What's For Breakfast

 Most know what adrenaline is. That surge of cortisol that you feel during stressful moments of flight or fight. But your adrenals also help you function in every day life. The ability to handle stress, regulation of blood sugar levels, blood pressure, and kidney function, are part of your adrenals function. 

Supporting your adrenals is important because if your adrenals aren't working, believe me, nothing works and right now my adrenals and thyroid are giving me fits which means my blood pressure is too low and my...and my... and my... doesn't work right. So I'm doing lots of work, just not the tote them bales kind. It's the passive kind that doesn't require going up and down stair much because I get stuck on the top three steps where my legs start to shake and I run out of air.

And along with the get up and go that has up and went, I have to frequently warn my husband that his wife is about to cry over nothing. Yup, when you are my age, your adrenals, not your ovaries produce your hormones. At the moment, it doesn't matter that I take thyroid meds, progesterone, testosterone, estrogen, aldosterone, DHEA's, and cortisol because my thyroid function is connected to my adrenal function and with my thyroid taking a nap, that's just what I want to do. 

I'll have a visit with my doc and see what can be done but let's talk about you for a minute. You can't tell me that your life is a bed of roses either. I know each of you have your own stresses in life.
Some of you are suffering from adrenal fatigue. So what can you do to help this vital organ recover or keep it from taking a nap?
   
I'm not going to tell you to slow down because I haven't figured out how to do that myself. I have been changing my diet a bit. You've got to feed the adrenals.The two biggest needs are protein and Vitamin C.

Here's the surprise. Your adrenal levels begin to rise at 6:00 am and peak at 8:00 am. when there is the greatest demand for protein. No, that typical breakfast of pancake, waffles, and cold cereal won't do. They are starches that turn into sugar. 

So kiss those chickens and fry up an egg or two for breakfast. I like mine in omelets, scrambled, boiled, or fried along with a vitamin C tablet. It doesn't just have to be eggs but just don't make it soy milk since it may be high in protein but it isn't in a form your body can use. Some like my sister drink protein shakes.

Protein shakes are a bit processed for my body so eggs are often what I eat in the morning if I'm not having left over meat from our main meal. That means my hens need as optimal a diet as possible, 70% grains and 30% vegetables. My hens can't roam free so I feed them lots of protein such as wheat and not too much corn since it is high in cholesterol, the bad kind. This morning the hens had the last of the garden pumpkins along with some vegetable kitchen scraps.  

And since I was eating fried eggs this morning, they were fried in ghee, which is a good for you oil. Yup, the ghee was made from goat butter, courtesy of Chicory, and home canned for later use. 

Do I worry about my cholesterol, just enough to balance my protein intake with a good dose of healthy flax seed oil. Yes, I can get away with a high protein diet consisting of meat and eggs only because they themselves were fed a high LDL diet. A high LDL level balances out an elevated HDL number since it is more the difference in the two than the lowering of the LDL that is important. Otherwise I'd be drastically limiting my intake of protein. So when someone offers to sell you a half a corn fed beef, say, no thank you to the LDL cholesterol.  

 So far my HDL's and my LDL's levels have been good. As doctor says, don't pay attention to the eat only a few eggs a week or drastically limit you meat intake. It's really more about quality not quantity. Kirk and I have proved this is our yearly blood work ups. 

 Also beware, those of you on a low fat diet. Your hormones are made from cholesterol. Restrict your fat intake too far and you've kept your body from producing hormones. Cholesterol is what hormones are made from. Most people have no idea how many hormones are in their body. I'm not taking all the hormones my body is missing, just the most vital ones.

One more thing to chew the fat over. Fruits, cereals, breads/grains eaten first thing in the morning causes a spike in your sugar levels which causes your adrenals to work harder to catch you as you crash later in the morning as they try to balance your sugar levels. If you want fruit, then follow 1/2 hour later with a protein.  This doesn't mean to skimp on eating fruit, just choose it a little later after the protein when you've fed your adrenals before you cause them to work. Also going without eating stresses the adrenals. Yes, three light meals a day and two snacks are perfect. It's the light part I have trouble with.

 Also, keep in mind that proteins require an acid environment to digest and starches require an alkaline environment. That's why meat and potatoes has a tendency to just sit there in your tummy. The digestive enzymes are neutralizing each other instead of digesting the food. This is the area we are working on most this week.