How I Lost Weight and Got Better by NOT Working Out

That’s right, I stopped working out for a whole month and not only lost weight, but I gained more energy and improved my hormonal rhythms.

WOAH –  HOLD UP…

Before you start getting all cozy on the couch and cancelling your gym membership, let me emphasize that this is what worked for ME at this time in my life… Every single one of us is unique and special and what works for one person in one circumstance may not work for another.  In fact what might work for the same person under different circumstances could be totally different as well…So tune in, get support from a qualified practitioner and listen to your body.

So my circumstances included:  Peri-menopausal, looming and grueling Grad School board exams, Hashimoto’s since my thirties, and more recently, “Adrenal Exhaustion” (confirmed with salivary hormone testing – 4 points throughout the day).  My ND said, “I had the DHEA levels of an 80 year old!”

Nice…and not only that…

ALL my hormones were like Sunny in “Apple Bottom Jeans”: Low, low, low, low, low, low, low, low…

Symptoms were fatigue, no libido, stalled menstruation, hot flashes, night sweats, weight gain and my hair started changing – it got courser and thinner on top. Since DHEA is a super anti-aging hormone, getting back into balance was a huge priority for me.

I’m too young to be old!

My diet is pretty dialed in, so there was little tweaking I could do there (unless I wanted to be neurotic), but I did cut caffeine.  My sleep could have been better too. I would often be exhausted by 4pm, but then wired at 10 pm after Game Thrones or some other intense show (like RHONY), so I wouldn’t be able to fall asleep until 11 or later.

I woke up in the morning like a Zombie and the only thing that made me feel alive was going to my 9 am Crossfit class.  Crossfit is a high intensity approach to fitness using endurance, agility and weights – usually high reps for time, but also max weight lifting as well. I absolutely love it!

For those who aren’t into exercise you might be like, huh?  If you’re feeling like crap, then why would you torture yourself with high intensity exercise like Crossfit?

To put it bluntly: Crossfit gave me a bump – like a Coke Whore in the men’s room of a disco in the 70s. (at least that’s what I learned from Scorsese movies :))

What I realized… when my lovely ND suggested I give Crossfit a break…was that I was using Crossfit to juice up my hormones. It was like a jolt of life (literally adrenaline) to give me a bit of energy to get through the day.  The thing is, and I knew this as I would literally drag myself out of bed each morning, this high intensity exercise (along with grad school stress) was making me worse in the long run.

I was stealing from Peter to pay Paul and now I was really, REALLY overdrawn.

I had to do more to get better.

Actually, I had to do less.

At first, I started to cut back from working out 4-5 days a week to just 3 –  and I told myself I’d scale back the intensity of the workouts (or WODs – Workouts of the Day in Crossfit-speak).  But, that didn’t really happen, because Crossfit is kinda like a push through, push hard, mind over matter, competitive sport and I’m kinda competitive and well, ya’ know…I couldn’t just half ass it.

The reality was though, I wasn’t getting any better – I was feeling worse. Despite working on detox pathways, taking adrenal support, meditating, deep breathing, PT and working on sleep, I was not improving, So I begrudgingly followed doctor’s orders and stopped Crossfit all together – just for a month. I missed it terribly.

I replaced my hard core workouts with “Work-INs” like walking, hiking and yoga to keep my body and mind moving while allowing myself to heal at a deeper level.  The adrenals and their delicate connection to the Hypothalamus, Pituitary, Ovaries and Thyroid needed repair and reconnection.

SCIENCE NOTE: Technically, this condition is called HPA dysregulation (Hypothalamus – Pituitary- Adrenal dysregulation and also, depending on the glands involved:  HPTA = thyroid too, or OAT = Ovaries, Adrenal, Thyroid… (Come to think of it, I think I may have qualified for all 5! HPTAO – a new disease acronym! Whoohoo!). Since my DHEA and Cortisol were so low and these hormones are mainly produced by the adrenals, that’s where the term Adrenal Fatigue/Failure and Exhaustion come from.  It’s not that the adrenal glands are literally failing or “exhausted”, it’s that the signalling is off.

I was afraid that stopping Crossfit would mean I would gain even more weight, but the opposite happened. I lost 5 pounds without trying (true..some of that weight might’ve been muscle).  But more than that, and best of all, my rhythms, mood and energy finally came back on-line.   I felt like myself again.

Since my doc and I are happy with my progress, I’ll be going back to Crossfit for 1-2 really scaled WODs per week because I miss the community and sweat factor. But yoga and walking/hiking will be part of the mix too. This will keep me balanced.

It’s important to always keep exercising when you physically can, but it’s super critical to listen to your body and to find the right mix of working “out” and working “in”.

I’ll post more on some other helpful approaches I use(d) on my healing path in future posts.  In the meantime, tell me your experience with exercise and/or if you’ve dealt with hormonal imbalance. Do you have any questions or tips?  What are some of the ways you’ve learned to listen to your body?

(The above picture is me “Working In”. I’m at a photo shoot for Happy Aging Yoga Retreats outside of Seattle – Retreats are held throughout the country. Click here to learn more!)