Today, I want to bring you an awesome chat with Cari Li, truly amazing women's lifestyle coach who has overcome severe overtraining, including adrenal fatigue and loss of period.
I talk a lot about overtraining, fatigue and hypothalamic amenorrhea on this site, because these are the things I personally used to struggle with a lot when I was super active, and I know many other women who do that as well.
I want to show you that you can live and train so much better, without burning yourself out!
Cari Li has been through all of it, and in her story, the focus is on adrenal fatigue. With adrenal fatigue comes with extreme exhaustion and metabolic damage, all of which you can learn more about in today's video (or, you can read the transcript below).
However, there's a way out of all these things, and Cari is a perfect example of this. She is much stronger and happier person today, after finding true balance, and she's sharing her story with us today.
Enjoy the video and if you like it, share it with someone who you think would benefit from it!
Recovering from Overtraining, Adrenal Fatigue and Loss of Period with Cari Li
Kersten: Okay, I'm so excited to have my friend Cari here talking to all of us who have had some sort of overtraining issue, adrenal fatigue or hypothalamic amenorrhea… I feel like all these things are related. Cari has a great experience in overcoming it all and coming out so much stronger than she was before, or at least that's what it seems like, right?
Cari: I'd like to think so!
Kersten: Yeah, I think so! So why don't you tell us first who you are and what you're doing right now.
Cari: I am Cari Li and I'm women's lifestyle coach online. So basically I love creating stress-free weight loss programs for women who have a lot on their plates, overwhelmed women. I do it with quick workouts and I love really simple eating programs, eating habits they can learn and sustain even if they're traveling, if they're working a lot, have a family and they can't cook. I love to create things around people's lifestyle and make it work for them. That's basically what I do.
Kersten: Sounds great. And you are also a personal trainer?
Cari: Yes, that's how I started. Now I work mostly online. I do miss the personal training life, the 1:1 touch, but I don't get that as often anymore, because I'm always on the move, always running around in too many places.
Kersten: Right. That's a great thing about online business though, you can work from anywhere pretty much.
Cari: Yes, I love it.
Kersten: So, you look like super energetic and happy right now. We just met last weekend in Las Vegas and I could never tell that you've had such a crazy history with overexercising, under eating, adrenal fatigue, all that kind of stuff. Why don't you tell us little bit about your adrenal fatigue story.
Cari: Sure, thank you. I'm glad because when I went through all this, you could see that I was like a zombie. I was half dead basically. Anyone who's been through that knows how that feels.
But basically, I was someone who was super into “the fitness lifestyle”, getting really lean, meal prepping all the time, working out all the time, no days off-lifestyle. I'm a little embarrassed about it but that's where was at the time. It started when I was 21. I'm 29 right now.
So I was into that lifestyle. I worked a lot of hours as a personal trainer, because as a personal trainer, you work when people aren't working so early mornings and late nights, whoever you can fit in between, and your training goes in between there as well. I was living in Singapore so with the commute… I probably had four to six hours of sleep every night, six if I was lucky. Which, for a woman, is not enough.
[tweet_box design=”default”]People like to say, yeah, I only sleep four hours… No. You need more sleep.[/tweet_box]
So I didn't get enough sleep, I was always dieting, I was always trying to get smaller. I'm only half Chinese, my other side is Caucasian, so I was never “small enough” to be Asian. Living in Asia I always wanted to be leaner, smaller.
So, lots of training, lots of work and not enough good food. That's what put me in the adrenal fatigue state basically.
Kersten: What were the first signs that told you that something is not right anymore?
Cari: Yes, so the first thing was that I couldn't really recover from my workouts anymore. Honestly, I think adrenal fatigue starts way in advance, you're doing things way before. But this is where it really started hitting me: I couldn't recover from my workouts, I was always tired, my strength was really decreasing, I had insomnia and when I could sleep, I would still wake up tired.
I had one day off per week and I spent literally the whole day sleeping. I would go to sleep on Saturday night and wake up only to use the bathroom and eat a little bit, then sleep the whole Sunday, just to wake up on Monday still tired, and start all over again.
So, insomnia but still can't sleep, still not getting rest… I was dizzy a lot, I remember that. E
very time I would stand up from a bench or something, I would get really lightheaded.
My period — I wasn't really having a period anymore. I would spot, and sometimes for extended amount of time but I would never had a real period, it just wouldn't come.
I gained a lot of weight. I gained at least 10 kg, about 25 lbs, that was tough. I had an estrogen bloat for the first time. That was difficult as well. I had never had a lower belly before, I was always athletic. You know when I gained weight, it was never this little pooch at the bottom right… so that was crazy for me. I'm like, when I was reading the education, holy cow, I'm pre-menopausal and I'm 25!
I couldn't stand for more than 20 minutes, because my neck and everything around would cramp up. I always had to sit down or lay down. I was coaching clients from the bench because I couldn't move the weights for them. I felt like broken. That's how it hit me personally.
Kersten: While all that happen, did you try to work out too?
Cari: Oh my god, so badly! I was still trying to do fasted cardio, because I was gaining all this weight. So I would still do fasted cardio when I woke up — when I forced myself to wake up. I would still try to weight train and I would still try to cut carbs more and cut calories more because I kept gaining the weight. So yes, I would push harder and ever time I pushed harder, my body would rebound back harder and I would gain more.
Kersten: Did you also count calories while you did all that?
Cari: Oh yes.
Kersten: So what was your calorie count, how much did you actually take in?
Cari: Too little for what I was training. Anywhere from 1200 to 1600 and that's training a few hours a day.
[tweet_box design=”default”]How I ended up with adrenal fatigue: I trained people all day, worked out myself, ate 1200-1600 calories, slept 4-6 hours and did fasted cardio. [/tweet_box]Kersten: Right. Plus working out yourself, training your clients… you were on your feet all day long.
Cari: Yeah it was way too low.
Kersten: Okay. So how long did it all last before you started doing something about it and what did you do?
Cari: Ok, let's see. I'd like to say that I go through phases pretty fast. Looking back at my history, I was suffering form adrenal fatigue even before my 20s. But I would say all this happened to me within 6 month when I went from being really tired to not being able to do anything at all. It kind of like punched me in the gut and knocked the wind out of me. In my opinion it was fast, because I was always working, I was always busy and now I couldn't do anything. So yes, in about six months it when from being manageable to I couldn't do nothing.
Kersten: Okay. So what did you do about it?
Cari: So, let's see.. How did I even know it was adrenal fatigue… You know, when you're taking a PT cert, you don't really get taught about this stuff about adrenal fatigue or anything. You get taught about eat less, exercise more…
People were talking about energy, hormones and all that stuff… Actually I had a massage lady talking to me first time, telling me to stop touching people. Because of my neck, I went to see a Chinese doctor who told me that you're too stressed, you're so young, why are you so stressed, you need to sleep more… And I was like, I need to hustle more!
[tweet_box design=”default”]My Chinese doctor asked, why I'm so tired, so stressed and told me to rest. I said, I have to hustle more![/tweet_box]But my body was like, if you're not going to listen, I'm going to force you to stop.
So because I was unable to stand more than 20 minutes, I found a chiropractor through a friend of mine who recommended him to me and I started doing chiro 4 times a week, 45 minute to 1-hour sessions, so they were pretty long sessions. There was just a lot of adjustment going on in my body. Every joint had an issue in my body.
I went for massage once a week — if I could fit it in my schedule I was going to go. I saw my Chinese doctor for acupuncture when I was really having trouble with sleeping, not being able to get sleep that I needed to recover.
And I stopped training for 6 months, completely. Because I walk a lot — when you live in Singapore, or in a lot of countries, you walk a lot. So if someone was in the States I would say, make sure you're walking, it's very restorative. But I was already walking a lot because of work. So I stopped training for 6 months, no weights, nothing, no cardio.
[tweet_box design=”default”]To recover from overtraining, I stopped training for 6 months. No weights, no cardio, nothing. [/tweet_box]I started eating very regular meals. Protein, fiber, natural starches. People go the other way, I know, but that's what worked for me. I was adding in carbs, natural carbs. Good quality meats, not hormone-filled meats. I cut out a lot of things that were messing up my hormones, so I cut out caffeine and alcohol.
And then I slept a lot! I slept my way to healing. I would say, sleep was the biggest thing for me. Any time I could, I would take a nap. I would sleep 8-10 hours a night.
[tweet_box design=”default”]I slept my way to healing from overtraining.[/tweet_box]I also changed my work schedule. I told my clients: Look, I'm going through something — and they could see, I looked like a zombie! I needed two days in a row off. The first couple of months when I had those two days off, I just slept, for two days straight. It was insane how much I was sleeping.
Kersten: You mentioned before that you used to have pretty bad insomnia. I'm really interested in that because sleep is something that has been a big problem for me too. For a very long time, I couldn't figure out why I cannot sleep. This is just so crazy because you know, when I grew up, when I was a teenager, my mom would try to kick me out of the bed, just like, Get up! She'd throw ice cold water on me and I wouldn't get up. Then when I started exercising, really a lot, I was 21 when I started really working out a lot, I lost my sleep and I couldn't put those things together. And you know now, I'm pretty much recovered – I mean, there's still little bit to go, but my sleep is so much better however it's still not quite there always. So what did you do to fix your sleep?
Cari: Okay, for me, there were a lot of things I could work on as far as discipline around my sleep. So I got myself some blackout curtains at the time — these are a bad example, these are not black out curtains… [pointing to her curtains]
Kersten: I hope that's not your bedroom there!
Cari: It is! But the light comes at the perfect time in the morning and it wakes me up to sunlight and I love it, so that's fine. But where I was living in Singapore, I had blackout curtains to block out the light, I was very strict about my electronics and putting them away, basically everything to get my circadian rhythm back because I was so thrown off. So no electronics, blue light blockers.
I also used supplements for adrenal health. The one I like the most and I recommend to all my clients and friends are by Gaia, they have the Adrenal Health for the day and then the Nightly Restore at night. I would take that with my dinner.
My dinner, as I recovered and things got better, I moved all my carbs to dinner, because I was really focused on getting my sleep back in order. Because when my sleep was in order, my hunger… my fat would drop, my weight would drop, the weight that was coming on because of all these adrenal fatigue issues. So I actually moved all my carbs to dinner. If you're a bodybuilder, it's like, wait a second, you're not supposed to eat… In bodybuilding, I teach you, Eat your carbs around your workouts or earlier in the day, otherwise you don't use energy and you store it as fat. And it was total opposite for this. I moved all my carbs at night and it was helping me to drop fat, because I was sleeping so much better.
So I'd just take a nightly natural supplement, I would do like chamomile tea or any relaxing bedtime tea that really helped me. I'd create an evening ritual basically, of meditation as well. Journaling to get everything off my mind. So yes, just a lot of discipline around bedtime.
It didn't solve everything right away and acupuncture helped at first, but as you practice the ritual, as you stick to it… I just started sleeping beautifully.
Kersten: And I think it's really great what you said before that you feel like slept your way to recovery or healing, something like that, right. I feel like sleep is so underrated, it almost seems like people think that the less they sleep and the more they work, they get like some sort of badge of honor or whatever it is. But this is not the case. You know, using whatever stimulants to stay up… at one point, it's going to cost you in a really hard way.
Cari: And that's definitely a lot of people in big cities. Like in Singapore where I come from, that's definitely what people do.
Kersten. Yes. So let's talk a little bit about stopping training again. That's hard, isn't it? It's super hard. Also the girls that I'm working with, who need to recover, need their periods back, whether they want to have kids or whatever the reason is, or just to be healthy, this is one of the things I recommend that really when you're so exhausted, just walk or do some gentle yoga. But the reaction is that, I can't because then I will gain weight and will get big and ugly… Also that, I have to do something to reduce my stress. For many people, working out is their stress reduction… the way to reduce stress. So how did you manage, how did you do it?
Cari: So it was tough for me. I was actually just talking to another lady earlier and we were talking diversity. Because I'm biracial, I always had like identity issues until my mid 20's. I'm not white, I'm not Asian, I'm both, so I was, Where do I fit in? So fitness was where I fit in at the time so I got into this life and then it was taken away from me.
I was like, well, what… Who am I now? My colleagues in fitness they are like, You're doing a crappy job Cari, you really don't belong in the clique anymore type… That's how I felt at the time. You know, I wasn't good enough and people weren't asking me what's wrong, or can they help, or anything. They would be just, Um, you suck. In my mind. That's how I heard it. That I didn't look the way they wanted me to look anymore.
So to me, that was hard because my identity was taken from me. Something I did for a few hours every day was taken away from me. But it's such a blessing for me now because I was so dependent on that and dependent on how I looked and dependent on friendships of how I was looking. You know that was the world I was in. And it made me turn inward when I had to stop all that.
[tweet_box design=”default”]I was so dependent on how I looked. Having to stop training made me turn inward and find answer why this is so.[/tweet_box]I actually did a lot of energy, healing stuff as well, I didn't tell you about that earlier. Like reiki, I dived into reiki, I dived into a lot of meditation as well during this time, because I needed something to replace that, right.
I did a lot of reading on hormones, I did a lot of reading on spirituality, and so I started using this time to be more aware of how I react to things of my thoughts, my mindset basically. Like, This trainer, why is his opinion affecting me so much? I had to think back at it. Why is my body affecting me so much, and the way I look affecting me so much?
I think we talked about it at the event, about how I sat in front of a mirror, and kind of just like… I mean, it sounds really stupid now but…
Kersten: No, no. Tell us about it! I think it was great.
Cari: I basically was… This is when I had gained all that weight and I had started recovery, but I hadn't lost the weight yet. And I basically sat in front of a mirror, in my underwear, and was like, Cari, these are your rolls and this is what you look like, and you're going to have to accept that.
And I sat there and I cried and I looked at myself and I was like, This is you, you can make it better, but this is you. And I accepted my rolls on my gut when I was sitting down. I actually did it for a few more times after that, as silly as it sounds. I wouldn't turn the lights on, I would only use the light that was coming in from the window because it was too much for me to take in and see that my body wasn't the lean body. Anytime I would start wearing clothes that didn't fit, I would go back and sit in front of the mirror and be like, But this is you and be okay with that, and not depend so much on how my body looked anymore for attention, for identity.
So that was tough. It's tough to stop training. I know a lot of friends who go through the same thing, because that's all they know. But I'm blessed to have gone through that, because I am so free from that now.
Kersten: This is so great, yes. So just recently you wrote an article on your blog, Blessings of Adrenal Fatigue, right. I thought it was amazing and it really is true like, the same thing for me, I actually got so much out of it, not only my physical health that I got back, but also mentally. A lot of things changed and I got answers to a lot of my questions like Why am I feeling this way, why do I care what somebody else things, right. Besides, you never really know if they actually do think what you think they think about you, right.
Cari: Right. Nobody really cares about you. It sounds bad but nobody really cares about you that much.
Kersten: Everybody is busy with their stuff.
Cari: They are. And if they are caring about you that much, they have a lot they need to work on too, so you're fine. We're always fine.
Kersten: And I've also found that a lot of things that we, you know, the negative things we think about ourselves… When we think, you know, this guy is staring at me because he thinks that I'm fat, the problem is actually that I think that I'm fat. Because this is my thought, right, this is what I've been telling to myself. Because you know, if you told me that my elbows are ugly, I would be like, What?? You are… what are you talking about? Because I have never thought this thought myself. So it's just all in our heads, I think so.
Cari: Oh yeah, that's where it all starts. Even with my clients like, they don't get it… It's hard for them to grasp that I don't give them a diet plan anymore. I don't tell them, These are the 10 things you're going to eat for the rest of your life. I don't tell them, You have to work out this much. I mold their workouts around their life, their current life. Your life is not like my life, or her life, so it's going to be different. And they struggle with this.
They also struggle with the thought of… You know, I tell them, You're not going to work out. You're going to stop with this personal trainer that you're getting nowhere with, and you've been gaining weight all the time, and we're just going to walk. And they're like, What? I don't get it. But then they just start dropping the weight and they just, Wow, this is crazy, a whole new world!
[tweet_box design=”default”]My clients started losing weight when they got off the 1200-calories a day diet and high intensity exercise, and instead, started walking and reduced stress.[/tweet_box]So, yes, it's a battle to go through that.
Kersten: Right. So what do you think is the key for them? What makes them to lose weight when you tell them just to walk as opposed to doing those high intensity workouts or eating 1200 calories like they were maybe advised to do before?
Cari: It's just too much stress. They already have some… We're just people who just do too much, we just want things, we're going after them. It's a good thing, we just didn't know when to stop and take a break. And that's how we ended up with adrenal fatigue.
Same with my clients: They just don't know when to stop. They are just people who do things… or maybe they're just such givers, you know. They're givers of their time and energy. When I'm working with them, I have to make them slow down, which is hard for a lot of people. Slow down, because then they have to start turning inward and thinking of themselves which is very difficult.
Then they have to just take some things off of their plate. They have to rearrange priorities and realize that health has to be priority for a while and everyone else's stuff just has to kind off just get out of the way. When people… When you're not available for other people, they suddenly figure it out on their own. Suddenly, when they're not dependent on you, you give them the power back to do thins on their own and you get to do your own stuff.
[tweet_box design=”default”]You need to stop and reduce stress. There's too much on your plate. [/tweet_box]The biggest thing is working out the energy and time and where energy is placed. That's the hardest shift for them. The science is easy, the food is easy, exercise is easy. Why aren't you doing it, why can't you do it — that's what's hard.
Kersten: I agree. Just like you, you said that you had to arrange your work hours so that you had two day in a row free, for yourself. So you just had to tell your clients to… what did you tell them to do that?
Cari: Yeah, so I raised my rates and I also said I'm taking two days off a week. And I also was stricter on the hours I worked. I moved them around more. Luckily I worked with a lot of women who had pretty good jobs, they had pretty good position in their companies and were able to adjust their schedule to mine and I think because I had built such a good connection with them and such a friendship that they I saw I needed the help. They saw that I needed the rest and recovery.
So I raised my rates because I had to work less, and I thought I was going to lose clients honestly with the schedule change, but I didn't. I ended up making more money which is nice, if we're talking business.
I made my schedule go from Tuesday to Saturday. Instead of only taking Sunday off, I took Sunday and Monday off. They were fine with it, which I'm very grateful for.
Kersten: I think it's a great example of how sometimes all you have to do is ask, right. Just ask for help. Like, when you have a typical female client who has 2 or 3 kids and they are there for them all the time, and they're there for their husbands and they try to keep the house super clean and then there's the job and they're trying to do many, many things… They never seem to ask help because that seems like weakness or something… I mean, just think what you have to prioritize. Just like you said. Health has to come first. And you have all these kids to take care of, you have to be around for them. So prioritize the things that are most important to you and put those first, right.
Cari: I think another blessing that comes from this is like we were talking about boundaries, who you decide stays… I mean, who stays in your life and who goes because when you get hit so hard where you need help, there's no other choice than to get help, and you see the close people around you not want anything to do with you anymore because you can't help them and they don't really want to help you when you need help, then you start really seeing who's there for you. Who's helping your energy and who's only taking from your energy. It's a great filtering system. That whole experience just filters out so much inside and in your circle. That's what happened to me at least and I've seen it happen for other women too.
Kersten: Yes, I think it's great. So, let's talk little bit about nutrition too. We talked a little bit about carbs. What do you think about those… Do you think those really low-carb and no-carb diets have something to do with women getting into this adrenal fatigue-loss of period thing. What's your opinion on that?
Cari: Definitely. Definitely. I mean, and it depends on the person. I actually do better on a low-carb diet, that's my genetics. I do better on high fat and moderate protein, low carb. That's what I feel great with. I think people are also forgetting that okay, there's the diet but diet also revolves around how you're living your life. So for me, when I was doing personal training, which is always active, I was training a few hours a day and doing cardio, I definitely needed more carbs. Low carb was not going to work for me.
[tweet_box design=”default”]What diet you should follow depends on your lifestyle. People expect to work on one diet plan for the rest of their lives, but our lives always change![/tweet_box]But right now, I train 4 times a week, less than an hour, that's kind of my sweet spot, so I do drop the carbs. So everything revolves around how you're living at the moment, you know what I mean? If I'm sleeping bad again, I'm going to have more carbs again at night, to fix that.
And life changes. It doesn't stay the same. I think people have a huge expectation to only work on one diet plan. And in a year.. life changes so much in one year, you can't just do that.
So, everyone's different. And yes, low carb diets definitely get women in trouble. It's just too much.
Kersten: Yes, I agree. I've seen that a lot of times. I would say at least, you know, 50% of these women who contact me and ask some advice, they lost their periods and started to get those really bad signs of overtraining after they went really low carb… say even like 25 grams per day… And then they're like, Yes, I got this really strong, beautiful, muscular, lean body, but then all these things started to happen. So I feel like women's bodies do need some more carbs than we think they do.
Cari: Yeah. I mean… Have you ever done a ketogenic diet? Have you ever been on that?
Kersten: I have not tried. My husband has done it and it works for him.
Cari: Yeah. I actually felt great on it. When I live in the States, I can do it, but when I go back home I want to eat all the things form my childhood. But I feel great on a keto diet which is very low carb. But then my training changes. I don't train as intensely as when I do have carbs in my system, you know what I mean? I think that's where people mess up is, they go keto or really low carb and still expect to train the same way. And you can't do that. That's just breaking your body.
Kersten: Yes. I feel like it works better for those who are not very active, in general. Because you want it or not, if you're an active person, I mean, the carbs are there to be the quickest source of energy, right. So you actually do need this stuff.
Cari: Yes.
Kersten: Okay, so one more thing that I kind of wanted to come back to is training. How did coming back, or starting working out again happened to you? Did you have setbacks, were you able to jump right in, how did it go?
Cari: Yes. My body has definitely changed after this experience. My body is not the same.
How I started training again… So after the 6 months, I added in a little bit more walking, especially in nature. I added in yoga. I didn't train weights for six months, but starting the last 2-3 months I started doing pilates with a physical therapist, which was like a combination of both but honestly, mostly what we did was breathing exercises.
So I started there, and then I got into yoga, not like power yoga or hot yoga — definitely not hot yoga. Just like relaxing, stretching, a lot of meditation after that so anything to bring the stress levels down and just kind of gain back strength again.
I mean, I couldn't stand for more than 20 minutes so anything like planking or anything upper body would cause all this [neck area] to just seize and to cramp. So even doing a plank was crazy for me at that time.
And then I started adding in four 40-minute sessions of weight training. Just traditional weight training at first, so like 4 sets of bigger movements, moderate weight, maybe 12 reps, just trying to build my body back, gain a a little bit more strength. Nothing too intense. I would do weight training and just some walking. Just moderate pace walking, not intense cardio.
As I built my strength up, my workouts started to get quicker. But I couldn't increase my workout days and times. Because I love working out, right. I love being in the gym, my friends are there. So sometimes I get carried away and go little longer, and I feel it. I see myself gain weight again if I start doing 6 days a week, and as soon as I drop back to 4, I shed the weight again. It's crazy. Four is like the magic number for me.
So yes, as I gained strength, I did maybe… My 40 minutes would look like 15-20 minutes mini circuit, I'd do 3-4 exercises with weights, like rest-based training type of stuff, and then I'd do like one strength training thing. And yeah, now I can play around with it a little more.
Kersten: Right. Yes. But did you ever have like moments where you knew or you felt that the signs are coming back, the symptoms are coming back, I have to take a complete break again? Has it ever happened to you?
Cari: I mean it just happened, right before Vegas actually, right before our event [Kersten's note: about a week before this interview was recorded].
So I was launching a product and before that, I had a friend visiting from France. So she comes to LA, I'm taking her to san Francisco, we're running around, partying a little bit, you know. So, I'm tired, I'm not used to partying like that anymore, and first sign is usually my neck. My neck starts hurting. Well not… that's not the first one, but that's where I really know that I'm starting to really mess up.
My eyes get really sore, the sleep… I feel like I never get enough sleep again and that's where I really have to watch out. And then the water weight as well. The water weight starts piling on, the pooch starts coming back, the lower belly starts coming back. That's probably the first sign, my lower belly. It's the water, it just starts staying right there. And then I know, okay, too much stress, too much going on in life, I need to pull back somewhere.
It's funny because you know, I did the challenge and then I released the product — they were 15-minute workouts, and so I literally cut back to 15-minute workouts, as I was releasing the 15-minute workout program. I really did, I was only training like 60 minutes a week because I was just doing too much everywhere else in life and that just had to take a backseat.
But now, work is back to normal, so now I'm back to like 40 minutes few times a week, an hour few times a week.
Kersten: I feel like that's also one thing that people don't realize that when you do a lot of things anyway, you know it all takes energy even if you have a day when you only run errands… Say it's a Saturday, you have a million things to take care of, you don't have to necessarily go and work out on that day. Because it's all… you're spending a lot of energy, you're getting stressed, you have these small stressors throughout your day, there's bad traffic and I don't know, phone calls and stuff like that, you're wiped. And you don't have to go and work out on that day.
Cari: Yes. That's why my group program is called “Find Your Energy”, because all these women are coming into the gym, looking for a trainer, when they're already so tired, and they're doing more, when they should be doing less.
I love to say that I give women the power to do less because no, you don't need to do more. Right now, you we need to cut back, get your energy back, so that you can be more, but not necessarily by doing more, you know what I mean?
Kersten: Yes. No, I totally love it. I think that doing less is oftentimes the actual key to feeling better and healthier.
Cari: I think so.
Kersten: Well, thank you so much for sharing your experience. Is there anything else I didn't ask, but you would like to add?
Cari: If you ever find yourself being really tired, if you ever find yourself looking at your body and not being happy, you need to look at health. I think a lot of us are so absorbed with how we look and things that aren't important, really — and we forget that health is actually our priority. If you do take care of your health, you will look great. It's all tied together.
If you only want to look great but feel like crap and live crappy then I don't know. I think you really need to re-prioritize some things in your life.
So yes, always health over looks and when you take care of everything, everything will look healthy anyway.
Kersten: Right. I think this is a great, great advice. Thank you. So why don't you tell us also where we can find you if we want to connect with you. I think people will because you're just so amazing.
Cari: Thanks! You can find me on Instagram, I'm on there a lot @cari_li, Facebook it's CoachCariLi and my website is www.coachcarili.com. And yes, you can find me there! I have quite a few posts on adrenal fatigue, some of them are little older, but yes, I've got to work on putting it out there. I haven't done too much of it, but I have to.
Kersten: Yes, please do. I think it's very helpful for may of us.
Cari: Thanks, yes. It's important.
Kersten: Okay, thank you so much and I hope we'll talk again. Hopefully soon.
Cari: Thanks for having me! It's good to see you again.
Kersten: You too! Thanks and bye!
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