Debbie Potts Journey…
I have been in the fitness industry as a personal trainer, instructor and triathlon/run coach for over twenty years but I have also struggled with my body weight and health even though I am a competitive endurance athlete completing many marathons, 50k trail run races, cycling events and long distance triathlons.
After being in the fitness industry since I was in college, I started to see a pattern with not only myself but many clients struggling to lose weight and get healthier even though they exercised consistently. I was not able to help clients by just training them one to three times a week. I started to think outside of the box and get curious why we are told certain guidelines and rules to lose weight, reduce risk for heart disease and diabetes. What we were being told didn’t make sense to me as a trainer, coach or athlete. How do I burn fat when I exercise and train when I am supposed to eat every few hours? Why do I feel hungry after I ate a banana, orange juice and oatmeal?
Over the years I started to read up on the Zone diet and then later the Paleo diet. My journey began to what I label now as “WHOLESTIC Method” approach with eight elements to improve fat loss, health and performance. I started to do my own research and listening to podcasts with people as Sean Croxten’s, Ben Greenfield and Jimmy Moore. In 2012, I started the “Superhuman Coach” certification program with Ben Greenfield and continued my education in metabolic efficiency and low-carb eating.
As my journey began on the nutrition and health side of a coach, I was becoming a competitive age group triathlete (Ironman distance) since 2001, marathoner and long distance cycling events. I loved training and racing endurance events. I also opened up my own boutique fitness studio in 2010. As I was learning about adrenal exhaustion, heart rate variability and leaky gut… I soon found myself feeling and experiencing many of the red flags for stage three adrenal fatigue in 2012. After competing and setting my best times at Ironman Canada then 70.3 world championships then Ironman Hawaii for my fifth time followed by another marathon then a 50k trail race while running my own fitness business with crazy hours…my body from the inside out was exhausted. Hormones were plummeting, my weight sky rocketed and my body could not take any sugar including fruit without getting a headache in five seconds.
After being the best shape in my life in the summer and fall of 2012, my health, body weight and fitness level drastically changed around March 2013. I started to feel fatigue during a workout to the point that I stopped in a bike ride. My heart rate was a lot higher than normal and then my body composition changed… I gained over 30 pounds by the end of June (I remember the morning I weighed myself at a house we rented for clients doing Ironman Couer D’Alene).
When you gain so much weight so quickly from being very lean and fit… it definitely leads to depression, low self-esteem and confidence. I was embarrassed on my weight gain as I was this top notch athlete who suddenly gained a noticeably amount of weight. I felt people thought I was overeating and not exercising…the stereotype of why we gain weight. Actually at the time of the symptoms of adrenal fatigue, I was doing “Bulletproof coffee” each morning during work then I would eat a large healthy lunch in the afternoon and skip dinner as I was trying to “intermittent fast” for 15 hours…what not to do when your adrenals are overworked and broken.
My journey from metabolic efficiency, low carb eating and how to coach clients to become fat burning machines shifted to how to recover from Adrenal Exhaustion. I was living and operating daily for a few years with adrenal fatigue. At the same time of co-hosting a podcast “FIT FAT FAST”, I started sharing my story and challenges I was dealing with to our listeners as well as writing about my research findings on Adrenal Fatigue. I was not the only one struggling. Friends would suggest taking an anxiety pill or got get my liver and gallbladder checked. Traditional medicine doesn’t look at the root cause… why was all of this happening to me?
Many listeners and clients could relate to my story…being tired but wired all day, wide awake at 2am, muscle fatigue during workouts, depressed, rapid weight gain, bloated belly and skin rash. I searched for a practitioner to help me but I went to six doctors before I found help with the Kalish Method and another local naturopath. In 2014, I became a certified CHEK Institute Holistic Lifestyle Coach level one and plan to continue to level three. In 2014, I also started my own podcast to expand the topics from metabolic efficiency and low carb living to the “SHUT THE FRONT DOOR!” health and fitness topics in order to cover fueling, training and performance tricks that we don’t hear in the mainstream media.
What I experienced was common among so many clients and friends…endurance athletes from burning the candle at both ends as well as busy parents trying to do too much in the day. Adrenal fatigue or exhaustion is a common battle but undetected. Most doctors do not do the lab testing and treatment plans necessary to help individuals with symptoms of adrenal fatigue.
My recovery has taken almost three years to heal my adrenals and hormonal system. What I have learned for myself is what I help clients with now for fat loss, health and performance with my “WHOLESTIC Method”. We need to start from the inside out to heal our body. Make a shift in your lifestyle, mindset and habits if you want to heal from adrenal exhaustion, hormonal imbalance, thyroid and more areas by working with a practitioner or HLC coach that you connect with. Join my mission to take care of ourselves from the inside out.
Shut the Front Door! Podcast (old name: Fit Fat Fast) is a fitness podcast on metabolic efficiency tips, fat loss strategies and health tricks for endurance athletes of all levels hosted by Debbie Potts. Fuel, Train, Perform…Maximize your performance in endurance sports and in life by making yourself metabolically efficient the “Wholestic” method.
Your host, Debbie Potts, is a certified Metabolic Efficiency Training Specialist, CHEK HLC Coach, Superhuman Coach, USAT Coach and NASM CPT. Debbie is a leading fitness professional for twenty years who owns fitnessforwardstudio.com in Bellevue, WA. Debbie is an avid long-distance endurance runner, cyclist and triathlete who revels in the continual search of ways to maximize the power and limits of human endurance by making the body as metabolically efficient as possible. Come along for the ride, you’ve got nothing to gain but health!
Debbie Potts
NASM CPT, MET, USAT & CHEK HLC
Fitness Forward Studio
118 105th Ave NE
Bellevue, WA 98004
Learn how to become a fat burning machine!
Host of the “Shut the Front Door Podcast!”
Fitnessforwardstudio.com
