Prolonged stress cause of adrenal fatigue and weight loss

Have you ever heard of Adrenal Fatigue? Due to the nature of our society, most of us suffer from the syndrome and it has a huge effect on weight loss and building muscle.

Adrenal fatigue is a condition where there is an abnormal amount of stress hormone in the body.

Our main stress hormone is cortisol and it’s normal for the body to release cortisol, but it’s the prolonged stress that becomes a problem and leads to our adrenal fatigue.

In a stressful situation, our sympathetic nervous system becomes excited and adrenalin and noradrenalin are released from the adrenal glands to create an immediate physiological response.

Cortisol is released slightly later if the danger or stress still persists. This makes the body ready for the ‘fight or flight’.

If we go back a few thousand years, whether it was predators or enemies, we would need to be ready for this ‘fight or flight’ response in order to survive.

There are three recognised stages of adrenal fatigue:

• Stage 1 – This is the initial response to stress. It’s when we’re producing a higher amount of cortisol than normal. The sympathetic nervous system remains dominant and cortisol levels remain high rather than falling back to normal.

• Stage 2 – This occurs when stress continues and adrenal glands become tired. There comes a point where the adrenal glands simply cannot keep pumping out cortisol; it has to slow down at some stage. 

They can’t produce enough cortisol to keep up with the chronic stressors. You could go to your doctor, but at this stage you may not show any symptoms on a blood work level. 

Typical signs include the following:

1. Difficulty to get out of bed.

2. Run down.

3. Muscular weakness and/or soreness.

4. Lack of libido.

5. Sugar cravings.

6. Increased menopausal symptoms.

• Stage 3 – Cortisol secretion is impaired and the adrenal glands can no longer release enough cortisol to keep up with demand. 

You will experience signs like needing a coffee and cigarette to wake you up in the morning and going to your doctor for prescription drugs, but this can all simply be caused by too much stress.

Okay, so lions are not chasing us and we’re not dodging arrows any longer but we still are exposed to the daily stressors of modern life.

Weight loss is simply more than calories in versus calories out. Calories do count but they are just a small part of a bigger system, yet it is all people seem to obsess about.

There are more things to think about than counting calories when it comes to weight loss.

We do need stress. It challenges us mentally, exercising makes us stronger, nutrition nourishes our body, but most people are overly stressed and this leads to adrenal fatigue.

There are lots of areas we can correct to minimize the stress in our lives so we can achieve our weight loss goal.

That is why we have created our 8-week online course Beach Body Countdown. It is a comprehensive guide to becoming lean, losing weight and getting swimsuit ready. 

No fads, no pills, just a deep understanding of how the body works is all you need to succeed.

Check out www.BeachBodyCountdown.Net for more info.

Beach Body Countdown

If you want to learn the specific exercises that will work in balance with your body and find out how to eat for your nutritional needs to burn fat around the midsection then check out my latest course at www.BeachBodyCountdown.Net

Colin Ayliffe is a certified personal trainer and holistic lifestyle coach with over 10 years’ experience in training clients. Colin blogs at www. CoconutFitness.com.