Are Hormones contributing to your weight?

Is adrenal fatigue contributing to your weight gain?

Our adrenal glands are small, but powerful organs sitting just above our kidneys. They are a part of our nervous system that responds automatically to stressful situations. They respond by producing hormones – from cortisol to adrenalin, they affect our pituitary to our thyroid, even our sex hormones. So if you can add low libido to the tiredness and abdominal weight gain – guess what you need to check – your adrenal health.

Unfortunately, they can be overworked and become dysfunctional. Medically, this is recognised once it is extreme – in the case of Cushings disease or Addison’s disease. However, the space in the middle – where we experience the symptoms go under the radar a lot of the time:

Symptoms:

Fatigue not relieved by sleep
Mild depression
Abdominal weight gain
Craving salt or Sugar
Increased PMS symptoms
Decreased metabolism
Lethargy all the time
Brain fog
Loss of enjoyment with life
Increased effort to do everyday activities
Delayed recovery from injury or illness
Energy low in morning, good mid-afternoon, and great at bed time
Decreased sex drive
Feeling overwhelmed
Intolerance to stress
Memory loss
Decreased ability to complete tasks

Remember the ‘fight or flight’ response our body has when confronted with a stressful situation? Our body automatically produces stress hormones to provide us with what we need to stay and fight or run for safety. Historically, these hormones were consumed to deal with the situation – the fight occurred or we ran (physically) away from the perceived threat. However, in today’s fast paced, time driven world, the stress may be a deadline, running late for work….there is no physical fight or flight needed. However, our adrenals have still manufactured those hormones in preparedness. Now if not used, these hormones can cause imbalances in our body.

They have a knock on effect to other organs and hormones – the thyroid gland for one and sex hormones – thus the long list of symptoms shown above.

What can be done about it?

The body can heal itself if given the right tools – including rest, long term.
Rest from the stressors – physical, emotional, environmental.

The whole answer is multifactorial. We have to address it from many levels – firstly testing to find out just how the adrenals are feeling, then we can look at diet, lifestyle, adrenal support and if necessary thyroid support too. Rest and allow your body to heal.

How long will it take? Now that is a more difficult one to answer – it is dependent on just how long they have been fatigued for and what state they are in, as well as how compliant you are with treatment options.
Where do you start?