Do you know how to lose weight but find it’s just not happening for you?
Have you been feeling symptoms of stress?
Are you familiar yet with the term adrenal fatigue?
Let me go ahead and clear some things up for you about weight loss.
Stress has a profound impact on the body and unfortunately the results are not always positive. Stress has an uncanny way of literally sticking to your body, just in the places you love it most, not! Stress loves to hang out on your stomachs and your thighs. I know you would really rather it just went to somewhere else like your ear lobes and your pinkies, but well that just isn’t going to happen.
Too much stress in your body puts you into a fight or flight response far too often (and often is not normal). The thing is you shouldn’t feel like you are being chased down by a tiger every day, but alas the reality of your life may be that this is how you feel.
Too much stress can cause your adrenal glands to become “overworked” and this affects the way in which many of your hormones function. If the stress in your life gets worse and worse, the ability of the adrenal glands to cope gets less and less, and soon you will find you are storing body fat to help protect you. So, it doesn’t matter what you try, the weight will not come off.
So, the 3 things you need to know in How to Lose Weight with Adrenal Fatigue.
1) Minimise the Stress in Your Life (as a matter of urgency).
Start a yoga class, join a meditation group, spend some time breathing, or simply play with your pet. How about getting out into nature – have a picnic with friends, get in the ocean or set up camp under a tree. Doing things that are calming on your nervous system is essential. When you spend time in the parasympathetic nervous system, you produce more of the hormones that fill you with the feeling of peace and calm, and as a result you will produce less of the hormones that cause you to ultimately store fat!
2) Support Your Adrenals.
When your adrenals are affected, many systems in your body can become affected as a result of this. One of the most common effects of “tired” adrenal glands is that the thyroid can become affected. Now you can be dealing with not only the inability to lose weight, but weight gain as well. Loss of muscle mass also occurs, the downside of this is that muscle mass helps to burn fat and increase your metabolism, but if your muscle mass is decreasing you’re up against it. So, please begin to support your adrenals by listening to your body. If you’re tired – rest, if your blood sugar is dropping – eat some protein, if you feel completely wasted – replace that high intensity workout at the gym with something that is more restorative on your system like yoga; do things that fill you up as talked about in number 1 above. Supporting your adrenals is a process but it begins with you listening to what you need in any given moment. This includes physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually.
3). Keep Your Blood Sugars Balanced.
When you are stressed and your adrenals have become affected, it is likely that your blood sugars may be affected. Dropping blood sugars puts further stress on your body and this is not what you need at this time. Eat regularly throughout the day with 3 meals and 2 or 3 snacks and be sure to include protein with EVERY meal and snack to keep your blood sugars stable. Too much carbohydrate and sugars in one meal will spike your blood sugar level and then leave you crashing down shortly after. Be prepared and have a snack with you at all times.
Please be aware that if your adrenals have become affected in a moderate or severe way, it is essential that you find the support of a natural health practitioner who understands adrenal fatigue. If you would like some more in depth information on how to lose weight with adrenal fatigue, I highly encourage you to pick up a copy of Dr Lam’s short paperback book “Dietary and Lifestyle Therapeutics to Adrenal Fatigue Syndrome”.
In this book he includes information on diet, soups and juicing, sleep and exercise. If you feel that Adrenal Fatigue is a major problem for you I would highly encourage you to get his large book “Adrenal Fatigue Syndrome” to help you understand in great depth what this is all about.
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Much love
Lisa.
