Cortisol, Adrenal Glands, Adrenal Fatigue and Fat Loss
Stress is going to impact our lives whether you like it or not. No clean eating meal plan and no workout schedule is going to be able to help you reach your personal fitness goals if you have chronic stress. You may even be doing yourself more hard than good with your workout schedule and meal plan. Find out how your cortisol may impact your ability to lose fat, your thyroid and your ovarian function, here..
[video_player type=”embed” style=”1″ dimensions=”560×315″ width=”560″ height=”315″ align=”center” margin_top=”0″ margin_bottom=”20″ ipad_color=”black”]
[/video_player]
Cortisol is a hormone secreted by your adrenal glands. It increases under stress, which can be good. For example, if we go for a hard two mile run or do a 15 minute HIIT workout, our cortisol will elevate, which will in turn increase our HSL (hormone sensitive lipase) and help us burn fat. In this case, if everything is working well in our body and cortisol is hangin’ with testosterone and HGH because we are healthy and building muscle, sleeping and eating well, then it is all around fat burning.
However, when cortisol hangs with elevated insulin, especially chronically elevated cortisol and chronically elevated insulin, it increases LPL (lipo-protein lipase) and is fat storing. An example of this is if we go to long without eating cortisol will act like insulin and increase to make elevate our blood sugar to fuel our brain, and if we do this too often this can become a stressor and lead us to insulin resistance. If you want to learn more about the functions of insulin go here.
Chronically elevated cortisol can interrupt testosterone production as well as thyroid function and hormones, burning out the hypothalamic pituitary axis. In fact, not only does it burn out the HP axis, it also can burn out the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal axis (HPA), hypothalamic pituitary thyroid (HPT) and hypothalamic pituitary ovarian (HPO) axes. In real world terms, this means if we are in cortisol overdrive, it can affect our thyroid and ovaries too. If you want to learn more about what gets you into trouble with your adrenals and learn more about cortisol, go here. To learn how this can affect our thyroid, go here. To learn how this can affect our ovaries, go here.
Eventually what happens when our cortisol is chronically elevated is this..
First we can go into adrenal overdrive. This is when our cortisol levels are a little too high for a little too long. Unfortunately this is pretty common in this day and age. The best fix here is to eliminate your stressor(s), get some extra sleep perhaps and chill.
Next is adrenal fatigue. Our adrenal glands become weakened by stress over time, but the fix is simple. First, fix your stressor(s) be them mental, emotional or physical. Adding some coffee, ginseng, tyrosine, B-vitamins and magnesium can help. I love these adrenal supporting herbs.
Last is adrenal burn out. This is when your adrenal output is just too much for too long. First, fix your stressors because if you don’t do that, this will keep coming back. You can definitely supplement with but beware of stimulants. Also, other common herbal remedies are rhodiola and ashwagandha root powder.
(If you have inflammation or stress due to foods, eliminate them. But if your stress is not due to inflammatory foods, eliminating them can still be helpful for some people. Known inflammatory foods are gluten/ other grains, dairy, soy, sugar, fake sugar, nightshades and legumes. Then you need to replace those foods with foods that help your gut such as aloe juice, coconut, fermented foods, apple cider vinegar and supplements such as glutamine, digestive enzymes and pro-biotics.)
Adding in time in nature, leisure walking, yin yoga and lifting without cardio can help.
Do you need help figuring out the right clean eating meal plan for you?
Go to Commit2FitCoaching.com/freeassessment and let me help you.
Your Coach,
Kyra
P.S. Everyone is different. Some people need more carbs, more food, different workouts from others. It’s all individualized which is why I run #Commit2Fit with personalized clean eating meal plans and workout plans. Everything should be custom and designed specifically for YOU.