Are you sugar or fat burner? Have you ever thought which fuel your body utilize to burn day in day out? As most people are eating according to their emotions and cravings, many of us are eating with accordance of USDA food pyramid, but for some, it's a diet protocol eating plan. The question is, how would you know if your body is running on fats or sugars as fuel?
As I've just recently returned from an awesome Holistic Lifestyle Coach certification, I recalled my mentor Jo Rushton was discussing about how most people are living on sugars, caffeine and other stimulants day in day out, just to get their energy levels going. Apart from burning out the adrenals from these stimulants, you are turning your body into a 'sugar-burner', instead of fat burning machine. Most people are walking un-rested, tired and wired. As there are more insulin-resistant homo-sapiens then ever before on this planet, most of us are stimulants dependency, from world most popular beverage coffee to sugar coated foods, we are indeed WIRED!
With sky high cortisol stress hormone pouring out day and night, the adrenals are just being stressed to the limit, and disaster is awaiting (could be years or decades). I'm talking about autoimmunity, Addison's disease, poor sex life and reproductive health, sluggish thyroid and a long list of other problems.
There are several reasons why your cortisol levels may be floundering. It can take a lot of detective work to figure it out, but there is always an underlying answer and most of the time there is plenty that you can do to improve things naturally. Most things people do to self-medicate aren't helpful in the long run. For example, got a Red Bull habit? It's time to break your dependency on that trashy stimulant. Love bungee jumping or sky diving? You may have to forgo the adrenaline rush if you want to save your adrenals. Got a sweet tooth? There are healthier and more sustainable ways of boosting your energy and alertness. Diets high in sugars and starches, and poor and irregular eating habits put you on a roller-coaster ride of constantly using your adrenals to manage your blood sugar. And that is a surefire way of adding unnecessary stress to your own personal stress hormone factories.
The first big challenge is to pinpoint whether the adrenal glands are truly at fault or if there is some other culprit. For instance, what looks or feels like adrenal burnout can also be potentially related to one or more of these conditions or situations:
As I've just recently returned from an awesome Holistic Lifestyle Coach certification, I recalled my mentor Jo Rushton was discussing about how most people are living on sugars, caffeine and other stimulants day in day out, just to get their energy levels going. Apart from burning out the adrenals from these stimulants, you are turning your body into a 'sugar-burner', instead of fat burning machine. Most people are walking un-rested, tired and wired. As there are more insulin-resistant homo-sapiens then ever before on this planet, most of us are stimulants dependency, from world most popular beverage coffee to sugar coated foods, we are indeed WIRED!
With sky high cortisol stress hormone pouring out day and night, the adrenals are just being stressed to the limit, and disaster is awaiting (could be years or decades). I'm talking about autoimmunity, Addison's disease, poor sex life and reproductive health, sluggish thyroid and a long list of other problems.
There are several reasons why your cortisol levels may be floundering. It can take a lot of detective work to figure it out, but there is always an underlying answer and most of the time there is plenty that you can do to improve things naturally. Most things people do to self-medicate aren't helpful in the long run. For example, got a Red Bull habit? It's time to break your dependency on that trashy stimulant. Love bungee jumping or sky diving? You may have to forgo the adrenaline rush if you want to save your adrenals. Got a sweet tooth? There are healthier and more sustainable ways of boosting your energy and alertness. Diets high in sugars and starches, and poor and irregular eating habits put you on a roller-coaster ride of constantly using your adrenals to manage your blood sugar. And that is a surefire way of adding unnecessary stress to your own personal stress hormone factories.
The first big challenge is to pinpoint whether the adrenal glands are truly at fault or if there is some other culprit. For instance, what looks or feels like adrenal burnout can also be potentially related to one or more of these conditions or situations:
- Free radical processes
- Malignancy (cancer)
- Pituitary gland hypofunction (manifesting here as low ACTH). This tends to appear on blood chemistry tests as low TSH coupled with low T4
- Other secondary hypothyroidism related to low T4 or elevated thyroid binding globulin (TBG) found occurring at times with extreme chronic stress.
- Primary hypothyroidism (with or without autoimmunity)
- Abrupt withdrawal from long-term steroid use leading to down regulation of cortisol receptors
- Iron deficiency
- Insufficient cholesterol perhaps due to taking a statin or eating a very low-cholesterol or vegan diet
- Other nutritional deficiencies, such as of certain B vitamins, fat soluble nutrients, or essential fatty acids
- Malabsorption (digestive disorders, leaky gut, etc.)
- Autoimmune disorders in general
- Chronic or extreme, acute stress that either depletes or exhausts the body's steroid hormone stores
- Blood sugar dysregulation! A diet high in sugar and starch or poor and irregular eating habits can lead to a roller-coaster ride when you are constantly using your adrenals to manage your blood sugar. Adrenals were not designed to manage your blood sugar levels 24-7.
- Too frequent stimulation from substances like coffee and nicotine, excessive exercise, or risky experiences that give you a big adrenaline rush
- Burning the candle at both ends.
Remember that adrenal hormones are all about survival. The push to survive takes precedence over absolutely everything else, including producing sex hormones and their precursor, immune-enhancing DHEA. Think about it. If a saber-toothed tiger is chasing you, how much priority are sex hormones to your survival in that moment? And if you are metaphorically being chased by saber-toothed tigers 24-7, how are your sex hormones (not to mention your sex life) going to be after a while? Not exactly the best prelude to date night.
The phenomenon called pregnenolone steal refers to the body's ability to shunt steroidal hormone production away from sex hormones, leading to big problems, uncomfortable symptoms of androgen deficiencies for men, and hormone dysregulation and uncomfortable PMS and menopausal symptoms for women. If you had read my previous posts, I've explained about PREGNENOLONE STEAL.
The pregnenolone steal occurs when the body virtually steal the pregnenolone needed for the production of other steroidal hormones in an attempt to keep pace with the demand for more cortisol during periods of stress. Cortisol is a critical survival hormone and (as previously pointed out) the need for survival always trumps everything else. Women are frequently prescribed hormonal creams in an attempt to counter this underlying trend and ameliorate uncomfortable symptoms. But without addressing the foundational problem and only putting a Band-Aid over the symptoms, all too frequently the problem only deepens. The only true solution lies in identifying and addressing the underlying source of stress driving the need for cortisol. The complexity of the interrelationships between steroidal and other hormones in the body should never be ignored and cannot ultimately be overruled by medications.
It's certainly not that your body is too stupid to make enough testosterone or estrogen or progesterone. Your body is slowing its production of certain hormones for a reason, and addressing it is the only way to restore healthy hormone levels. Your body will eventually have its way and persist in its efforts to depress your hormone levels, even if you feel some short-term relief from hormone creams and other bio-identical supplements. There is a place for them and a time for them, but, in my opinion, they are greatly overused.
Anyone remember President John F. Kennedy? He is one of the most famous sufferer of a form of adrenal autoimmunity called Addison's disease. Adrenal autoimmunity is extremely common today, but Addison's disease is only rarely if ever diagnosed. Why is this?
According to the current medical standards of diagnosis, you are unlikely to be diagnosed with Addison's disease until you have a minimum of 90 percent of your adrenal tissue already destroyed. But by that point you have already been producing adrenal antibodies for years if possibly even decades! If your tissue destruction is only half of this, maybe just 45 percent, I promise that you will notice it in every part of the way you feel and how you function in your life. However, you are unlikely to get answers from your family physician or even an endocrinologist, and you are not going to know what's wrong with you unless you have specialized tests designed to look for the early signs of this.
So you could be suffering an autoimmune adrenal
process (and be symptomatic) for years and years without actually being
diagnosed with Addison's disease. In the meantime, you are going to be
calling it chronic fatigue or adrenal burnout and wondering why all
the adrenal supplements you are taking don't work. Before I sign off this post, let me present to you some of the list of symptoms of adrenal autoimmunity.
SYMPTOMS OF ADRENAL AUTOIMMUNITY
Some of these symptoms are due to depressed levels of aldosterone and other corticosteroids, which is why these complaints are also commonly characteristic of adrenal burnout:
- Chronic physical and mental fatigue
- Unexplained low blood sugar symptoms and carbohydrate cravings
- Salt cravings
- Craving for stimulants, such as caffeine and nicotine
- Chronic low blood pressure
- Weakness
- Stress intolerance
- Weight issues
- Dizziness, especially when you stand from sitting
- Muscle or joint pain, or both
- Gastrointestinal disturbances or abdominal discomfort, or both
- Anxiety
- Depression
- Increased skin pigmentation over time
Stay tuned for final post of this entire topic.
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