Get Your Hormones Checked
So youve followed the previous tips, implemented major lifestyle changes and established that neither medication nor vitamin deficiency is an issue. Youve even tried raising your ketone levels for a while . And you still cant hit the normal weight mark?
If this applies to you, its high time to consider the possibility that hormonal imbalances are the cause of your troubles. There are three common problem areas:
Thyroid hormone
Some people, especially women, suffer decreased metabolism as a result of thyroid hormone deficiency hypothyroidism. Common symptoms are:
- Fatigue
- Weight gain
In these cases, weight gain resulting from decreased metabolism usually does not exceed fifteen pounds.
Your doctor can easily arrange for you to take a blood test to measure the concentration of thyroid stimulating hormone . If the test comes back and everything looks good, your thyroid gland is probably fine. For a more exact diagnosis, you can ask them to measure the actual levels of thyroid hormone in the blood .
Two ways to avoid becoming deficient in thyroid hormone:
Hypothyroidism Type 2
How Does The Stress Hormone Cortisol Sabotage Weight Loss
How is this overproduction of cortisol related to weight gain? First of all, heightened cortisol is linked to overeating. Ever notice how you eat when youre stressed? A study published in the journal Psychoneuroendocrinology found that higher than normal cortisol levels were linked to overeating and weight gain. Another study links elevated cortisol levels to an increase in belly fat.
Beware Rebound Weight Gain That Can Occur When Hormone Therapy Stops
There is something of a catch. The benefit may last only as long as the therapy. Ultimately, if youre stopping hormone therapy, also talk to your doctor about the risk of increasing belly fat, as well as what you can do in terms of diet and exercise to prevent this weight rebound, says Pinkerton.
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Hormone Balance For Weight Loss: Fact Or Fiction
Originally appeared in the spring 2019 issue of the American Fitness Magazine.
A quick online search for weight loss strategies reveals a plethora of hormone-balancing diets, supplements and medications. The premise behind these products is that hormonestiny chemical messengers that regulate physiological processesget out of balance, causing weight gain or foiling attempts to lose weight.
That seems like a reasonable claim, but is it true? What should you say when clients ask about hormones and weight management? In this article, well provide answers on the links between body weight and five of the most talked about hormone imbalances: those relating to insulin, cortisol, the thyroid hormones, testosterone and estrogen. Ill review the science and outline nutrition and exercise strategies to help your clients overcome weight loss plateaus and succeed at long-term weight loss.
The hormone issues discussed below often fade away with proper diet, exercise, sleep and stress management. Supplements and specialized diets typically address the symptoms of hormone imbalances, not the causes. Your clients may get better results if they understand the difference between the two.
Lets dive in!
How To Balance Estrogen For Weight Loss:
To avoid estrogen dominance, you want to keep a fine balance between your progesterone and estrogen.
Integrative Medicine Doctor Sara Gottfried, M.D., recommends eating a pound of veggies per day, as she states the fiber will help remove any excess estrogen from the body.
Gottfried also recommends that women should aim for 35 to 45 gram of fiber intake per day, increasing their amount slowly so as not to cause stomach upset.
You can also naturally balance estrogen dominance by:
- Reducing your red meat intake
- Eliminating excess sugar or processed foods
- Exercising daily to promote detoxification
- Tags:Postmenopausal and Obesity
Much research has shown that being overweight or obese increases a womans risk of being diagnosed with hormone-receptor-positive breast cancer. Doctors donât completely understand why extra weight is associated with higher hormone-receptor-positive breast cancer risk. Its likely that extra body fat increases levels of estrogen and other hormones. Higher hormone levels can increase breast cancer risk.
A study supports the link between excess weight and higher hormone levels. The study found that estrogen and testosterone levels dropped quite a bit when overweight and obese women lost weight. The results were published online May 21, 2012 in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. Read the abstract of Reduced-Calorie Dietary Weight Loss, Exercise, and Sex Hormones in Postmenopausal Women: Randomized Controlled Trial.
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Learn More About Hormone Pellets And Weight Loss Today
Now that you understand the connection between hormone pellets and weight loss, you may want to know whether this treatment is right for you. We can help!
Contact us today to schedule your free consultation.
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It Gives You More Energy
Fatigue is a common side effect of hormonal imbalance. When your hormones are out of whack, it can affect your energy levels, leaving you feeling tired and sluggish. BHRT can help to increase energy levels by optimizing hormone levels. This can not only make it easier to lose weight, but also make it easier to stick to a healthy lifestyle.
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Which Hormones Can Help Me Lose Weight
When given in conjunction with a weight loss plan that includes diet and exercise, these hormones can help with weight loss.
Estrogen: Estrogen is a female sex hormone produced by the ovaries, adrenal gland and fat cells. It facilitates the production of Leptin, a protein that regulates metabolism and appetite.
When a womans estrogen levels significantly decrease, her body will search for other sources of estrogen in fat cells, causing the body to store and convert more calories to fat. Bioidentical hormone replacement therapy can help women control their appetite and sugar cravings.
Progesterone: Progesterone is produced in large amounts during and after women ovulate. Its a natural diuretic, so a decrease in progesterone levels during perimenopause and menopause can cause the body to retain excess salt and water.
Progesterone facilitates the conversion of stored body fat to energy. An imbalance can also cause women to overeat.
Testosterone: Produced by both men and women, this hormone inhibits fat storage, especially in the abdomen. Low levels can cause sugar cravings and may lead to insulin resistance.
Testosterone is produced in smaller amounts in women and is the hormone primarily responsible for building and maintaining muscle mass. Because muscle helps burns calories and increases metabolism, a significant decrease in muscle mass can cause metabolism to slow, and weight to increase.
The Role Of Hormones In Weight Loss
Understanding the role hormones play in your body and how bioidentical hormones affect your body by regulating your weight will help you choose the best treatment option.
When added to a healthy diet and proper exercise, these hormones can help you lose those extra unwanted pounds. These hormones include:
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Hormone Replacement Therapy Can Help You Lose Weight In A Healthy Way
Losing weight quickly can be unhealthy. And often, the weight that is lost quickly is gained back just as quickly.
Hormone replacement therapy can help you lose weight in a healthy way by reducing your appetite and increasing your metabolism.
With HRT, youll be able to lose weight slowly and steadily. And because the weight loss is coming from a reduction in calorie intake, it is more likely to be permanent.
Losing weight in a healthy way can also help reduce your risk of developing obesity-related health problems, such as heart disease, type II diabetes, and certain types of cancer.
Menopause Weight Gain: Why Does It Happen
Getting older and less active causes a loss of muscle mass, which slows down the metabolism. According to experts, it is this, rather than the menopause itself, that bears the brunt of responsibility for weight gain in the middle ages. However, fluctuating levels of hormones also play their part.
New evidence suggests that plummeting oestrogen levels may encourage us to eat more and exercise less, lower the metabolic rate and increase insulin resistance, making it more difficult for our bodies to deal with sugars and starches.
Our hormones also influence the distribution of fat. Perimenopausal weight gain is often associated with the laying of fat around the abdomen and internal organs, as opposed to the hips and thighs. Feeling stressed out? Stress hormones such as cortisol promote the growth of the pesky spare tyre. It’s not just a cosmetic issue, either-the more inches you add to your waistline, the higher your risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes and some cancers.
Menopause Bloating
Whether or not you gain weight, you may feel bloated and uncomfortable during menopause and perimenopause. Erratic hormone levels encourage water retention and intestinal gas, while bile reduction may cause constipation, resulting in further bloating. Bloating could also be a side effect of HRT.
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Balancing Hormones For Weight Loss
Insulin, leptin, cortisol, and insulin are all hormones involved in metabolic rates and appetite control. According to a study published in the Journal of Nutrition and Metabolism, your lifestyle choices, including your food habits, exercise routines, sleep patterns, and stress levels, can heavily influence these hormones.
Here are the top hormones that affect your weight loss journey and the different ways to balance each one.
Three Hormones That Block Your Weight Loss
When it comes to weight loss, can you relate to any of the following?
- I follow all the rules, but I still cant lose the weight.
- Im just getting old and my metabolism is slow. Its genetic. Theres nothing I can do about my hormones and weight loss.
- Dont you have a weight loss pill you can give me?
- Ive tried everything to lose weight. Maybe I need to accept myself as fat, and give up my skinny clothes.
- Nutrition strategies that work for others dont seem to apply to me.
- I lose 5 pounds, and then I regain 7. Its so frustrating!
These are comments that I hear frequently from my patients and online community, and most of them dont know an important secret: the reason youre weight loss resistant is that your hormones are out of whack.
When it comes to women and weight, there are seven hormones that make losing weight very challenging if not impossiblewhen they are out of balance. In this article, I want to show you the top three hormones that are the most likely culprits when it comes to your difficulty with weight loss, and how you can begin to reset them.
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How Hormones Change Before And During Menopause
Hormone replacement therapy is the process of administering medication with female hormones. This medication is intended to replace the hormones that the body stops producing when a woman enters menopause.
When a woman enters the perimenopause stage, her progesterone levels start to decrease while her estrogen levels may wildly fluctuate. While theyll eventually trend downward, in the short term, they may be completely erratic and even fluctuate significantly throughout the day.
This is a miscommunication between the pituitary gland, hypothalamus and ovaries that results in fluctuating estrogen levels. Declines in progesterone tend to occur more steadily, over time.
As women enter the later stages of perimenopause, estrogen levels decrease. Once a woman enters menopause, her estrogen levels drop even more.
These changing hormones are responsible for many of the symptoms women experience, including hot flashes, changes in the menstrual cycle, headaches, depression and weight gain.
HRT seeks to stabilize the hormone levels so that symptoms are lessened and women are able to maintain a healthier, happier life. Fluctuating hormones are linked to higher levels of ghrelin, the hormone that indicates youre hungry.
Low estrogen levels impact the bodys ability to recognize when its full. Women may eat more calories than needed simply because their bodies havent indicated that theyve had enough.
The 6 Big Reasons Why Estrogen Dominance Can Greatly Inhibit Your Ability To Lose Weight & Keep It Off:
Excessive Estrogen Can Cause Belly Fat
Lets just look at the dairy industry for a second. Traditional dairy farmers will pump their cows full of estrogen for the simple task of fattening them up . A workaround to this system is to purchase milk and meat locally or organically, however, keep in mind that a cows milk is also designed to grow a calf. Yet, to make matters worse, fat cells in the body produce estrogen, so with excess fat, you may find yourself in a vicious fat/estrogen cycle and unable to keep hormones balanced and lose that layer of fat in your mid-section. In some women, it can even cause more weight gain. An obvious solution to this is to limit excess estrogen consumption as much as possible but to balance the estrogen in the body, it may also be necessary to supplement with natural, bio-identical progesterone .
You may also consider the use of a natural phytonutrient found in cruciferous vegetables called Diindolylmethane . This nutrient is very effective in helping to achieve a healthier estrogen metabolism.
Progesterone Lowers Insulin Levels.
Insulin is affected by hormone imbalance, and estrogen dominance can lead to the release of excess insulin. Increases in insulin can lead to sugar cravings that can be hard to control. This is why many women crave chocolate or other sweets during PMS. This can also contribute to weight gain. Its all making sense now, isnt it?
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What Is Hormonal Belly
In a condition in which the ovaries or adrenal glands produce too much of the male hormones, common symptoms are irregular periods, acne and unwanted weight gain, belly fat included. To avoid this, studies have been conducted to confirm the link between hormone replacement therapy and weight loss.
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Hormone Replacement Therapy Can Help You Burn More Calories
Exercise is one of the most effective ways to lose weight.
But sometimes, no matter how hard you try, you just cant seem to get rid of those stubborn pounds.
Hormone replacement therapy can help by replacing estrogen levels that drop during menopause. Estrogen can help increase metabolic rate in women and therefore can increase the number of calories you burn during exercise.
In one study, women who underwent HRT burned more calories during exercise than women who did not receive HRT.
This means that HRT can help you lose weight even if you dont make any changes to your diet or exercise routine.
Plus, burning more calories during exercise can help you tone your body and build muscle. And we all know that muscle burns more calories than fat, so this is a great way to boost your metabolism even further.
If youre looking for an extra edge in your weight loss journey, hormone replacement therapy may be just what you need.
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What Our Patients Say
As of March 2021, I have been a HerKare patient for 3 years. I have driven from the Austin to Ft. Worth and Southlake since March 2018. In fact, today I attempted to drive to Southlake to see the provider, Dania Khoncarly, because she is so amazing, but the roads were too dangerous with the current ice storm in Texas, so I visited the Mansfield location instead as it was closer for me. The patient care has been nothing short of amazing. In fact, I cant imagine my life without HerKare. I struggled with hormone deficiency since 2003 until March 2018. The treatment plan provided by HerKare has positively impacted my way of life socially, emotionally, and physically. One of my closest friends now drives from Copperas Cove to the Mansfield location. I have several friends in my age group mid to late 40s & early 50s who would benefit from HerKare. I understand with our nation experiencing COVID, now might not be the time to open a new location, however, your services could positively impact the well-being of so many women. When the time is right, please open more HerKare locations!
Patient since March 2018
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Understanding The Challenges Of Weight Loss Over 40
The causes of weight gain are varied and complex. They can occur at any time during a persons life cycle, but women face an uphill battle as they age. More specifically, changing hormone levels make weight loss over 40 a significant challenge. Research has demonstrated that aging and the menopause transition each contribute substantially to altered fat metabolism that increases the accumulation of body fat and the risk of metabolic syndrome. This can not only deeply affect your confidence and comfort in your own skin, it can also make you more vulnerable to a cluster of dangerous and potentially deadly conditions, including obesity, hypertension, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and stroke. Excess weight is also associated with an increased incidence of depression, loss of self-esteem and social functioning, and a decrease in health-related quality of life. In other words, weight loss over 40 is no trivial matterits a significant concern with very real implications for your physical and emotional health.
Inthe most simple terms, weight gain occurs when the energy consumed from foodexceeds energy expended through physical activity and the maintenance of basalmetabolism and body heat. Many factors affect energy balance in the body,including a variety of hormones that play key roles in balancing metabolism andenergy homeostasis. In fact, hormonal imbalances and fluctuations lie at theheart of many womens struggles with weight, particularly as they age:
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