Hi Kristina,

I don't know anything about adrenals being "burned-out," but just looking at
your daily and weekly amount of exercise wears me out! Seriously, your
approach to exercise seems to me to be too high in volume and too regimented
to be paleo. Are you familiar with Art DeVaney's writings on on exercise and
"Paleo lifestyle?" I can't find the link to his site right now, but I'm sure
many on this list are familiar with his ideas. In a nutshell, he argues that
a natural life is anything but linear and advises a "chaotic" approach to
life. With regard to exercise, this would mean sometimes you work-out hard,
sometimes you don't. Sometimes your approach should be task-oriented, other
times playful. Sometimes you should work out hard two or three days in a
row, other times you should go several days with no exercise at all. The
point is that our ancestors would "exercise" only when necessary. For
example, killing, butchering, and transporting a mammoth back to the cave
would be quite a work out! My guess is that once the exercise/work was
completed, nothing but feasting and relaxing would follow for as long as the
kill lasted.

Though living in prehistoric fashion is usually impractical, I do think a
semi-reasonable facsimile can be achieved. That has been my approach and I
think it has worked well. I just turned 40 and am what most people would
consider very fit and healthy. Like you, my exercise focus is high-intensity
weightlifting. Unlike you, I usually only lift once every four to seven days
and my workouts rarely go beyond 30 minutes. I do not have a regimented
schedule and lift only when it is convenient and I "feel like it." On my
non-weightlifting days I might engage in any of the following: basketball,
boxing work-out, sprints, walking, jumping rope, jumping drills, or tossing
the football. And, of course, on many days I do nothing at all!

This has worked well for me. I certainly don't have "burned out adrenal
glands" anyway. Instead, at 6' 2" and 170-175 lbs, I am currently slowly
pushing towards a 350 pound deadlift (I'm at 255 x 5, right now!). I feel
that my approach has made me fast, strong, and agile. Everything I think our
paleo ancestors were.

I agree in part with your pharmacist: I think you're stressed-out due to
overtraining. My advice would be to completely relax and do no exercise for
a minimum of two weeks, preferably three. Like you, I used to think if I
didn't maintain a high volume of exercise, that my fitness level would
deteriorate rapidly. When I finally did cut my exercising down to current
levels, I discovered that less can be more. I think I'm in better shape now
than I have ever been.

Hope this helps,

Mike

> I supposedly have burned out adrenal glands due to almost a year or more
of
> quite a bit of stress. A pharmacist at a local compounding pharmacy
> suggested some supplements but she also told me to cut my cardio in half.
> Her argument is that as soon as I raise my heart rate to my fat burning
> levels, I will be producing adrenalin because I have not cortisol to give.
> This in turn causes more fat storage because it signals danger or a famine
> to the body. My current exercise level was weight lifing 3 X per week
(heavy
> weight low rep) followed by a 30-40 minute cardio and Pilates followed by
a
> 45 to 55 minute cardio 3 X per week. So essentially I was doing 6 cardios
> per week ranging anywhere form 30 to 55 minutes. My carb intake is
> relatively low since I don't eat fruit and hardly ever nibble on nuts.