Re: Those of you following The Schwarbien Principal Diet

Hey Bec, aw that is awesome, thankyou, you're a doll! ill drop you a PM

Regarding the carb cortisol, ive yet to fully digest and reflect on all the information, but basically from her research as an endo, she has found carbs need cortisol to process, therefore in turn more cortisol is required to process the 'fuel', protein needs adrenaline, so the balance between the two needs to right, to not cause strain on the body and heightened of either one of the hormones. Too much protein - more adrenaline, good to make you feel better for a while but not something to heal with when adrenals are shot.

High carb is terrible for me, leaves me extremely wired and then I subsequently crash soon after. I believe the theory the likes of her, Lam and the good Wilson are putting across is that you don't want to be producing more cortisol than is strictly required at the time of healing - the adrenals arent up to it, so a low carb diet (not zero carbs as we need carbs to function) is better when cortisol output is low (i.e the adrenals are fatigued) to allow them to rest sufficiently. Eating higher carb is better further down the road when everything is functioning better, therefore in a better sense of healing and carbs are used as the next plateau so to speak to bring one back to life when the body can handle it and is stable enough.

I think testing yourself for cortisol isnt going to show up on an ASI being higher after a diet of carbs for a while, its more the instant impact of the carbs, you will get a cortisol hit, but the body is too damaged to sustain prolonged cortisol output. This is in theory, what adrenal fatigue is - which is why most pass the ACTH stimulation test, my cortisol output doubled in fact, yet I crashed about two hours later so heaivily and took me three weeks to recover. Yet my recent ASI test shows bottomed out flat lined cortisol and my 24 hour catachelomiles have low cortisol but elevated adrenaline - in me especially, adrenaline compensates extremely, I can easily go ride a bike for two hours, ill feel rotten and with no energy, but i can do it - however I go into adrenaline overdrive and my body cant shut down for days, and then it will subsequently crash. I have to really work at not being active. This is what AF was originally prescribed to be..