Quit Being Sick & Tired!

Are you chronically tired for no reason? Do you feel rundown and overwhelmed?
It could be adrenal fatigue.

Adrenal fatigue occurs when your adrenal glands cannot adequately meet the demands of stress. From the demands of work, to family obligations, to the hurried pace of the city and our technology-driven society, many of us feel like we’re under a constant siege of stress.

While the “fight or flight” stress response mobilized by the adrenal glands is a key to our survival as a species, prolonged stress, whether it’s physical, emotional, or psychological, exhausts the adrenal glands, leads to sleeplessness, irritability, and fatigue. When our adrenal glands are constantly required to pump out cortisol, they eventually become impaired. Your body does its best to compensate for under-functioning adrenal glands, but it comes at the price of your metabolism, heart and cardiovascular system, sex drive, and even your sleep.

Research has found that sleep disturbances are directly related to increased sensitivity to the arousal-producing stress hormone cortisol. Cortisol is excitatory, which means it arouses us, wakes us up, and leaves us primed for action long after the stressor is gone. Unfortunately, when we’re under prolonged periods of stress, our cortisol levels remain elevated and our adrenal glands, small pyramid-shaped glands that sit atop each kidney, never get a chance to recharge.

When we consistently don’t get a good night’s sleep, our circadian rhythm becomes disrupted. This negatively affects our serotonin and melatonin, hormones which govern appetite and mood. In other words, not only does stress keep us in an agitated state by agitating our cortisol levels, but it can lead to cravings, obesity, and blood sugar imbalances which have been shown to negatively impact mood.

While it may feel like you’re caught in a vicious cycle of stress, sleep deprivation, poor nutrition and mood swings, it’s possible to break free by incorporating these six tips in your daily routine:

1. Eat breakfast

Make a point of eating a high-fiber, high-protein breakfast every morning to stabilize blood sugar and improve mental alertness.

2. Eat regularly

It’s important to keep up the momentum after a nutritious breakfast. Skipping meals leads to irritability and mood swings because our mood rises and falls alongside the dips in our blood sugar. Try eating four or five small, well-balanced meals per day.

3. Ditch the junk

Remove refined, highly-processed food from your diet. This includes sugary snacks, deep-fried food, processed lunch meats, and pre-packaged items with additives, preservatives, dyes, and flavoring agents. These food-like items rob your body of the nutrients it needs to support healthy adrenal function. Our adrenal glands thrive on zinc, manganese, vitamin C, and the B vitamins found in dark leafy greens.

4. Skip the stimulants

Say goodbye to caffeine that leaves you feeling wired, yet tired! Propping yourself up with coffee, tea, soda, and energy drinks will inevitably lead to a crash. These unsustainable forms of energy over-stimulate your adrenal glands and they’re also unnecessary sources of sugar and calories.

5. Supplement with herbs

Adaptogenic herbs like maca, ashwaganda, rhodiola and CortiSLIM Advanced with Vinpocetine, can help the body cope with stress and fatigue. For specific doses of these super supplements, consult your health care practitioner.

6. Wind down

If you have a habit of watching the news before bed or mindlessly browsing the internet, consider a new routine. Unplug and opt for a relaxing bath or a series of yoga stretches to help your mind and body relax. For more info see mindbodygreen.com

Carbohydrates, Insulin Resistance and Fat

You've probably heard over and over again that carbohydrates are perhaps the WORST thing you could eat when trying to lose fat or transform your body, and for most people, that's 100% true.

Fact is, due to years of consuming a diet full of processed carbs and sugars, most people have grown quite insensitive to one of the most important hormones in our body—a hormone that can either be a huge asset to your body transformation goals, or a total fat-loss and health-derailing nightmare. 

The name of this hormone is insulin.

And insulin's function is to help your body keep blood sugar at bay, clear it quickly from your bloodstream after a carbohydrate meal, and (hopefully) shuttle that blood sugar to muscle tissue for energy instead of into fat cells (driving up your weight).

I say "hopefully" because that's actually the exact opposite of what occurs when most people eat carbs.  Going back to insulin sensitivity and carbohydrate tolerance, due to a diet full of processed, insulin- and blood-sugar-spiking carbohydrates, most folks are suffering from some level of insulin resistance, a condition in which insulin is no longer able to efficiently remove blood sugar from the blood stream.

The result?  Dramatically reduced fat burning, increased blood sugar levels and increased fat storage.

Even worse, insulin resistance can and often does lead to type II diabetes and an array of other health problems over time, such as an increased risk for Alzheimer’s and other cognitive disorders, premature aging, heart disease, and even stroke…and it all leads back to insulin sensitivity.

Ideally, when you consume carbohydrates, here is what you want to happen:

1.  Minimum insulin release.  This occurs when your body is highly sensitive to insulin.  When it is, only a small amount of insulin is necessary to effectively and efficiently clear glucose from your blood to its storage sites.  This is great news because your body has an incredibly difficult time burning fat in the presence of insulin.  The less insulin you have floating around, the better.

2.  Quick and efficient blood sugar clearance.  Again, this will occur when your body is highly sensitive to insulin.

3.  Maximum glycogen uptake.  Glycogen is the term used for stored carbohydrate in muscle tissue and the liver.  When these tissues are highly sensitive to insulin, the vast majority of blood glucose will be stored within them as an energy reserve, instead of being converted to fat.

4.  Minimum fat storage.  When you increase insulin sensitivity, your body will choose to store your carbohydrate intake as energy, again in lean muscle tissue and the liver, instead of body fat.

Simply put, your body's ability to process the carbohydrates you eat all comes down to your insulin sensitivity and your body's ability to quickly and efficiently clear sugar from your blood.

Knowing that, and also knowing that you yourself are very likely suffering from too much blood sugar and some degree of insulin resistance due to the previously mentioned dietary and lifestyle factors, you’re probably wondering what you can do to improve your insulin sensitivity and make your body responsive once again to this critically important hormone.
Find out how Adrenal Fatigue from chronic stress affects your health at CortiSLIM.