TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 22ND, 2011
Open Class 3:00pm, 4:30pm, 5:30pm, 6:30pm
NOTE: I will be coaching the CrossFit Redding classes at 3:00pm, 4:30pm, and 5:30pm today. 6:30pm will be our regular Performance Quest programming. You're more than welcome to choose which time and option works best for you. Also, I will probably be filling in for CrossFit Redding for much of the week this week and potentially next week as well.
ENDOCRINOLOGY
You Are Your Hormones
Cortisol
Now that I've covered as much as I think I'm going to cover on what I consider the most important hormone in our body - the Master Hormone - Insulin, I'll shift gears and do a little segment about the next most important hormone - Cortisol. These should be the only two hormones that I cover this extensively and for good reason.
Cortisol is released by the adrenal gland in response to stress and has both short-term and long-term implications. Short-term implications include responses that are associated with the "fight or flight" response and are generally beneficial for a number of reasons. A major problem however is that our lives today contain so many stressors as well as different types of stressors that humans were not intended to or designed cope with. This results is a chronic stress state in which cortisol does not effectively return to normal levels.
Normal cortisol secretion is high in the morning and decreases as the day progresses. When cortisol secretion is in this normal state it acts by releasing glucose from the liver, releasing fat from the liver and tissues, and is an anti-inflammatory. These are all beneficial.
However, when cortisol becomes a long-term stress hormone the result is decreased immune function (pro-inflammatory), increased gluconeogenesis, blunted insulin sensitivity, inhibited fertility, increased blood pressure (from sodium retention, aka: high blood glucose), decreased serotonin, and more.
Oftentimes people tell me that they get sleepy but whenever they try to go to sleep they feel fidgety or anxious. This is what I call "tired but wired" and results from abnormal cortisol secretion.
It is easy to liken chronic stress to eating a pizza...EVERY MEAL! That is to say that eating high carbohydrate and high fat meals alone are NOT good.
And that is just the problem today. Literally EVERYTHING is a stressor. An altered adrenal profile can be caused by things like overtraining, sleep disturbance, undereating or overeating, driving, your job as well as emotional stress just to name a few on a neverending list.
Let me put it to you in terms of performance since that is what hits home for so many of you. An altered adrenal profile causes immune compromise, sleep disturbance, the inability to lose fat (insulin resistance), connective tissue breakdown, decreases libido and WILL DECREASE PERFORMANCE! Most importantly, if poor adrenal function is allowed to continue for too long, a crippling condition may very well arise known as "adrenal fatigue". Succumbents of adrenal fatigue become bedridden in its later stages with death as a possible result.
I know that you're looking at this thinking that it can't happen to you but I know a handful of people who've had to deal with adrenal fatigue. It is not as uncommon as you might think!
Tomorrow I will give you a brief overview of strategies for managment of this situation. It's not brief because I don't care about you guys. In fact, it is brief because the ways to take care of these deficiencies of not only cortisol, but of insulin as well, are SOOO DARN SIMPLE AND EASY!
HEY! "It's so easy a caveman can do it!" (If you get this...kudos. If not, read some older posts)
Coach Justin
PerformanceQuestFitness@gmail.com
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