Hey guys! I have a guest post over on RobbWolf.com that went up this week – below is an excerpt, and a link to the full post. I’ve covered this a bunch in a podcast episode, which you can listen to for free here or via iTunes, it’s Episode #15 of The Balanced Bites Podcast. I’ll probably also do a follow-up on the podcast with another expert involved but that’s still in the works.
Adrenal fatigue.
You hear the expression thrown around a lot if you’re in the health and fitness community or reading books, blogs and listening to podcasts on health-related topics. It’s very common that we, as everyday Americans and athletes/CrossFitters even moreso, experience varying levels of restful sleep, energy, digestive function, immunity and the ability to recover from exercise. With so many stressors in our daily lives, not to mention the things we add on top as pleasure that are actually stressors, it’s no wonder we’re in a bit of a pickle when it comes to achieving a healthy endocrine balance.
I have a close relationship with the condition of adrenal fatigue as I have suffered from it at varying levels over the last four years. While training for my first half-marathon here in San Francisco in July of 2007, I was experiencing what seemed to be very mysterious changes in my energy and moods. I was following a low-fat diet for the duration of my training under the nutrition advice of a Registered Dietitian who specialized in sports nutrition. The program included plenty of whole grains, dairy, nut butter, very lean meats, vegetables and fruit and would add up to as much as around 2,500 calories per day. Without eating much fat, that’s a LOT of food. At the time, I was training anywhere from 60-120 minutes, primarily performing steady-state cardio exercise or sometimes interval training with minimal strength training included. This was a pretty far departure from the training I had done most of my life prior to beginning the half-marathon training. Needless to say, this was not a smart choice for my body.