Triathlete training and difficulty loosing weight

Question:

I am a personal trainer who is a 45 year old pre-menopausal woman. I do cardio 5 times a week and strength train almost every day. I am training for my first triathlon in Sept. At the gym where I work, we have a newleaf metabolic analyzer. I know my RMR and my V02 max. I train in all my zones every week often times I run in the morning and bike at night or swim and run etc. My RMR is 2300 calories and I write down everything I eat. I try to eat 2700 a day. I am trying to loose 20 lbs. I weigh 159 and want to be 140. I am 24% body fat. (with an Omron). Help!!! What more can I do? Am I eating too much? not enough? I am on hormone replacement therapy for testosterone, progesterone and DHEA. I have a thyroid condition and take cytomel and levoxyl. All of my hormones are in normal ranges. 

Answer:

Well, this is a great example of how there is more than one piece to the healing puzzle. You are learning and most of society is as well, that just exercising and eating right, sometimes just do not cut it. Not to down play them, because they are important, but you can see that there is more to your healing puzzle than just that. There are a lot of questions within your question, so I will do my best to answer them in sections. 

PHYSICAL STRESS: When it comes to being a triathlon, overtraining and being in some sort of Adrenal Fatigue comes with the territory. In the Textbook of Functional Medicine Thomas Sult in Chap. 24 states that overtraining can actually decrease sIgA in the gut. This is our first line of defense against foreign invaders. Without it we decrease the strength of our immune system, create an environment for bacteria, parasites and fungus, creates stress to the adrenal glands, can create hormones imbalances, and so forth.  

When it comes to triathlon training, the main goal should be adaptation to your many stressors. This might entail certain types of parasympathetic exercises, eating high quality organic foods, drinking plenty of water and eliminating most of the high lighter colored Gatorade drinking (replaces them with electrolyte capsules), getting regular soft tissue work, working with a professional such as Chris Maund to get proper training, etc. This will allow you to train effectivly, have homeostasis within and will create homeostasis with-out!

 HORMONES: At the same time you need to get out of the mind set the doing more = weight loss. This is not the case and you are a prime example of this. When you overtrain or can’t adapt to the many stressors in your life, your adrenal glands become overworked. You can end up in one of three stages of adrenal fatigue, Stage 2 or 3 being very common in triathletes. When our bodies are stressed, we over produce hormones (typically cortisol) from the adrenal glands to reduce inflammation and in order for us to handle our stressors. The adrenal glands get these signals from the pituitary. When the adrenals have to over produce cortisol, a process called pregnenolone steal happens. This is when pregnenolone (precursor) is stolen from producing DHEA, testosterone, estrogen and progesterone, in order to over produce cortisol. This is how most women develop what is called estrogen dominance (not enough progesterone to counteract the unwanted affects of estrogen), from my clinical experience and testing.  

The problem with being estrogen dominant is that estrogen inhibits T4 to T3 conversion, overloads the liver, inhibits osteoclasts, increase water retention, and is produced and stored in fat cells (these are all symptoms when progesterone is not there to oppose estrogen). So the more dominant you are, the body converts more hormonal precursors (cholesterol and pregnenolone) to cortisol, than to progesterone. This leads to estrogen dominance, which leads to excess weight around the midsection and gluteal cleft area (according to Charles Poliquin, this is where there are a lot of estrogen receptors). Estrogen is stored and produces in fat cells. The more you have or the more dominant you are with estrogen, the harder it is to loose fat. Besides this, cortisol is a fat storing hormone as well. Anytime cortisol goes up, so does insulin, which is another fat storing hormone. My recommendation and that is all it is, is to treat your hormonal issues from the precursors down, not the end products up. Treating with DHEA and testosterone, with low precurors, typically will not do the trick from my experience. You might feel good when on them, but once off you will be right back where you started. As for the progesterone, that is fine, but you need to add pregnenolone into the mix, which is its precursor (as well as fats!). You most likely have low testosterone and DHEA levels because of pregnenolone steal. I typically recommend bio-dentical progesterone, secondary to the creams being stored in plastic bottles (which contain a lot of Xenoestrogens, lots of synthetic solvents and you can actually measure how much cream is actually being absorbed into the body).

 As for the thyroid issue, there are a lot of schools of thought that believe this is actually the byproduct of an adrenal issue. You have the HPA (hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal) and HPT (hypothalamus-pituitary-thyroid) axis. The thyroid is the master gland of metabolism and with stress and estrogen dominance, it actually slows down to protect the body, in simplistic terms. So treating it head on again, I have seen little results. Using holistic nutrition and lifestyle principles and aggressively balancing the adrenals and progesterone levels is what I have seen to work to facilitate thyroid function. 

 Now with all this, what do you do:

1. Follow holistic nutrition and lifestyle principles (organic foods, eliminating plastics, sleep, water, right types and amount of exercise and so forth). As well, refer to my last Q&A on dieting.
2. Read the book How to Eat, Move and Be Healthy by Paul Chek
3. Read the book The Metabolic Typing Diet by Bill Wollcott
4. Find a practitioner, such as Dan Kalish or myself, that can help you balance your hormones with bio-identicals head on, instead of backwards.
5. Contact Chris Maund who is a professional Endurance Athlete, skilled Endurance Athlete Practitioner, as well as has a certification on Endurance training.

Remember, our bodies are 3D representations of what is going on inside. So you must get healthy to loose weight, not loose weight to get healthy.

Joshua Rubin

www.eastwesthealing.com