person B may feels sluggish and hungry after just an hour. In other case, you may be feeling great having eggs for breakfast, but I may be feeling foggy or excess mucus production after that. A particular food may benefit or do well in a person, but could turn out to be intolerant or sensitive, or even trigger a negative immune reaction for another person.
Bare in mind, we are not talking about conventional dietary guidance or wisdom such as calories in and out, but in order to find out if any form of eating plan or protocol suit you, you have to listen to your body, and eating in accordance to your own metabolic type and eliminate food intolerance and sensitivity too. Besides, having a lifestyle and diet which maintain a steady blood sugar level is extremely crucial. As for all my clients. I will have them keep track of their daily diet and lifestyle logbook updated from time to time for evaluation and fine tuning to achieve better results.
Short term goals or long term sustainable? Are you fit but sick?
As we all know, almost all of us want to have the body we came across in fitness magazines or Hollywood movies. From fitness models to celebrities or even some unknown figures we seen in the gyms, the surroundings have created a desire which made most of us focus on what is in front of the mirror, but forgotten about what is even more important. health.
From workaholic to fitness enthusiasts. how many of us really listen to our body? How many of us will put health ahead of fitness or the job which is slowly killing the soul and body? From 'I need to lose weight in 2 months in time for an occasion', to 'I need to have six pack abs within 6 months', all these goals are nothing but direct reflection of a concious state of mind, failing to align with the soul, the heart and falling off the holistic paradigm which usually turn out to be a sick but fit individual. In most cases, a good looking physical body masked by a crying misaligned mind and soul filled with pain, exhaustion and diseased-laden self.
Have you ever fall sick more then couple of days in a year? Are you regularly battling with symptoms such as constipation, diarheaa, sinus infections, bloating, gas, headaches, low energy levels, low libido, acid reflux. dry hair and skin, joints pain, etc? Many people who are obsessed about getting fit or building the body they always wanted, tend to lose track and derailed from what the body actually need to survive and achieving optimal health. You can't build a brick house with woods, remember?
From news we read to people we know, the so called fit people suffered from serious health problems and for some, drop dead at early age from heart failure. The question is. are you fit but sick?
I know I know...now what?
From a humble person to an egoistic alpha male personality, decision is always up to you in the end to make your choices. My goal in this post is to provide you the list of 'in a nutshell' self evaluation and action items to do, and the rest is within your control. Remember, knowledge is not power, but applied knowledge is POWER.
- In terms of exercise, workout is only part of the entire equation. If you are a stressed out individual or has a stressful job or relationship (or any form of mental, emotional or nutritional stress), the last thing you want to do is to bang yourself out day after day in the gym for a long period of time. Integrating specific work-in exercises will help to balance out the body-mind-soul and giving the adrenals some rest and enable better results, repair and growth.
- How would I know if I'm a sick and suffering from poor health? There are some key biomarker tests to run to give yourself a baseline data of telling you your state of health. But not everyone can get hold of functional lab tests such as Intestinal Muscosal Barrier and Functional Adrenal Stress profile. Another test I would highly recommend is Cyrex Array 5 Multiple Autoimmune Reactivity Screen. And for anyone who is concern about risk of heart disease, running homocysteine and CRP high sensitivity tests are valid and important biomarkers. You can get both these tests done in conventional hospitals and certain clinics.
http://www.cyrexlabs.com/CyrexTestsArrays/tabid/136/Default.aspx
http://biohealthlab.com/
- Breathing. Yes, everyone is lacking this crucial foundation of health and autonomic regulation. The most important fundamental regulatory mechanism for digestion, detoxification and all other survival functions in the body. The ones who are sympathetic dominance (stressed out), tend to have shallow breathing and typically more then 12 breathes per minute.
- Measure your blood sugar level after every meal (around 40-45 minutes after completion of a meal). Of course you don't have to measure it daily for the entire year, but start off with maybe 14 days to obtain a pattern of how your typical diet affect blood sugar levels. It is extremely important to find out if your are insulin resistance, or suffering from poor blood sugar dsyregulation, which is a recipe for diabetes and cancer. Remember, cancer cells feed on sugars.
- In conjunction with blood sugar measurement, one can perform pulse test after every meal. Do a 60 secs pulse test after about 20-30 mins upon ingestion of any foods or meal. Compare it with your average pulse, anything more then 4 pulses is a sign of negative immune reaction against that particular food. Do a daily logbook recording of your own data, for both blood glucose measurement and pulse testing.
- Have a private alone time by yourself. Reserve at least 20-30 mins each day, alone in a room or a place where there is no disturbance or any communication of sorts. An ideal scenario would be during night time in a dark quiet room, listen to your soul and have a moment of peace for the day. No mobile phone, no TV, no kids barging in the room, no nothing.
