Fitness Q&A: Avoiding Adrenal Burnout

Chris Albert 00:00:00 (link to this point)

This is Chris Albert, and I'm here to remind you of one thing. Someday, you're going to die. Now that's not some morbid statement or scary idea. It's solid fact. Your time here on this earth is limited.

We need to be reminded of this as much as possible for one simple reason, to live your best life while you can. This is the Warrior Soul Podcast.

What is going on everybody out there? Welcome to our fourth episode of Warrior Warrior Fitness q and a here on the Warrior Soul podcast. My name is Chris Albert, and I am the host of this podcast. This is where we give tools, tactics, ideas, and introduce you to people who can help you to live your best life. And this is a q and a that I do for a special group on Facebook.

That is the Warrior Soul Fitness Academy. This is a group of people who decided to join the Warrior for Life program, who are members of our private Facebook group. And I take questions from them each week and help them with their health, their fitness, and everything else that's interrelated into that. And if you've been watching or listening to this podcast for a while, you know that part of my philosophy is that every single thing you do relates back to fitness and it should relate back to fitness. Fitness is not about how you look.

It's not about how much you can lift. It's not about those abs. It's not about that ass. It is about your freedom, about your life. It's about helping you to become a better version of yourself.

And fitness should help you to become a better parent. It should help you to become better at your job. It should help you to become a better spouse. It should help you to do absolutely everything in your life better, and it should be additive, you shouldn't look at it as something separate, it needs to be part of your lifestyle and part of who you are if you are going to become successful with it. So we've got a number of different topics we're gonna cover today.

We're gonna be covering adrenal fatigue. We're gonna be covering developing your own easy nutrition plan. And we're also gonna be talking about staying consistent. Couple of notes before I get started on the questions. Number one, we have another new program here at Warrior Soul.

It's called the Warrior Soul Agoge. Now, I named it the Agoge after our website, the Warrior Soul Agoge, but more importantly, it's named after the ancient Spartan academy that young Spartan warriors were put into at age seven in order to become warriors and full Spartan citizens. And they went through that for years, and it consisted of training in war. It consisted of training for survival, being able to survive out in the wilderness, being able to train for tactics and being able to train, you know, they they would kidnap helots and things like that. So this is very different from that ancient spark Agoge.

I'm not gonna have you go up into the mountains and kill a wolf or anything like that. But what this is is a community of warriors, community of people who are looking to push their lives forward, who are looking to push their fitness forward, who are looking to take things to the next level. And when you sign up for it, you're going to get a full nutrition program. This is gonna... This is called the Warrior Soul Diet.

This is something that incorporates all of the fitness philosophies that I've been developing over the past decades, along with bunch of really good healthy fats, but also it's going to allow you to use carbohydrate when needed if you want to press on the gas, so to speak. It's also gonna have mentorship here. Right? You're gonna have mentorship from me, mentorship from my team through our private Facebook group. The community itself is going to be a huge asset here.

You're gonna be surrounded with people who are on a similar path to you. Daily workouts and you get to either choose from the daily workouts or you choose from the library of workouts that I've developed for my athletes over the years. You're gonna get form guidance. I'm gonna be able to coach you on your squat, your deadlift, your bench press, your overhead press when you upload videos to the private Facebook group. And you're gonna get weekly recipes, and you're going to be able to get live on a Zoom call with me and my team each week face to face, not like this on this Facebook Live, but you are going to be face to face.

We're actually gonna be able to have a conversation, and we're gonna be able to talk about your progress, your questions, anything that you need. So if you are interested in doing that, you can head over to membership.warriorsoulagoge.com and get the details on that. Very, very reasonably priced. Very, very valuable. The next thing I just wanna say is that this podcast is sponsored by my amazing sponsors over there at F Bomb Nutrition.

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They've been sending packages of these over to the troops over seas, the front... Frontline deployed units, and it's it's just an awesome product. You can get 20% off of your first order when you head over to www.dropanfbomb.com and when you use the code warrior soul at checkout. So that's it for announcements. You know, a couple of things I just wanna say.

I just made an appearance over on the needles, guns, and chalk podcast. Absolutely awesome, guys. We had a great conversation last night about psychedelics, about healing your mind, about mental growth, about getting rid of your ego, and about growing up without a dad. And you will definitely get tons and tons of value by listening to that podcast, listen to that episode, but also following those guys. They're absolutely hilarious and really, really great show that they've got going on there.

So with that, let's get into some of these questions here. And the first question I got is from mister Anthony Melizia, a good friend of mine. He said, with nutrition, he's looking for an easy nutrition plan as far as, you know, just something you don't really have to think about. And I think in so many ways, the fitness industry has absolutely ruined nutrition for a lot of people, and they've ruined it by making it too complicated. We've gotten to a point now where every little thing has to be nuanced and has to be branded and has to be brought up and a lot of that is because of marketing.

Right? You take the ketogenic diet, for example, something that seems very simple. You get rid of the carbs, you go through a period of adaptation, you try to eat moderate protein, you take care of your basic nutrients, and you eat a lot of fat. And people have made it into this super complicated thing where you've got to get special oils or you've got to get special ketone salts and things like that. When the reality is you can just incorporate some fasting, you can incorporate a high fat diet and you could make it very simple and be very, very successful.

Now, I also wanna say that, you know, for a lot of people, and we're kind of in a time change when it comes to nutrition, right? A lot of things are changing. So ten years ago, if you told people that a high fat diet could be good for you, they would have looked at you like you had two heads. And today, we're starting to learn that high fat diets can in fact be good for you. They can help you with burning fat.

They can help you with physical performance. And, you know, it's really the sugar and a lot of the other things that we're getting with that sugar that can be really, really bad for you. So I understand that's confusing for people. The way I would break it down for the average person who is trying to burn fat, maybe trying to build muscle, maybe trying to to just increase their performance is this. Start by eliminating the packaged food and particularly the packaged food that has a lot of sugar in it.

So if you are eating a lot of bars or if you're eating a lot of stuff that comes out of a package that has over 20 grams of carbohydrate in it and that it has a lot of sugar in it, then start by just getting rid of that. K? Now for some of you, that means that you're gonna get rid of almost everything you're eating because there's so many people out there who are just eating a lot of fast food, a lot of of just packaged processed food and things like that. So what do you replace it with? Well, a really easy thing to do and a really easy way of breaking this down is when you go into your grocery store, walk around the outside of the grocery store.

Most of the healthy food in any grocery store is gonna be along the outer edges of the store. That's where they keep the vegetables. That's where they keep the meats. That's where they'll keep the eggs. That's where they'll keep the foods that they don't mix anything with because a lot of those foods, they require refrigeration.

If you're getting food that is coming off of the shelf from the interior of the grocery store, a lot of times it's gonna have sugar in it, it's gonna have a lot of other stuff that's not gonna mesh with your digestive system. It's probably gonna have like 10 different ingredients in it that ingredients in it that you can't pronounce. So stick to the outskirts of the grocery store. Alright? So that's two tips right there.

Get rid of all the sugar and the packed food and shop on the outskirts of your grocery store. Okay? The next thing is this. When you're putting your meals together, just pick single ingredient foods. So in the morning, eggs and spinach.

Right? Those are two single ingredient foods. Right? You can mix those up. You can get a really great omelet out of that or or a nice spinach scramble.

Right? You could also maybe throw a little bit of cheese in there if you want. You want to get a little cheesy eggs or cheesy omelet or something like that. You could do that. Right?

You could have a piece of fruit along with that if you wanted to get a little bit of carbohydrate in there. Right? A little bit of little bit of fiber and some vitamins. Right? So maybe some eggs, some spinach, and maybe a bowl of blueberries or a banana or an apple or something like that.

Note to people out there, I'm not talking in terms of the ketogenic diet because I don't believe everybody should be on the ketogenic diet, even though I think it's a great tool. Right? If you want to learn about the ketogenic diet, we've got resources for that. But this is just something basic to get you through. Lunchtime comes around.

Right? So what would you eat for lunch? And Even if you're out and about, a lot of people are eating lunch at work, they're eating lunch on the go, every restaurant out there has a freaking salad. Restaurant out there has a salad and most restaurants are going to allow you to get a salad with a piece of chicken breast or with a little bit of beef or something like that, so you can get some protein in. Try getting a salad with a little bit of protein, a chicken salad.

Maybe you get a Cobb salad if you're going a little bit higher fat. Cobb salad is going to have some egg. It's going to have some turkey in it. It's going to have some bacon in it. It's going to have a bunch of different vegetables in there.

It's a good salad you can go with. Right? If you're worried about the dressing, right, just go with oil and vinegar. Right? Oil and vinegar, you can't go wrong with that.

Right? A lot of these dressings they are giving out, I'll have a lot of sugar in it, a lot of other stuff that you can't pronounce. So don't go with those. Just go with a little bit of oil and vinegar. Alright?

If you really can't find that, then Primal Kitchen makes these amazing dressings that you can get. You can find them up there on amazon.com and they're made out of pure avocado oil, which is great for you. Okay? So get yourself a salad for lunch. You know, if you're looking for a little bit more carb than that, maybe you can get a potato or you can get a bit of white rice or something like that, but but a salad's gonna do good for most people who are trying to burn fat.

K? And then dinner time comes around. And a lot of people have a real big problem with dinner time because they don't have time to cook. Real simple solution to that that I've started doing, been doing it for years actually, is I will get a slow cooker. K?

And what I'll do is I'll take a piece of meat. Now that meat could be a chuck roast, it could be a a grass fed chuck roast, some tri tip, it could be it could be some chicken, it could be a whole chicken. But the formula for this is you get that piece of meat, you stick it in a slow cooker, then you get some broth, you can get some beef bone broth or you get some chicken bone broth, you bring some vegetables in there, maybe some carrots, some celery, maybe some zucchini, you know, be creative. Go on your own here. And then you stick in some salt, some spices, maybe some bay leaf.

You set that thing for ten hours. You come back later on and you have yourself a really awesome dinner. Right? Now, you can add, you know, some some spinach to that, you can add some green leafy vegetables to that, you can maybe add a piece of fruit to that, and you've gotten something that's very, very complete. Now, that's the simplest thing I can give out to you guys.

Now, you know, for some people, it could be a little bit more complicated. It could be a little bit more things that you're gonna have to do. Maybe you're an athlete and you need to add some extra things in there to help you to perform. Maybe you are trying to build muscle and you need to add a few more calories in there. But if you stick with those formulas for all of your meals, it's gonna be a lot easier.

Go for whole food, food that is found on the outskirts of the grocery store, food that has a single ingredient, put those foods together, learn how to cook, learn how to make those things a little bit tastier, and you got a really simple formula for eating much healthier. Just removing the sugar, just removing the sugar, just removing all the crap from your diet, that's gonna pay huge dividends. And then once you do that, you find a way to be consistent on this, to make it as easy as possible so you can follow it day in and day out for years, then you're gonna be able to have that formula that you need to get to the body you want, to get to the mindset you want, to get to every single thing you want out of fitness. So start very simply like that. And then, you know, down the line, we want to talk about ketosis, talk about ketosis.

If we want to talk about intermittent fasting, we talk about intermittent fasting. If we want to talk about any other kind of diet paradigm, we can talk about that, but take those first steps first. So many people just want to jump to the complicated thing. They want to jump to the super complicated keto diet, cyclical ketogenic diet, something like that. You know, start with those things.

And if you're interested in learning about ketosis, you can head over to www.warriorsoulketocamp.com. We've got a full program for you there that can take you step by step through that, but try something easier first. Get a drink and then we'll move on to the next question. So second question here is from my buddy, mister King. He said, has your research brought you any insight on the relationship to adrenal fatigue, low t fitness?

Wondering if comets in skydiving has set me up for failure. Right? Nothing gets me pumped up any nothing gets me pumped really anymore. Yeah. So there's a lot of different theories out there about adrenal fatigue, low T, and fitness.

Now one of the most propagated ones is this notion of the pregnenolone steal, and it's actually inaccurate. And the theory goes like this. You know, Pregnenolone is the mother of all hormones and it's responsible for producing testosterone, cortisol and estrogen. And the idea goes like this. If you are constantly stressed out all the time, if you're constantly in a state of fight or flight and you are producing tons and tons of cortisol, the idea is that some of that pregnenolone that would have been used to produce testosterone is actually going to be diverted to creating cortisol.

And it's kind of like a neat theory, but just like anything else in science, when you try to put something into these neat puzzle pieces, they're usually not good theories. And the reason is this, pregnenolone is actually produced within a cell, and there is no scientifically demonstrated case of cells stealing hormones from each other. So in cases like this, where we have this neat theory, it's actually pretty inaccurate and there's probably something a little bit more complicated going on. Now, what can potentially happen here is, yes, you can get adrenal burnout, you can overtrain, you can get overstimulated, but it's usually a function of a lot of the habits that you've been doing consistently for years. Right?

So a lot of us start our days by rising up, and when you're waking up, that's when you're secreting most of your cortisol. A lot of us, the first thing we do is we go and we hit the coffee maker and we make ourselves a cup of coffee and for some of us, we're drinking like six, seven, eight, nine, ten cups of coffee a day. In cases like that, where you're so dependent on caffeine and you're constantly giving yourself hits of cortisol, there's definitely a potential for some form of burnout. One of the biggest things I'd recommend for anybody in this type of situation is that they should definitely hold off on consuming caffeine and if you think you're close to adrenal burnout, or close to getting what they call a cortisol dump, where you're so stressed out that your body just stops producing cortisol and you start losing water and you start going through all these crazy things, you know, hold off on drinking that coffee. And if you think you're close to adrenal burnout, stay away from the coffee, stay away from caffeinated beverages, stay away from stimulants in general.

The other thing is a lot of people are taking these pre workouts these days and I definitely wouldn't want to go into a workout where I feel like I'm a Rhesus monkey on crack. You should definitely probably focus on getting more steady forms of energy and that's, you know, you can get a steadier form of energy from just being hydrated when you're heading into your workout, maybe consuming a piece of fruit or bowl of berries before you head over, you know, getting some fructose into your liver, things like that. I wouldn't focus on stimulants prior to a workout because you're going to be producing a lot of cortisol during the workout anyways. And you can be double hitting yourself with this. Another thing to focus on if you feel like your near adrenal burnout is to stay away from fasting.

Stay away from fasting or low carb diets. And the reason why I really think this this is it's a bad idea to do low carb diets or to fast if you're if you're near adrenal burnout is because again, insulin and cortisol, they they are antagonistic to each other. So when you're producing insulin, you're not producing cortisol. And so one big thing I recommend to my clients who come to me and who are dealing with adrenal issues is to get a little bit of fruit in the diet at every meal and eating it throughout the day. So in the morning, maybe having a bowl of berries in the in the afternoon, you know, maybe maybe having a little bit of carbohydrate from like some sprouted wheat bread or from from a little bit of white rice or something like that.

And then, you know, at nighttime, getting a good amount of carbs in there from some white rice or or or some from some gluten free carbs like potatoes. And that's because, you know, having that that bit of insulin during the meal that can definitely help to suppress cortisol and it can help to keep you away from that that horrible cortisol dump or from from dealing with, the huge effects of stress. Another thing to really consider here is your mineral intake and you definitely should be consuming a high mineral salt like a Himalayan pink salt or like a Celtic sea salt or something like that. Probably adding a pinch of that to every liter of water you drink. I would also be staying hydrated as possible, consuming at least half your body weight and fluid ounces of water, plus an additional 10 ounces for those of you who are super active.

And, you know, the final thing is this, if you're if you're in adrenal burnout, you know, I wouldn't jump into super intense training regimen. I would go for a while just fueling your body with good nutrition, maybe doing light workouts, getting outside, doing some hiking, moving around, going to some yoga, you know, doing some calisthenics and things like that. But I would stay away from like hardcore CrossFit workouts or hardcore high intensity training and really put yourself into like a healing deload mode for anywhere from like six to twelve weeks. And I know that's a long time, but when you have something like adrenal burnout, definitely, you definitely don't wanna be pushing the pedal to the metal for a bit, and you need to give yourself some time to heal. The other things are this, and I know this sounds hippy dippy, but meditation meditation can definitely help.

It's been demonstrated to help with stress and with, you know, cortisol production. Maybe get yourself the Headspace app and and learn how to meditate. There's a few different techniques out there that you can do. The other one is making sure that you're getting enough sleep. You know, I would make an effort to be getting, to oversleep a little bit, maybe even eight and a half hours of sleep, I think would be a good call if you're suffering from something like this.

And I think that covers about it. Make sure you get your nutrients in. A couple of different herbs that could help you potentially are rhodiola and ashwagandha. There's a lot of studies that have been put into ashwagandha. They're known as adaptogenic herbs, and they're called adaptogens because they bring the body back into hormonal balance and they can really, really help with these types of situations.

So those are my recommendations for adrenal burnout. Also understand that a lot of the science on this is actually pretty shaky surrounding adrenal burnout, surrounding these types of things. And so you're gonna hear a lot of crazy stuff out there centered around these ideas and centered around the notion of adrenal burnout. So, you know, just be careful who you're listening to. You could run yourself into some some pretty hippie dippie woo woo type solutions that people are recommending.

And you can... You'll find a lot of things out there that people are offering up that could rob... That could separate you from your money and your pride. So so those are some things there. If you got any questions about this, guys, just let me know.

I'm super... I know it's a bit complicated. Also, on the show notes for this, I will put a little bit of a typed version of that protocol so that you guys can have access to it. The last one is this, and let me get a drink before I address it. This is from my friend Jed, and he wanted to know about staying consistent.

Again, I think this goes back to something that I've been talking about lately, and that's in something that I mentioned earlier on this podcast, and that is in how you look at fitness in the first place. There's so many of us. We we we make these New Year's resolutions every single year, and we make this promise to ourself that we're gonna get abs, that we're gonna try and fit in those pants, that we're going to to lift this amount of weight. And we set these goals, but we don't ever think about why we're setting the goals in the first place. We don't ever think about why they're important to us in the first place.

And the the idea here is this, if your reason for what you're doing is not big enough for you and your life and everything that you hold important, everything that that that you believe in as a person and that you stand for as a person, then you're not gonna be consistent. And this is where I see so many people falling off. They fall off because they set this goal to get abs, and having abs is great. Having abs is is awesome. Right?

It gets you some looks. It gets you some some some admiration at the beach. But in the long run, even if you, you know, even if you really want the abs, you can survive if you don't have them. You can survive if if you never get them. They're not, you know, paramount to your existence.

But if you catch it in this way, you know, maybe you got a job and that job is super important to you. Maybe it's it's... Maybe your career is is your life. You gotta think about it in terms of this. How good are you gonna be?

How good are you gonna be at your job? How long are you gonna be able to do your job? How much are you gonna be able to get done in this life if you're not fit? If you're not taking care of yourself, if you are letting your body fall off and rot? Because you're not.

If you are trying to to to make your way in your career, in your relationship, in your marriage, in any of this stuff, if your body or your mind fall apart, there isn't anything you're going to be able to to to do to bring it back. There isn't anything you're gonna be able to do to to to, you know, gain those years back that you're gonna lose. Right? And and a lot of people don't understand this. They think about fitness as a hobby.

They think about fitness as something that they do apart from their lives. Maybe it's something that takes them away from their kids. Maybe it's something that takes them away from their job. Maybe it's something that takes them away from the the work they're doing. But if you look at it like that, you're already you're already done.

Fitness has to be couched in a way that you understand that you're not gonna be able to do your job. You're not gonna be able to fulfill your role as a husband or as a father, unless you're taking care of yourself. Unless you're taking care of your body. So that's the first step. That's mindset.

The next one is this. Find stuff that you enjoy doing. You know, if you like tennis, play tennis. Train for tennis. Train, you know, to to to make yourself a better tennis player.

Right? And then, of course, you know, make sure you have that mindset that I talked about. If you like lifting weights, lift weights. If you like rolling jiu-jitsu, roll jiu-jitsu. Right?

Just make sure that you're getting what you need out of it. Right? If you... If you're not going to tennis and and you're not sweating, or if you're going and you're playing golf, and it's not exercise for you, it's just you walking around or rolling around on a golf cart, you know, it's not gonna do much for you. Right?

But but, you know, if you're doing something at too intensity and you're doing something to, you know, a point where you are sweating, you are physically stretching yourself, then then it could be great. So make sure that you're doing what you're doing, but also try to stretch yourself a little bit. Try to try to stretch your capability. You know? And then, you know, the final thing is this.

When difficulties come in life, because they will. Right? Make sure that you are developing a plan to deal with those difficulties. So don't just give up fitness when life gets hard because that's when you need it most. Figure out a way to do it in spite of life being hard.

So understand that you don't need to go to the gym for an hour and a half. You could probably get a great workout in in, you know, fifteen, twenty minutes at home, maybe even ten minutes. I have clients who I have on ten minute workouts. Understand that, you know, you don't need to buy a bunch of fancy gym equipment. It could be as much as a kettlebell, or as little as just your body that allows you to do it.

And you can do some burpees in your house. You can do some squats. You can do some some push ups. You can do some body weight exercises. The point is, get rid of the idea that you need external factors if you're gonna be fit, because you don't.

You gotta take away all those excuses, and you gotta see them for what they are, which are excuses that really don't add up in the grand calculus of things. Because the more excuses you make, the more you end up compromising yourself, compromising the vision you have for yourself, and compromising your values as a person. There is no man out there that I know that wants to be weak. There is no man out there that I know of that wants to suffer from disease. And when you avoid training, when you avoid putting the work in yourself that you need to, then you open yourself up to that compromise and you open yourself up to the dangers and the disease and the lack of capability and all the stealing of pride and all of the demoralization that comes with it. I see that from experience. Somebody who has been severely demoralized by a disease, somebody who has been severely demoralized by life circumstances. It's about standing up for yourself to the greatest bully in the world, and that is the world itself. Alright?

So take charge. Don't allow yourself to fall off because life gets hard. Create a plan that's gonna allow you to do this no matter what. So I'm just gonna check here and see if any questions came through while I was talking and going off on that. And no, they haven't.

So that's this week's Warrior Fitness live q and a. And if you guys out there are interested in getting your questions answered the Warrior Fitness live Q and A, make sure you head over and sign up for our newsletter and sign up for the Warrior for Life program. It's up at menshealth.warriorsoulagoge.com And when you sign up, you get a free twenty one day testosterone optimization workout, free testosterone optimization checklist, and you get membership in the Warrior Soul Fitness Academy. And, you know, I wanna thank everybody for listening to this podcast, for supporting the Warrior Soul mission. And we've been on for for, I think it's about two years almost now.

And it's been a great ride. I've gotten to talk to some amazing people. I've gotten introduced to a lot of awesome ideas. If you guys are enjoying this content, if you are enjoying what we do here at Warrior Soul, even if you're not, if you can, please pay us the highest compliment you can, and that's just writing us a review. Even if you think there's stuff we need to improve upon, you know, head over to iTunes, go over to ratings and reviews, and just write us a review.

Let me know what I'm doing wrong. Let me know what I'm doing right. Let me know what you want more of. Let me know what, you know, maybe there's something I'm not thinking of. Alright, guys.

Thank you so much, and I'll be back at you this coming Friday with Warrior Fitness notes. Talk to you soon.