More and more health scientists are recognizing that women who want to lose weight should not just watch their calorie intake or increase their physical activity. They also need to balance their hormone levels.
An imbalance in your hormone system can make losing weight very difficult.
You can actually see hormones as the managers of our body. From our sex life to our immune system from our appetite to our metabolism; it is all controlled by hormones.
There are at least 40 chemicals active in our body that control our appetite. Fortunately, science is developing more and more strategies to change the signals of hormones in such a way that they can help us lose weight.
Many women think that menopause and gaining weight go hand in hand and there is nothing they can do to prevent it. While it is true that many women have a harder time losing weight during perimenopause, you can take action to change that!
To begin with, you need to become aware of what and how you eat. After all, this strongly affects your hormone balance and the way your body stores fat and produces muscle.
To begin with, you need to become aware of what and how you eat. After all, this strongly affects your hormone balance and the way your body stores fat and produces muscle.
On the other hand, a diet rich in industrially produced foods and sugars but low in nutrients is often responsible for your hormones becoming unbalanced. For example, a diet high in carbohydrates ensures that your body will produce extra insulin, which in turn can lead to unstable blood sugar.
You get a sugar rush followed by a sugar crash and these fluctuations cause an overproduction of the stress hormone cortisol.
Why an imbalance in your hormones leads to obesity
If your hormone levels consistently contain a lot of cortisol and insulin, this can lead to more hunger and weight gain. And research shows that weight gain itself is responsible for rising levels of so-called sex hormones, such as estrogen and testosterone, in the body.
We tend to think that adipose tissue does not play an active role in our body, but that is not true: it actively produces hormones (especially estrogen) which causes the number of sex hormones to increase.
In fact, an imbalance in these sex hormones leads to more weight gain and they are a barrier for women trying to lose weight. And this problematic vicious cycle becomes even more important after menopause.
The good news is that by changing what you eat, you can naturally help your body restore the balance between the different hormones. You can speed up this process even more by using phyto-therapeutic herbal therapies that help balance your hormones.
The right combination of these can not only help balance your hormones, but can also help suppress some of the symptoms of menopause. In health stores you will find supplements specially formulated for this purpose.
Are you also in a constant battle with the scales? And does your hormone level play a role in this? Then I am very interested to hear your story. Have you tried hormone or herbal therapies for weight loss? Which ones worked best for you or not at all? Send me your reaction to this article!
Losing weight according to the hormone factor
What the body does with energy is influenced by hormones and hormones are in turn influenced by our lifestyle. How we can influence our hormones with our lifestyle (nutrition, training, stress limitation, mental) is described in The hormone factor.
Energy usage
By far the most important contribution to the energy use of the body is provided by the basal metabolism (energy use at rest). This is seen by many in the dietitian approach as a constant, depending on the weight, lean body mass and age.
When I look at the hormonal system, the thyroid gland plays a central role in this. There are individual differences in thyroid functioning between people. I therefore certainly do not see the basal metabolism as a constant. (4) How high set thyroid pilot state also depends on the level of stress and nutrition - and movement behavior of a person.
With crash diets and diets with extremely few carbohydrates, the thyroid gland can slow down and thus also the combustion at rest is lower (lowering free T3 and increasing reverse T3 in blood). (5) There are also other causes for a slow thyroid gland. Think of autoimmune diseases or other thyroid disorders.
Yet I notice in practice that almost everyone with a slight thyroid delay can lose weight well. This should therefore rarely be used as an excuse. Those who do gain weight often eat more in an attempt to eat away the listless feeling that arises from a shortage of thyroid hormones. In addition, weight gain can also partly be attributed to fluid retention.
A good intake of calories and no extreme long-term carbohydrate restriction (such as a ketogenic diet) are important to maintain the thyroid gland function. Creating extra muscle mass is also a good way to increase basal metabolism.
Energy storage
Whether we use more or less energy than we take in, what matters most is how the fat, muscle and/or glycogen stores are affected. Many people would be fine with getting more energy than they expend if these calories were made into muscle, not fat.
What we do not want is if more energy is consumed than consumed, that precious muscles are burned to provide this energy and that the fat simply remains. Hormones are involved in the way energy is stored in the body. Testosterone and growth hormone ensure that relatively more energy is stored in the form of muscle mass, for example. (6) (7)
Hunger and satiety
Hormones influence our feeling of hunger and satiety. For the current food industry it is very interesting to let us eat more, so that they sell more products. They add sugars, fat, salt, aromas and flavorings to foods that increase the 'through-eating factor'. These are also often foods that can release 'fun substances' in our brains, so that we reach for them in certain moods. For example, there are many people who try to eat away emotional dips or blood sugar dips with these types of products. When hormones become out of balance, this can cause the aforementioned dips and thus provoke snaps.
Many people who start eating until satiety according to the hormone factor automatically eat less and this makes it easier to maintain than with regular calorie restriction, which requires a lot of discipline and mental frustration (which can eventually lead to compensatory behavior). Of course there are also influences on eating behavior that lie outside the hormones.
And last but not least
Obtaining an ideal body composition is a bit more complex than a simple calculation. Calories are important, but more important is what the body does with them and how it anticipates this. And this is the job of hormones, and we can influence these with our lifestyle.
Balancing your hormones: that's how you do it
Hormones are extremely important for the functioning of your body. However, if they are out of balance, they can get in your way. Fortunately, there are ways to balance your hormones without pills or other drugs.
If your hormones are out of balance, you can suffer from various complaints. Below we have listed which complaints are associated with which hormones:
- High estrogen: changes in your sleep patterns, changes in weight and appetite, stress, slower metabolism
- Low estrogen: irregular periods, mood swings, low libido, infertility
- Low progesterone: PMS, depression, infertility, thyroid problems, menopausal symptoms
- Low testosterone: muscle loss, weight gain, fatigue, mood swings
- High Ghrelin: Increased appetite, sweet cravings, weight gain
- Insulin resistance: easily tired, sweet cravings, belly fat, difficulty losing weight, very thirsty, urinating a lot
- Leptin resistance: large appetite, lack of exercise, obesity, difficulty in losing weight
- High cortisol: sweet cravings, weight gain, belly fat, poor sleep, fatigue, reduced resistance, changes in your blood pressure, low libido, nervousness, negative mood, stomach and intestinal complaints, back pain, headache
- Growth hormone deficiency: belly fat, less muscle mass, tired faster, weaker bones, poorer concentration
Eat more healthy fats
Our body needs different types of fats for the production of different hormones, such as estrogen, testosterone and progesterone. Think of omega 3 fatty acids, but also saturated fats and cholesterol. So put healthy fats on your menu more often if you strive for a healthy hormone balance. Good sources of these fats are:
- Coconut oil
- Coconut milk
- Avocado
- Wild salmon
- Grass-fed butter
- Eggs
- Extra virgin olive oil
- Hemp seed
It is best to leave unhealthy fats, such as trans fats and processed vegetable oils. These burden your body and therefore healthy hormone production. It is also better to avoid omega 6 fatty acids - such as in sunflower oil and corn oil - if you want to balance your hormones. We get more than enough of these fatty acids.
Reduce stress
Your adrenal glands can become overloaded if you experience too much stress. In turn, this can unbalance various hormones such as growth hormone, cortisol and progesterone. To restore balance, it is best to relax more. For more relaxation, you can take more breaks, go outside, meet a friend, put on your running shoes more often and do breathing exercises. Massage, mediation and yoga also help to combat stress and thus counteract hormonal imbalance. Just like a few drops of lavender, sandalwood or sage essential oil in the bath or on your pillow.
Get into bed on time
Your hormones work on a tight schedule. For example, the level of the stress hormone cortisol in your body rises and falls according to a daily pattern. The level is lowest around midnight, so you can sleep well. If you keep going to bed late, your body never really gets a break from the fight-or-flight response associated with cortisol. Sleep deprivation is therefore one of the main causes of a high cortisol level and the accompanying complaints.
Healthy eating pattern
A healthy diet helps to balance the leptin hormone, which reduces leptin resistance. Such a diet consists of eating only when you are hungry and avoiding refined sugars and other fast carbohydrates. By eating healthy, your body also becomes more sensitive to insulin, which decreases insulin resistance. By not going to bed with a full stomach, you also produce optimal amounts of growth hormone.
Take probiotics
Probiotics are healthy bacteria that can improve the production of important hormones. Think of insulin, ghrelin and leptin. You can find probiotics in fermented foods, such as yogurt, sauerkraut and kefir. In particular, add food with probiotics to your diet if you want to reduce your appetite. In addition to healthy bacteria, proteins also help you to achieve this.
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