What if I told you that your weight was a symptom, and that a hormone imbalance could be the cause?
Usually when you think of weight loss, you think of going on a “diet”. When you do that, you’re treating your weight as the root cause, when really it’s just a symptom of something else going on.
And while proper nutrition is a critical part of a weight loss plan, it’s easy to forget that because your weight is a symptom, the root cause needs to be addressed.
As women, weight gain due to a hormonal imbalance is all too common – but not enough people are talking about it.
It’s time to hop off your on-again-off-again diet to “fix” your weight, and instead take a look at what you can do to balance your hormones to support healthy weight management.
5 WAYS TO BALANCE YOUR HORMONES FOR WEIGHT LOSS
Get Some Zzzz’s
Sleep is an important part of a healthy lifestyle, and too little sleep has a big impact on your endocrine system – affecting hormones like insulin, ghrelin, leptin, and cortisol.
Insulin is a hormone produced in the pancreas that helps regulate the absorption of sugar (glucose) by your cells. The less sleep you have the more insulin increases, which means more sugar is absorbed and stored by the body because it’s not needed for energy (it’s just extra sugar, really).
Ghrelin and leptin are known as the “hunger hormones” because they control satiety and hunger. Ghrelin is a fast-acting hormone that is released in the stomach sending the hunger signal to your brain, while leptin is released by your fat cells and is important for long-term energy balance. Leptin helps to control ghrelin by signalling to the brain that you have enough energy. In a study of 1,024 participants, they found that short sleep durations did in fact reduce leptin and elevate ghrelin, causing an increase in appetite and BMI.
Cortisol is your body’s main stress hormone and is secreted by your adrenal glands within the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA axis). The HPA axis is responsible for regulating your stress response, mood, motivation, metabolism, energy levels, and immune system. Sleep deprivation actives the HPA axis, increasing cortisol secretion which then increases abdominal weight gain.
So you can see that focusing on getting between 7-9 hours of sleep (the exact number is individual) is important for balancing hormones, which can also help promote weight loss.
Fuel Up with Healthy Fats
Dietary fats alter both your hormone concentrations and their receptors – including insulin, glucagon, cortisol, and growth hormones. I addressed above how both insulin and cortisol can impact your weight, but glucagon balance is also important for weight regulation as is having enough growth hormone which accelerates the breakdown of fat through lipolysis.
Therefore, including a variety of healthy fats daily, but avoiding trans fats and some forms of saturated fats, can have a great impact on balancing your hormones and weight loss.
Some great sources of healthy fats are wild salmon, avocado, nuts and seeds, olives, oil, eggs, and hemp hearts.
Give Your Liver Some TLC
The health of your liver is super important, as it’s responsible for over 200 vital functions in the body! But we tend to underestimate the importance of the liver when it comes to balancing hormones.
One of its responsibilities is to breakdown and metabolize hormones once they’ve done their job, and to filter out excess and mutated hormones. Without this help from the liver, they will circulate in the body and cause symptoms such as mood swings, depression, heavy periods, sleep troubles, brain fog, hot flashes, fibroids, and even cysts.
Specifically, the liver breaks down the steroid hormones – aldosterone, your sex hormones, and cortisone.
Aldosterone controls the balance of sodium, potassium, and water in the body. If it’s not broken down properly it can cause fluid retention and weight gain.
The sex hormones include estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone. When the liver does not properly breakdown estrogen, you can become estrogen dominant which can lead to weight gain in the hips, butt, and thighs (among other major health problems too!). Estrogen dominance can lead to low progesterone which can support weight gain due to its relationship with the thyroid, which helps to regulate body temperature and metabolism. Excess testosterone can lead to weight gain in the upper body and abdomen.
It’s clear that supporting your liver for optimal function and detoxification is key in hormonal balance and preventing weight gain.
Do your body a favour and skip out on fried foods, and instead fill up on healthy fats, greens, beets, lemon, cruciferous vegetables, oils, and good quality proteins to support a healthy liver.
Focus on Hydration
Not only do your hormones estradiol and progesterone affect your body fluid and water retention, but dehydration ignites a stress response in the body, releasing the hormone cortisol (see above on cortisol).
Dehydration affects your circulation and elimination, and can affect the blood supply of several organs like the kidneys and liver and, as mentioned above, you need your liver functioning well to remove excess hormones. The longer excess hormones continue to circulate, the greater the toxic load on the body – and toxins can cause weight gain.
Staying hydrated helps to promote healthy circulation and elimination, helping to excrete excess hormones and toxins which can help to control hormonal weight gain.
Aim to drink at least half of your body weight in ounces of water a day!
Get Enough Vitamin D
More than 40% of Americans are deficient in vitamin D, and adequate levels are key players in both balancing your hormones and weight loss – and it’s no surprise that we struggle to get enough because of the amount of time spent inside (and, depending on where you live, you may not get sunshine all year round!).
Vitamin D deficiency can alter your balance of testosterone, estradiol, DHEA, and sex hormone binding globulin – which can affect your weight (as mentioned above).
Luckily taking a vitamin D supplement is cheap and effective at raising your vitamin D levels to support hormone balance and weight management (though please consult with your healthcare practitioner first before putting yourself on a new supplement).
At the end of the day, you need to remember that balanced hormones are an important key to your overall health, digestion, and disease prevention – but also for maintaining a healthy weight, and for weight loss.
There are lots of things you can do naturally to balance the hormones, but knowing the exact levels of your hormones is so helpful (versus guessing) – that’s why I almost always recommend my clients complete a hormone panel. I mean, all women should do it at least once in their life to understand their hormones better.
If you’re interested in chatting with me about balancing your hormones, or you’d like to consider a hormone panel, book in a consultation and let’s get you started now!
