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If your battle with adrenal fatigue is sapping your energy, it’s time to make a change. An adrenal fatigue diet may be just what you need to turn the tides!
We all need healthy diets designed to nourish our bodies with vitamins and nutrients. But if you’re dealing with adrenal fatigue, it matters even more. A new diet could make a world of difference in how you feel every day!
Here’s what you need to know about creating an adrenal fatigue diet, plus the best foods you should incorporate! Let’s get started.
What Is Adrenal Fatigue?
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Adrenal fatigue is an increasingly common diagnosis with symptoms like fatigue, difficulty sleeping, digestive problems, and body aches. It’s often associated with chronic stress or infections, which cause your adrenal glands to burn out from overuse. This can cause a variety of symptoms that seriously impact your quality of life.
Your adrenal glands are a small but mighty part of your body’s overall function. They produce essential hormones like cortisol, epinephrine, aldosterone, and norepinephrine. Hormones affect your entire body, so your adrenal glands control a lot. To name a few things, your adrenal glands regulate your blood sugar, manage inflammation, and control your metabolism. Of course, they do much more, but those are a few key functions.
When functioning normally, your adrenal glands are self-regulating and respond to external stimuli by producing the hormones your body needs. Unfortunately, your adrenal glands can become fatigued and begin to malfunction when they’re overworked. When they start to produce too much (or too little) of hormones like cortisol, your whole body feels the effects.
Symptoms of Adrenal Fatigue
Although your specific symptoms may vary, the most common symptoms of adrenal fatigue include:
- General fatigue
- Difficulty sleeping and/or insomnia
- Brain fog and trouble focusing
- Hair thinning and nail discoloration
- Difficulty exercising and recovering
- Menstrual irregularity
- Lack of motivation
- Low sex drive
- Digestive issues
What Is An Adrenal Fatigue Diet?
People who are suffering from adrenal fatigue often receive recommendations to follow an adrenal fatigue diet. The diet focuses on providing your body the nutrients it needs to heal from over-stress, helping to reduce your symptoms.
Adrenal fatigue diets try to stabilize your blood sugar and level out the cortisol in your system. Usually, you do this by decreasing the amount of sugar you’re consuming. Then, you increase the amount of protein, healthy fats, whole grains, and veggies in your diet!
This type of diet would be a pretty healthy change for most people, even those without adrenal fatigue. But it specifically helps with the symptoms of adrenal fatigue by evening out your energy levels!
How does this diet boost your energy?
When you chow down on refined carbohydrates, they break down into sugar quickly. This causes a spike in blood sugar that quickly turns into a crash. If you’re already dealing with fatigue and exhaustion, this is guaranteed to make things worse. Caffeine and energy drinks are off-limits in an adrenal fatigue diet for the same reason.
When you replace those extra carbs with healthy fats and quality proteins, you’ll experience more stable blood sugar levels! High-quality proteins can also increase your iron levels. This is so important because iron combats symptoms of anemia and vitamin B12 deficiency (which can cause fatigue themselves).
Adrenal Fatigue Diets Also Focus on Reducing Inflammation
Adrenal fatigue diets also discourage foods that cause inflammation or are difficult to digest. When your gut is inflamed or irritated, your adrenals produce excess cortisol, which your body isn’t equipped to handle.
This means avoiding:
- Caffeine
- Sugar and sweeteners
- Refined carbohydrates and sugary foods
- Processed meats
- Low-quality red meat
- Hydrogenated oils and vegetable oils
Although the adrenal fatigue diet does require you to avoid certain foods, the main goal isn’t restriction. In fact, too much restriction can actually stress out your adrenals more! Instead, focus on eating more of the foods that make you feel good and nourish your body.
Focus on adding more of these healthy foods into your diet:
- Healthy fats
- Cruciferous vegetables
- Fatty fishes
- Free-range fowl
- Grass-fed beef
- Nuts
- Fermented foods with high levels of probiotics
5 Adrenal Fatigue Diet Tips to Boost Your Health
These five easy adrenal fatigue diet tips will help you better manage your symptoms. You’ll have the energy you need to do the things that matter most!
Eat Breakfast
Starting your day out right is an essential part of an adrenal fatigue diet. You need to stabilize your blood sugar after sleeping and give yourself an energy boost to kickstart your day. Try eating before 10 AM to keep your symptoms from worsening.
The best breakfast will be nutrient-dense, with healthy fats, protein, and complex carbohydrates. Include things like hard-boiled eggs or avocado on gluten-free toast.
Or, try making one of our favorites—a healthy breakfast smoothie! Simply blend together spinach, one banana, and some coconut milk.
Vary Your Veggies
Everybody knows it’s important to eat your vegetables. When you’re managing the symptoms of adrenal fatigue, this is even more true!
Your body needs many vitamins and minerals, in addition to dietary fiber, to keep your blood sugar levels stable. Try to eat a wide variety of vegetables (and fruits!) each day to keep yourself healthy.
Cook Balanced Meals
Everything you eat contributes to either helping your blood sugar stay level or causing it to crash. You can make sure it’s the former by putting together balanced meals and snacks.
Your meals and snacks should combine healthy fats, complex carbs, and proteins. These provide nice, long-term energy instead of a quick boost and a painful decline.
Related: 5 Snacks for Adrenal Fatigue That Will Help Your Symptoms
Use High-Quality Salt
If you suffer from adrenal fatigue (but not high blood pressure), add some high-quality salt to your diet. This is a simple way to give your body some extra nutrients.
Stay clear of processed table salts, which have had their important minerals processed out. Choose higher-quality salts, like sea salt or Himalayan salt. These contain minerals to give you a boost.
Drink Water
This is one of the most important tips we can give. Dehydration puts extra stress on your adrenal glands. If you’re already dealing with adrenal fatigue, this will cause your symptoms to worsen.
Keep a water bottle with you at all times. Your goal is to drink at least eight glasses of water per day (more if you’re active!).
Adrenal fatigue is difficult to manage and can really affect your quality of life. Choosing to follow an adrenal fatigue diet can help you boost your energy levels and feel better overall. Give these tips a try so that you can win your battle with adrenal fatigue and take back your life.
