James: Hey Ben and Rachel, this is James here in Newport Beach, California.

I love the show, thanks for what you do. So recently, Ive been diagnosed
with adrenal fatigue, and I know youve covered the very aspects that how to
mitigate adrenal fatigue on your show and also on your book. But I was
hoping you could do sort of more comprehensive overview of what your exact
protocol would be to mitigate and completely eliminate adrenal fatigue if you
happen to be diagnosed with it, so yeah, thats pretty much it. Thanks again
and love the show.

Ben: This is a pretty big issue for a lot of people, Rachel.

Rachel: It is and its good I think about time that we do some sort of
comprehensive adrenal fatigue plan.

Ben: Yeah, well I didnt really know like what adrenal fatigue was, I didnt
know what can happen until I had this body builder friend, and this was when
I was in high school and he dropped off the face the map for like 6 months
just disappeared, quit showing up at parties and social functions and like
dinners we would have in my house, he just like dropped off the face of the
map. And eventually he re-emerged, he looked different, he was smaller, his
hair was cut differently which has nothing to do with adrenal fatigue

Rachel: (laughs)

Ben: I just remembered his hair was cut differently, and he was bed ridden
for 6 months just like thats how deep of a hole he dug himself into. And
some people will you know, some people deal that with training, sometimes it
can happen if you have Epstein- Barr or Lyme disease or you know, theres a
lot of other things that can happen from both of the immune standpoint as
well as the training standpoint that can put large amounts of stress on your
adrenals, and eventually get you to the point where you get into a state of
adrenal fatigue, right? Where youve jacked up your cortisol levels and your
immune system, and you know, your adrenal glands, adrenal epinephrine,
etc. for so long that you adrenal glands become exhausted.

[0:55:21.3]

They become depleted of minerals, they become depleted of Vitamin C, your

negative feedback loop that would normally shut down cortisol in whats
called your HPA access your hypothalamic pituitary adrenal axis that quits
operating properly, and so what happen is your body just turns out massive
amounts of cortisol. And then eventually just like poops out on cortisol
production because you need like more and more cortisol receptors to
interact with this cortisol eventually cortisol just quits doing its job its a
really, really nasty cluster of factors. I go into it hardcore, theres this guy
who wrote a book called the Cortisol Connection, his name is Shawn Talbott,
and I have a series of interviews that I did that I kind of packaged up, and one
of them was with Shawn, and we go into the how adrenal fatigue happens
thoroughly in that. But ultimately you know, I wanna focus more on what to
do about it than the mechanism on how it happens, and some of my basic
recommendations. I am currently working with over a dozen of people on
adrenal fatigue.

Rachel: Wow.

Ben: So I d0 consultations and got clients who have it, and its amazing how
many of these folks come from like training hotspots, right? Like Boulder,
Colorado, and San Diego, and places where youve got like groups of
triathletes and marathoners and cyclists and people who were like exercising
a lot

Rachel: Yup.

Ben: They get adrenal fatigue cause its like you roll out of bed, youre
supposed to go easy, your friend calls you up on the phone, theres a group
bike ride going on, somebody at the group bike ride start to hammer at the
front, you start hammering to keep up with them. Before you know it, you
easy day becomes a hard day and this happens over and over again

Rachel: Yup.

Ben: and a lot of people get fatigue from that. A couple of these people
are theyre basically running companies and their adrenal fatigue is more
from kind of a combination of work stress, relationships stress, travel on
airlines stress, like we talked about last week, and then also just electrical
pollution, right? Like tons of Wi-Fi and cellphones and computers just like up
to wazzu which can also put stress on your body.

Rachel: So you have people that you work with on adrenal fatigue that
arent athletes?

Ben: Most of my clients and this kind of a myth, a Ben Greenfield Fitness
myth most of my clients are not athletes. They are people running
companies, they are people going for anti-aging, longevity, and they are
trying to optimize their health.

Rachel: Yeah.

Ben: Ive got some people who have just hired me to help them biohack,
right? Like organize all these supplements and gear and tools into an actual
program, so yeah, most of people I coach used to be mostly Ironman
triathletes, and now its kind of changed quite a bit. Its mostly CEOs,
executives, people who are into like biohacking in health and anti-aging, and
then a small handful of obstacle racers, triathletes, marathoners, cyclists, and
a couple of team sport athletes so right now, a tennis player and a soccer
player. (chuckles) So, yeah. So, anyways, as far as the type of things that I
do with some of these folks, there are some specific things that you should
look at: first of all, you want to shift your diet, you want to shift your diet and
you wanna preferably shift your diet towards a high amount of nutrient-dense
foods, a problem that I see a lot of people making when or an error whenever
adrenal fatigue is like, Im gonna clean up my diet and Im just gonna detox.
Im gonna drink like whatever, you know cayenne, pepper and beet juice for
12 weeks to give my body a break.

Rachel: Yup.

Ben: When you are in the state of adrenal fatigue, wanna tell people you

know, in a nutshell is you almost have to to a certain extent, unless your

adrenal fatigue is completely related to gut stress and you would know this,
right? Like if youve got, if you done a gut panel and youve got high levels of
whats called calmodulin and lactoferrin: 2 inflammatory gut compounds.
And youve got like bacterial imbalances and whatever, you know, you have
fungus and its like all due to the gut. Yeah, sometimes you do have to go on
like kind of a more of like a fasting liquid based diet to give your gut a break,
because just imagine like if youre a Achilles tendon was injured, right? And
you kept running out over and over again, right?

Rachel: Yup.

Ben: Like, eventually, it is not gonna heal the same can be said for the gut.

Rachel: Yeah. Totally, yeah.

Ben: However, in most cases, adrenal fatigue is not caused by gut issues,
other things are caused by gut issues like constipation, digestive issues and
nutrient malabsorption issues. With adrenal fatigue, I tell people, You need
to get fat.

Rachel: (chuckles)

Ben: You need to like eat a lot of calories from really nutrient dense foods
and so if open your refrigerator, you know if have adrenal fatigue and youre
walking in your pantry, you should be seeing things like eggs like whole eggs
with the yolk, and sea vegetables high in iodine and selenium and organ
meats, right? Like liver and head cheese and kidney and heart.

[1:00:13.1]

My kids are eating in the car the other day

Rachel: Yummy.

Ben: I was driving them back from tennis, and theyre like eating these
sausages that I gave them and my one of my boys like, Is this liver? And I
told him its not its liver, its brain, its heart, its kidney, its liver so

Rachel: (laughs)

Ben: I ordered these sausages from the US Wellness Meats that a lot of this
stuff in them, so those are good bone broth, shellfish is really good, natto is
another really, really good more of like you know, a plant-based source or a
bean-based source of a lot of nutrients, dark fruits, dark vegetables, right?
Like pomegranates and blueberries and dark, leafy greens. Kale, bokchoy,
fermented foods like kimchi and sauerkraut, turmeric and currys, cold water
fish, grass fed beef all of these really nutrient dense compounds you need
to add to your diets. Thats the first thing, some people make the mistake of
just like going on a diet and not eating enough, in fact, if you are recovering
from adrenal fatigue, I would like for your body fat to go up a few percentage
points as with the high amounts of these really nutrient dense like ancestral
foods, so thats one thing, thats one thing. So get these some head cheese.
The next thing that you want to do is you get we wanna get rid of foods that
tend to aggravate the adrenal glands and make fatigue worse, and this is
really like a kind of pretty easy to wrap your head around. Heated oils and
fats like especially vegetables oils, you know, adrenal stimulants like coffee
and tea, and colas and chocolates, refined flour products like pasta and white
rice, spread, pastry, baked-goods, fruit juice and pretty much anything
sugary. You really have to lower those, because basically, you want to train
your body how to release cortisol again because cortisol can help you to
mobilize your livers glycogen levels to naturally raise your blood glucose.
And if you continue to pour exogenous sources of glucose and starchy
carbohydrates, and sugary carbohydrates and refined carbohydrates down
the hatch, thats not gonna happen, and so thats another thing that you
need to do. You know, thats a little bit easier if people wrap heads around
just like you know, dont drink a lot of coffee and eat a lot of candy.

Rachel: Yup.

Ben: So the next thing that you wanna do, is you wanna avoid anything that
would put stress on your body from a dietary standpoint. And this would
mean extremely long periods of times spent fasting, you could still do
intermittent fasting, but like doing things like 24 hours fast or like long fasted
workouts or long periods of time with choleric depletion, etc. for the reasons
that I just outlined. You know, again, unless that youve got some really
serious gut issues; you actually want to like feed your body frequently with
good amounts of nutrient dense foods when you have adrenal fatigue. So
again, you just basically have to let yourself get fat, give youre a little bit of
tummy, so give yourself a muffin top.

Rachel: Yeah. Suppose thats every athletes was not mirrored as well
having to do that after working so hard to get it down.

Ben: Thats the issue, though, is unfortunately not to sound too harsh, but if
you have adrenal fatigue, you made some mistake and sometimes you do
have to silly as it sounds, you gotta eat your way out of all that choleric
depletion and over training.

Rachel: Mmm-hmm.

Ben: There you go. And thats why a lot of these methods work to for a
menorrhagia and like female athlete triathlon and all that stuff. It just comes
down to train less and eating more, so.

Rachel: Yup.

Ben: You do about 2 to 4 weeks typically unless its really, really serious
adrenal fatigue. You wound about 2 to 4 weeks of mostly easy aerobic
workouts, its not lot a of hard weight training, not a lot of high intensity
interval training, but like yoga, meditation, tai-chi, Ki Gong a lot of this easy,
easy movements. Ive had a few people who I have worked with for 6 to 12
months full year to really get the cortisol back in order, get the DHA backup,
so well do monthly adrenal, salivary in disease, where you test your salivary

hormone levels, and you wanna see a return to normal cortisol levels and
normal DHA levels. And some people, and this is happens most with
triathletes, theres this one CrossFitter, but it seems to happen more with
people with who have dug themselves into an overtraining hole via or into an
adrenal fatigue hole via overtraining rather than with that like you know,
some other forms of stress, like relationship stress or work these folks can
sometimes take much longer time to bounce back. And so, you know
sometimes well have a good half of a year or its just like were doing Bikram
yoga and easy walks in the sunshine and you know, a little bit of super-duper
slow, relax, deep nasal breathing, weight training or body weight training, a
little bit of isometric work, meditation, yoga, tai-chi, that kind of stuff. So
basically become a hippie for a while, as far as the worlds gets a go.

[1:05:04.8]

Rachel: or as in monk.

Ben: Thats right, as in monk. And then finally, in this I say for last because
this is thing most people do first cause Im like I think I can pop, I can poopop
my way out adrenal fatigue, not true. This would be the icing on the cake,
okay? Everything I just talked about is the important stuff. This is the icing
on the cake but this stuff can help. Number one would be some kind of
adaptogenic herb complex, which can help you to begin producing cortisol
again. That would be tianchi is really good one, theres another one called
Inner Peace, these just help you to fine tune your adrenals and begin
producing cortisol and adrenalin again. So that would be one daily
supplement to add into the mix. Another one because like I mentioned the
adrenals are the store house of minerals, you would want to start into like a
daily shot or a couple daily shot of trace liquid minerals and liberal use like a
really good salt, right? Like an Aztec salt or Himalayan salt or something that
helps to restore the minerals that your body tends to lose when youre low on
cortisol. So thered be another one, another supplement that Im a big fan of
again because your adrenal glands are a huge store house of Vitamin C is
about 4 to 5 grams of Vitamin C per day, like a really good absorbable, like
vitamin C powder. And there are few that I recommend, Ill link to a little
article that I have on adrenal fatigue that has a list of some of these
strategies that Im talking about to that should be helpful for you. So go to
bengreenfieldfitness.com/343 for that.

Rachel: And so Ben, have you put this into some sort of plan?

Ben: I do have a like a I dont really have a diet and supplement plan
because I recommend testing you know, before just like throwing a bunch of
different foods and supplements at the bay, but this is an overview. You know
I have an article, and I have a plan that I sell but I have an article that I let
people in too. I do have an exercise plan however, I do have an exercise
plan

Rachel: Okay!

Ben: about 12 weeks plan and all Ill link to that in the show notes. So I
have a 12 week plan, its called the Over-training and adrenal fatigue
recovery plan, not as customized as like you know, youre working with me
to customize something to do with the testing. but it lays out at least all the
different exercises and workouts to do each day if wanna stay fit while you
have adrenal fatigue. But you cant go to your cross and wads, and you
know, your runs and stuff like that. So I do have that planned out.

Rachel: So is it possible when youre recovering from adrenal fatigue to still

exercise, to stay fit?

Ben: Mmm-hmm. Using some of the strategies that Ive just outlined, you
can stay fit from more of like a longevity standpoint.

Rachel: Yup.

Ben: You arent going to be able to go to like an Ironman or you know, get
the top numbers on your wad

Rachel: Yeah.

Ben: You know, I have to do more just to describe, but you can at least to
keep your blood flow going, just satisfy that itch that a lot of people get when
theyre lying around, you know, do something, so.

Rachel: Yup.

Ben: Yeah, you can absolutely keep your body fit from like a blood flow and
a limp standpoint, etc. for sure and maintain some amounts of strength as
well. So I mentioned minerals, I mentioned adaptogenic herbs, I mentioned
Vitamin C, a couple of other things that I should mention: number 1 would be
a really good Omega 3 fatty acid source, again, because it will improve heart
rate variability which I talked about earlier but it can really help with restoring
the health of the nervous system and reducing the inflammation that tends to
go hand in hand with adrenal fatigue. So like 4 to 6 grams per day of a good
fish oil thats 2 to 3 times the amount most people would take, but you
know, a little bit of a step up in terms of the fish oil. Another one that I really
recommend for very similar reasons for the necessary building blocks to
restore hormones is a good complex of Vitamin D and Vitamin K 2 very
important fat soluble compounds and for people who have adrenal fatigue, I
have a pretty high recommendations, I typically recommend about 35
international units per pound of body weight of Vitamin D, and so that means
that some people are gonna take you know, up around 8,000 to 10,000 units
of Vitamin D and so as long as thats accompanied with Vitamin K, you dont
get a lot of calcification with that but thats the recommendation that I make.

Rachel: Yup.

Ben: And then finally, there are two compounds, one that can stimulate your
body to begin producing cortisol again, and one that can reduce the rate that
which cortisol breaks down, so it hangs around a little bit longer. Obviously, if
youre producing a bunch of cortisol and youre like stressed out all the time,
you wouldnt want to take these, thats why you gotta be careful, thats why
any of these stuff requires testing as you go, right? To make sure to so you
know when you can stop using certain things, to start introducing certain
things. But the one that helps your body to begin producing cortisol again
and these dosages is based off the studies that have been done on it.
Probably red ginseng, red ginseng she can find an organic red ginseng
powder or capsule and you want a pretty high amount about 5 to 6 grams

per day of red ginseng.

Rachel: Wow.

Ben: Most people most capsules contain like 600 mg, and so a lot of
people dont get close to the dosage they need to start producing cortisol
again, but there are some decent forms of ginseng, and Ill link to a few other
of them in the article that have a pretty high amount of ginseng.

[1:10:06.3]

And then licorice root extract in about 200 to 400 mg a day, licorice reduces
the half-life of cortisol and allows it to be broken down in the slower rate by
your body, so that would be another one to look into, would be licorice root
extract.

Rachel: Alright. So there you have it James. Theres your comprehensive

guide for how to fix adrenal fatigue.