ADRENAL FATIGUE (BIG BROTHER OF METABOLIC DAMAGE)

A LOW CARB DIET AND PROLONGED HIGH INTENSITY TRAINING CAN SET OFF ADRENAL FATIGUE AND INHIBIT FAT LOSS.

This might just be the most important Blog I ever do so please take the time to read it properly and apply it.

A whole big shift in mindset occurred and everyone wanting to get into shape and lose fat went from a Low Fat High Carb to a High Fat Low Carb mindset.

There is no doubt that decreasing your carb intake is a very effective way to stabilize blood sugar level, improve insulin sensitivity and promote fat loss... it has been proven.
(At this point I would just also like to clear up the fact that all carbs are not bad. It is only the processed man-made simplex carbs which are bad and needs to be cut out of your nutrition completely. Rice and Potatoes are not processed carbs)

People find that a low-carb diet and hard exercise is very effective for fat loss…. AT LEAST for a while. What most people find is that they feel better, have plenty of energy and they can burn off fat or maintain their weight while staying low-carb and eating healthy.

Unfortunately there are several factors which will dictate how long they can stay low-carb and still see the same positive results.

If exercise is generally moderate, they are not overly stressed, get plenty of sleep they may be able to go with this low-carb diet routine indefinitely.

The thing is that the level of carb an individual needs to consume can change due to various reasons. One would be the changes in energy expenditure and physiological stress that accompany high intensity exercise.

A perfect example of this would be the large amount of people out there who set out to do CrossFit and follow a Paleo type diet. I have seen and hear it many many times on Facebook and in the gyms how these people do well for a while, but then get stuck, hit a plateau as they call it.

The reason for this, most often than not, is failing to adjust nutrition and training to accommodate a recovery phases to meet the increased energy demands and stress.

Here is the thing: 

If you are doing CrossFit or other HIIT type training 4-5 times a week you are going to have to start adding some starches like rice, potato or sweet potato to you diet.

If you don’t you WILL find out the hard way that a low-carb diet combined with excessive High Intensity Exercise can tax the adrenal glands and cause them to fatigue.

HOW DO YOU KNOW IF YOU ARE TAXING YOUR ADRENALS? 

You will experience the following:

- Difficulty with losing weight, hitting a plateau
- Experiencing weight gain, even with plenty of exercise and a low calorie diet
- Noticing a decrease in body temperature, feeling cold frequently
- Experiencing a lack of energy
- Difficulty going to sleep, or falling asleep but waking up several times during the night
- Noticeable increase in anxiety, nervousness, or generally feeling uneasy
- Wired and tired feeling

Okay, SO what is behind adrenal fatigue and all of the above symptoms???

It is a complex issue involving not just the adrenal glands but also the Thyroid and several other hormonal balances and the root of the problem more than likely is a down-regulated metabolism and decreased thyroid production.

This is what happens:

When carb intake is kept very low (under 50-60 grams per day) for extended periods of time in combination with excessive exercise blood sugar levels drop dramatically.

The adrenal glands then kick in to help the situation by secreting catecholamines (adrenaline and nor-adrenaline) 

This gives you an increased sense of alertness and more energy for a while BUT as is generally the case, you cannot stay in this state indefinitely before you will CRASH.

The increased in circulating adrenaline that accompanies a state of Ketosis is responsible for the initial loss of fat and this can work quite well for a SHORT window of time, but invariably you’ll need to switch things up.

There is a complex relation between Cortisol, the Thyroid, Adrenaline and Insulin.

Cortisol helps regulate blood sugar levels but is also the main stress response hormone. Any stress, be it psychological or physiological as with excessive high-intensity exercise, will call on more cortisol. 

When there it is not enough cortisol to cope with the chronic state of stress the adrenals will produce adrenaline to compensate. The adrenals become fatigued, they can simply not keep up, cortisol levels drop the body cannot convert thyroid hormone very well. The result is a stalled metabolic state.

The feeling of depression, anxiety and fluctuating sleep patterns that comes along with the symptoms is caused an ineffective function of serotonin. It is a neurotransmitter also associated in regulating mood and helps produce a feeling of well-being.

It is believed that serotonin induces sleep. Its precursor is tryptophan, which can be sourced out from carbohydrate based foods.

Tryptophan needs transport molecules to get through the blood-brain barrier (a separation between the circulating blood and the brain fluid) and amino acids can compete for these transport molecules. Insulin can clear out amino acids that compete with tryptophan for these transport molecules to the brain. In order for Tryptophan and Serotonin to do their work properly, you need effective functioning Insulin.

If Serotonin cannot function properly you will find yourself struggling to sleep well, suffering from anxiety and feelings of depression.

That is it for the technical part, which in depth also involves the pituitary, hypothalamus and other regulating glands, it is just too much to get into.

WHAT IT COMES DOWN TO IS THAT LOW-CARB DIETING CAN BACK-FIRE ON YOU, ESPECIALLY IF YOU ARE RESTRICTING CALORIES OR CREATING A HUGE DEFICIT BY DOING LOTS OF EXERCISING MAKING ENERGY EXPENDITURE SIGNIFICANTLY HIGHER THAN ENERGY INTAKE.

Most of you would say, yes but I am eating a lot more calories from proteins and fats and I am getting plenty of carbs from my vegetables like butternut….. that does not always work so well and the fact is that carbs in vegetables are not the same as carbs in root vegetables and other starches.

If you have been going low-carb for very long and are stuck in a plateau and/or experiencing signs of adrenal weakness or metabolic damage you would want to think of doing the following:

INCREASE YOUR CONSUMPTION OF HEALTHY CARBS (RICE, QUINOA, SWEET POTATO, POTATO ETC.)

CUT BACK ON THE HIGH INTENSITY EXERCISE

ELIMINATE CAFFEINE AND ALL OTHER FAT BURNING STIMULANTS

The best way to ensure that you recover from metabolic damage is to have a professional “physique” nutritional guide/adviser assist you. You need to be monitored and your nutrition and training needs to be adjusted throughout the process.
(I am a professional Nutritional guide specializing in changing physiques and can assist you with this)

To prevent yourself from falling into the trap of adrenal fatigue you should structure workouts and nutrition using The Periodization method throughout the year.... 
But that is a whole other discussion which I will get into at a later stage.

For now, all you need to do is check for symptoms of adrenal fatigue and do what you need to do to get out of it. When your body temperature drops, your energy levels and sleeping patterns fluctuate, you get stuck in a plateau where you are not seeing any progress even if you train harder, etc. it is a sign that something is not right….

Trying to further restrict your calories, doing a “reboot” session, adding more HIIT to you workouts will only make things worse and will DEFINITELY not make it better…  THAT IS A SCIENTIFIC FACT!

HEART DISEASE IS CAUSED BY INFLAMMATION... NOT CHOLESTEROL!

Heart surgeon speaks out on what really causes heart disease

Dr. Dwight Lundell
PreventDisease
Thu, 01 Mar 2012 21:58 CST

We physicians with all our training, knowledge and authority often acquire a rather large ego that tends to make it difficult to admit we are wrong. So, here it is. I freely admit to being wrong. As a heart surgeon with 25 years experience, having performed over 5,000 open-heart surgeries, today is my day to right the wrong with medical and scientific fact.

I trained for many years with other prominent physicians labelled "opinion makers." Bombarded with scientific literature, continually attending education seminars, we opinion makers insisted heart disease resulted from the simple fact of elevated blood cholesterol.

The only accepted therapy was prescribing medications to lower cholesterol and a diet that severely restricted fat intake. The latter of course we insisted would lower cholesterol and heart disease. Deviations from these recommendations were considered heresy and could quite possibly result in malpractice.

It Is Not Working!

These recommendations are no longer scientifically or morally defensible. The discovery a few years ago that inflammation in the artery wall is the real cause of heart disease is slowly leading to a paradigm shift in how heart disease and other chronic ailments will be treated. 

The long-established dietary recommendations have created epidemics of obesity and diabetes, the consequences of which dwarf any historical plague in terms of mortality, human suffering and dire economic consequences. 

Despite the fact that 25% of the population takes expensive statin medications and despite the fact we have reduced the fat content of our diets, more Americans will die this year of heart disease than ever before. 

Statistics from the American Heart Association show that 75 million Americans currently suffer from heart disease, 20 million have diabetes and 57 million have pre-diabetes. These disorders are affecting younger and younger people in greater numbers every year. 

Simply stated, without inflammation being present in the body, there is no way that cholesterol would accumulate in the wall of the blood vessel and cause heart disease and strokes. Without inflammation, cholesterol would move freely throughout the body as nature intended. It is inflammation that causes cholesterol to become trapped. 

Inflammation is not complicated -- it is quite simply your body's natural defence to a foreign invader such as a bacteria, toxin or virus. The cycle of inflammation is perfect in how it protects your body from these bacterial and viral invaders. However, if we chronically expose the body to injury by toxins or foods the human body was never designed to process,a condition occurs called chronic inflammation. Chronic inflammation is just as harmful as acute inflammation is beneficial. 

What thoughtful person would willfully expose himself repeatedly to foods or other substances that are known to cause injury to the body? Well, smokers perhaps, but at least they made that choice willfully. 

The rest of us have simply followed the recommended mainstream diet that is low in fat and high in polyunsaturated fats and processed carbohydrates, not knowing we were causing repeated injury to our blood vessels. This repeated injury creates chronic inflammation leading to heart disease, stroke, diabetes and obesity. 

Let me repeat that: The injury and inflammation in our blood vessels is caused by the low fat diet recommended for years by mainstream medicine. 

What are the biggest culprits of chronic inflammation? 

Quite simply, they are the overload of simple, highly processed carbohydrates (sugar, flour and all the products made from them) and the excess consumption of omega-6 vegetable oils like soybean, corn and sunflower that are found in many processed foods. 
Take a moment to visualize rubbing a stiff brush repeatedly over soft skin until it becomes quite red and nearly bleeding. you kept this up several times a day, every day for five years. If you could tolerate this painful brushing, you would have a bleeding, swollen infected area that became worse with each repeated injury. This is a good way to visualize the inflammatory process that could be going on in your body right now. 

Regardless of where the inflammatory process occurs, externally or internally, it is the same. I have peered inside thousands upon thousands of arteries. A diseased artery looks as if someone took a brush and scrubbed repeatedly against its wall. Several times a day, every day, the foods we eat create small injuries compounding into more injuries, causing the body to respond continuously and appropriately with inflammation. 

While we savor the tantalizing taste of a sweet roll, our bodies respond alarmingly as if a foreign invader arrived declaring war. Foods loaded with sugars and simple carbohydrates, or processed with omega-6 oils for long shelf life have been the mainstay of the American diet for six decades. These foods have been slowly poisoning everyone. 

How does eating a simple sweet roll create a cascade of inflammation to make you sick? 

Imagine spilling syrup on your keyboard and you have a visual of what occurs inside the cell. When we consume simple carbohydrates such as sugar, blood sugar rises rapidly. In response, your pancreas secretes insulin whose primary purpose is to drive sugar into each cell where it is stored for energy. If the cell is full and does not need glucose, it is rejected to avoid extra sugar gumming up the works. 

When your full cells reject the extra glucose, blood sugar rises producing more insulin and the glucose converts to stored fat. 

What does all this have to do with inflammation? Blood sugar is controlled in a very narrow range. Extra sugar molecules attach to a variety of proteins that in turn injure the blood vessel wall. This repeated injury to the blood vessel wall sets off inflammation. When you spike your blood sugar level several times a day, every day, it is exactly like taking sandpaper to the inside of your delicate blood vessels. 

While you may not be able to see it, rest assured it is there. I saw it in over 5,000 surgical patients spanning 25 years who all shared one common denominator -- inflammation in their arteries. 

Let's get back to the sweet roll. That innocent looking goody not only contains sugars, it is baked in one of many omega-6 oils such as soybean. Chips and fries are soaked in soybean oil; processed foods are manufactured with omega-6 oils for longer shelf life. While omega-6's are essential -they are part of every cell membrane controlling what goes in and out of the cell -- they must be in the correct balance with omega-3's. 

If the balance shifts by consuming excessive omega-6, the cell membrane produces chemicals called cytokines that directly cause inflammation. 
Today's mainstream American diet has produced an extreme imbalance of these two fats. The ratio of imbalance ranges from 15:1 to as high as 30:1 in favor of omega-6. That's a tremendous amount of cytokines causing inflammation. In today's food environment, a 3:1 ratio would be optimal and healthy. 

To make matters worse, the excess weight you are carrying from eating these foods creates overloaded fat cells that pour out large quantities of pro-inflammatory chemicals that add to the injury caused by having high blood sugar. The process that began with a sweet roll turns into a vicious cycle over time that creates heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes and finally, Alzheimer's disease, as the inflammatory process continues unabated. 

There is no escaping the fact that the more we consume prepared and processed foods, the more we trip the inflammation switch little by little each day. The human body cannot process, nor was it designed to consume, foods packed with sugars and soaked in omega-6 oils. 

There is but one answer to quieting inflammation, and that is returning to foods closer to their natural state. To build muscle, eat more protein. Choose carbohydrates that are very complex such as colorful fruits and vegetables. Cut down on or eliminate inflammation- causing omega-6 fats like corn and soybean oil and the processed foods that are made from them. 

One tablespoon of corn oil contains 7,280 mg of omega-6; soybean contains 6,940 mg. Instead, use olive oil or butter from grass-fed beef. 

Animal fats contain less than 20% omega-6 and are much less likely to cause inflammation than the supposedly healthy oils labelled polyunsaturated. Forget the "science" that has been drummed into your head for decades. The science that saturated fat alone causes heart disease is non-existent. The science that saturated fat raises blood cholesterol is also very weak. Since we now know that cholesterol is not the cause of heart disease, the concern about saturated fat is even more absurd today. 

The cholesterol theory led to the no-fat, low-fat recommendations that in turn created the very foods now causing an epidemic of inflammation. Mainstream medicine made a terrible mistake when it advised people to avoid saturated fat in favor of foods high in omega-6 fats. We now have an epidemic of arterial inflammation leading to heart disease and other silent killers. 

What you can do is choose whole foods your grandmother served and not those your mom turned to as grocery store aisles filled with manufactured foods. By eliminating inflammatory foods and adding essential nutrients from fresh unprocessed food, you will reverse years of damage in your arteries and throughout your body from consuming the typical American diet