Blog Posts and Articles

This post is an installment in our “Coffee with the Coaches” series, where we answer YOUR questions posted on our Facebook page.

Q. What is the best plan to cure adrenal fatigue?

A. This post can be very helpful. In a couple of weeks, we’re publishing our Restore Your Adrenals chapbook with lots of great suggestions for bringing your adrenals back into balance. Starting in late June, we’re leading our Restore Your Adrenals teleclass series. Stay tuned!

[July 17 update: Our Restore Your Adrenals chapbook can be found here.]

Q. When someone has adrenal fatigue, do you recommend they eat frequent small meals? I often hear that you should eat every 3-4 hrs to keep blood sugar stable. I feel like I end up eating too much when I do that though.

A. No, I don’t recommend this. In fact, it can further deplete the adrenals.

Despite mainstream advice, smaller, more frequent meals (grazing) is not a blood sugar (or weight loss) strategy. When we eat mini meals throughout the day, the body says, “Fine, I’m going to burn what you feed me vs. burning stored fat.”

According to Dr. John Douillard, “Eat three – not six – meals, which gives the intestinal tract time in between meals to rest and heal. If you have erratic eating habits, such as ‘grazing all day,’ the digestive fire is always on and soon the incessant digestive process begins to irritate the intestinal wall.

“Six meals a day is a medicinal diet for treating the symptoms of severe hypoglycemia. It was never intended to be a way of life. Nowhere else in the world have humans eaten constantly until this vain American experiment. We are told that eating six meals a day will help us lose weight by keeping the metabolism high and revved up and that it won’t let the body store fat.  

“We are not meant to have our metabolism revved up all day. It depletes and exhausts the adrenals (which ultimately causes fat storage) and never gives digestion a rest. While we won’t store fat eating every 2-3 hours, we also will never burn any stored fat. Cancer causing toxins are stored in our fat cells and the fat needs a reason to burn.

“With blood sugars artificially propped up from constant feeding, the ability to make energy last is replaced with fragile energy, constant hunger, mood instability and extreme cravings if a meal or snack is missed.”

Read more from Dr. Douillard’s website: To Graze or Not to Graze: It’s Not Really a Question

Q. I am interested in what cookware you recommend. I’ve started looking at ceramic cookware, and there seems to be a huge range of price points. But any of it has got to be better than non-stick… right?

A. Nonstick sucks. Replace all nonstick cookware with cast iron, enamel, glass, or stainless steel. Quick-like.

According to Leah Zerbe, “PFOA is part of a group of problematic nonstick chemicals that fall into the perfluorinated compounds (PFCs) class, a family of fluoride-containing chemicals with unique properties that make products stick- and stain-resistant. The problem is, these compounds don’t break down easily and can readily be found inside the body. Along with thyroid disease, PFCs have also been linked to cancer, infertility, birth defects, and weakened immunity.

“In a study published in the journal Epidemiology, scientists found that more than 10 percent of people exposed to drinking water contaminated with perfluorooctanoic acid (or PFOA, made by DOW Chemical) reported having some manifestation of a thyroid problem. Comparing blood levels and years of exposure with incidence of thyroid issues, the researchers were able to say that higher PFOA exposure was associated with thyroid dysfunction. The study looked at more than 30,000 people.”