Adrenal fatigue

Adrenal fatigue prevents thousands of people from reaching their potential when it comes to achieving a goal. Whether you are trying to lose weight, improve your health or improve your triathlon times, it is essential that your adrenal glands are working as efficiently as possible.

Without properly functioning adrenal glands, you can expect to suffer with constant tiredness, have broken sleep patterns, regularly wake up tired, have problems recovering from exercise aswell as finding it very difficult to shift body fat (particularly around your abdominals).

As humans, we have two adrenal glands which sit above each kidney. They are no larger than a walnut and weight less than a grape but boy are they powerful! Your adrenal glands have many important roles, which affect the functioning of every tissue, organ and gland in your body, which affect the way we think and feel. Your adrenals have two layers, which produce different hormones, some of which include; adrenaline and cortisol (the stress hormone).

Both of these hormones play vital roles in dictating how efficiently your body processes calories (your metabolic rate). To put this simply, if your adrenal glands are worn out (adrenal fatigue) your body’s ability to process calories may be reduced which means that doing hours and hours of exercise a week could be counterproductive! In some cases, people suffering with adrenal fatigue can actually gain weight with the increase exercise load.

This is highly likely to be linked with reduced adrenal function or an increase in cortisol (a stress hormone produced by the adrenal glands). The purpose of this blog post is not to real off facts and meaningful science about adrenal fatigue but to give you an overview of what it is, what the symptoms are and what I have done with my clients to overcome this all too common condition. There are several key factors which affect your adrenal glands, some of which include: Emotional stress, over exertion, poor eating habits, sugar and white flour, smoking, a lack of sleep, caffeine and alcohol.

The type of clients I deal with all suffer from adrenal fatigue to some degree. Highly stressed type A personalities are much more prone to it for obvious reasons. Learning how to guide my clients towards overcoming adrenal fatigue has allowed me to dramatically change body shapes and achieve great results. Quite often, doing less cardiovascular exercise is a good start. If you are a morning cardio bunny who has a routine of doing an hour’s worth of cardio first thing in the morning on an empty stomach and still struggle to change your weight, you may be barking up the wrong tree with the volume and choice of exercise.

Choosing higher intensity exercise in shorter and sharper bursts works more efficiently for tapping into fat stores and giving the adrenals the break they need. Believe it or not, doing less exercise in some cases is the first step towards overcoming adrenal fatigue and climbing the ladder towards changing your body shape and increasing your health. Specific protocols of dietary supplements including fibre, magnesium, vitamin C, liquorice root and greens powder all play their part in beating the fatigue. I must warn you to NEVER TAKE SUPPLEMENTS UNLESS YOU HAVE BEEN SPECIFICALLY ADVISED BY A PROFFESSIONAL!

Cleaning up your everyday diet is also key. Sticking with lean meats and fish, plenty of good fats and greens whilst avoiding processed sugars and wheat is really important. At Odyssey, we use our initial assessment to assess your hormonal profile, which includes cortisol (your stress hormone produced by your adrenal glands).

Once we have received your online questionnaire, you can then book yourself in for a 60-minute assessment. Comparing your abdominal reading to your other skinfold sites within your body fat assessment allows us to assess your cortisol levels and provides us with the tools to create a personalised protocol to help you achieve your fat loss goal.

If any of the above describes you, you may well be suffering from adrenal fatigue which can be extremely demotivating when you are seemingly putting energy into your training and nutrition. I hope this has been hopeful to you. Good luck!