Adrenal Exhaustion

So I'm gonna write about this, just so people know this is possible...because I didn't. You could easily just google this (I'm actually about to so I can be sure to get the details right) but how would you know to if it isn't even on your radar.

Well...getting a straight story was harder than I thought...so I'll just do my best to capture my understanding. If I have a detail wrong, please forgive.  So, your adrenal glands make a few hormones to deal with stress of various sorts. One of them, cortisol, you may have heard of on those commercials where they scream about STUBBORN BELLY FAT, because an overload of cortisol causes STUBBORN BELLY FAT.  Anyhow, it is supposed to be released intermittently as a response to stress, but if you have too much stress...side effects occur like STUBBORN BELLY FAT. Yeah. Adrenaline, another hormone, problem isn't a surprise to anyone, but if you find yourself calling upon the flight-or-fight hormone too often, the glands wear out and you can't make it when you need it. My understanding too is that cortisol and adrenaline operate in balance, so if too much cortisone is released, adrenaline will be driven down lower. According to my understanding, DHEA also steps in here somewhere to try to fix the problem. When it gets called on too often...yes, its gets worn out. Side-effects of low DHEA can be high LDL, decreased energy, and a reduced ability to deal with stress...which just contributes to the cycle.

In my quest to figure out why weight loss is so much more difficult than it should be for me, I've had a FEW hormone tests. My adrenals turned out to be low, and I was given a supplement. I haven't had another blood test done, so we will see if it improved. However, I also took a few steps to reduce stress in my life.

So, there was the normal American pasttime of job stress. The problem with my job as a teacher is that it is a maze of deadlines, with every possible way out blocked by understaffing, high-stakes, and fucking guilt over never doing enough. At key times, like the end of the year or a particulary full grading period, I now realize that the crazypants feeling that I had was probably a flood of adrenaline or cortisol. Sometimes I was in the state for weeks at time. I don't have perfect control over it, but I have worked to arrange things so that feeling doesn't happen, either through making different instructional or assessment choices, or by just damn relaxing when I feel it coming on. Anyhow, that couldn't have been healthy.

Other types of stress weren't so obvious to me. One was undercalorie dieting, which I did for like a lifetime. I didn't think of that as stress, but to my body it was ill and needed to work hard to buffer me...even though it was often just a matter of a few hundred calories. Anyhow, this is part of why I won't do that again ever.

The last was over-exercise. So for all kinds of reasons...like loving a challenge...and wanting to lose weight but finding it difficult...and having an active dog...I became the sorta person who does marathons, half-marathons, and triathlons. The sort of endurance exercise I engaged in, only sometimes with appropriate rest periods, is exactly the sort of thing that can lead to adrenal exhaustion, especially when you aren't fuel properly.

So, I still haven't figured out what role this is exactly playing in my body chemistry, though it seems clear that it somehow effects my metabolism. It makes sense that I would be affected now that I see that I triple-fucked myself. I wrote this blog so you wouldn't triple fuck yourself.