Does Your Adrenal Health Need Assessment?
Snacking habits can be caused by a range of factors, which may be as simple as confusing hunger for thirst, boredom or habit or a reflection of your adrenal health.
But there may also be an underlying biochemical and physiological reason.
When our blood sugar levels spike and slump rapidly after a meal or drop too low due to a period of fasting, our body signals an alarm to tell us we need to eat again and fast. Often, we reach for fast fuel items such as sugary, carb rich, salty or high fat foods. We can also find ourselves gorging at the next meal for similar reasons. These persistent peaks and troughs in blood sugar can lead to insulin resistance and can become dangerous to our health.
Other reasons may include adrenal depletion and fatigue.
We may be under a lot of stress or anxiety from:
- work
- illness
- study
- family
- finances
- a traumatic event
- over exercise
- and other lifestyle factors
With this stress our adrenal glands (tiny little glands that sit above our kidneys), release the hormone cortisol and other fight flight hormones that give us the energy we need to get through a stressful situation. These hormones direct our liver to release glycogen as glucose and glucose floods our body in response to the stress. We then crash as our body tries to bring the glucose within normal range. When we crash we fatigue and our brain and organs reach for carbohydrates to rapidly increase energy supply again. Our adrenal glands and the hormones released were not designed to cope with the persistent stressors of today’s society and this often results in the depletion of the cortisol secreted from our adrenals, which is required for releasing glucose from the liver and muscles.
The vicious cycle, causes us to continuously reach for snack items.
There are ways to find out if your adrenals are depleted on or their way.
Speak with me to find out how and what we can do to assist in preventing adrenal fatigue, persistent snacking habits and blood sugar dysregulation.
