Is My Weight Gain Hormonal
Estrogen levels that are too high or too low can cause weight gain. High levels of estrogen in the body can irritate the cells that produce insulin in your body, making you insulin resistant and blood sugar levels rise, leading to weight gain. Low levels of estrogen can also cause a very stubborn type of weight gain.
Good Exercise Choices After Menopause
What types of exercise can best help you lose and maintain weight after menopause?
- Strength training, or a weight-resistance exercise program, helps build muscle mass and improve metabolism. Strength training also helps you maintain bone mass. Because you lose muscle mass as you age, add strength training to your workouts, if you haven’t before. Aim for two or three times a week. Examples of strength training include weight machines, dumbbells, exercise bands, yoga, and gardening.
- Low-impact aerobics are good for your heart and lungs. Walking, for example, is one of the best choices, because you can do it anywhere, anytime. Other examples of aerobic exercises include swimming, cycling, aerobics, tennis, and dance. Exercise moderately for at least 30 minutes most, if not all, days of the week.
- Whenever you can, add activity to your day. Wash the car, play hide and seek with your kids or grandchildren, get in a game of ping pong, etc.
Add A Dandelion Supplement To Your Routine
Taraxacum officinale, also known as dandelion, is a herb used in alternative medicine to treat water retention. It is one of the most popular supplements amongst pro athletes who need to make weight for a contest or are getting ready for a photoshoot.
Dandelion acts like a diuretic by encouraging your kidneys to expedite flushing out water and sodium from your body. A study proved that a dandelion supplement increases the frequency of urination over five hours.
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Insulin Resistance Is A Trigger For Meno Belly Weight Gain
Insulin resistance can also contribute to weight gain. If your insulin receptors have become less sensitive to insulin, you can have higher levels of blood sugar and lower energy and also increased disease risk for diabetes and cardiovascular problems. Chronic stress and abdominal fat can encourage insulin resistance. This results in higher insulin levels that can make the body more easily turn calories into fat even if youre dieting.
The good news is you can do something about insulin resistance. Strength training to build muscle also boosts your metabolism and makes those insulin receptors more sensitive, helping you to lose weight. Ever notice how men tend to lose weight more easily than women? Its because they have more lean muscle mass.
Tap Into The Power Of Meditation
Meditation has many scientifically proven benefits, but one of the lesser-known ones is that it can help with weight loss. One study done by Harvard found that meditation increased gray matter in the areas of the brain involved in sensory awareness and cognition . It also reduces cortisol levels which prevents stress-eating. So its highly recommended that you make meditation a part of your daily routine if you dont already.
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Understand Hormonal Weight Gain And What You Can Do To Lose It
Did you know there is a direct link between your hormones and your weight? This often slips our minds when were traveling the long and difficult road of weight loss. Our bodies need a delicate balance of hormones to maintain a healthy weight for our body makeup.
Its important to have a clear understanding of how your hormones work so you can lose weight and keep it off. Once you recognize the relationship between weight gain and hormones, you can balance your hormones and lose weight healthily and efficiently.
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Hormones And Weight Gain: How To Fix The Hormones That Control Your Weight
Did you know that your weight is directly related to your hormones? This is a fact many of us forget as we travel along the often slow and frustrating road to weight loss. To maintain a weight thats healthy for our unique bodily makeup, a delicate balance of hormones is required. If certain hormones are off-kilter, weight gain often results.
In order to lose weight and keep it off we must understand the intricate inner workings of our many hormones. Once we understand the relationship between hormones and weight gain, we can take the proper steps to balance these hormones and lose weight in a sustainable, healthy way.
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Being Tired All The Time
Hormonal imbalances like high cortisol, low testosterone, and hypothyroidism can make you feel tired all the time.
Its normal to feel tired after a long day but if you wake up tired, your hormones could be unbalanced. However, tiredness can be a sign of many other health issues. Instead of guessing, see a doctor and find out what the problem might be.
Why Weight Gain Often Happens After Menopause
What is it about menopause that makes it so hard to keep off the weight? It’s likely a mix of factors related to menopause and aging.
The impact of estrogen. In animal studies, estrogen appears to help control body weight. With lower estrogen levels, lab animals tend to eat more and be less physically active. Reduced estrogen may also lower metabolic rate, the rate at which the body converts stored energy into working energy. It’s possible the same thing happens with women when estrogen levels drop after menopause. Some evidence suggests that estrogen hormone therapy increases a woman’s resting metabolic rate. This might help slow weight gain. Lack of estrogen may also cause the body to use starches and blood sugar less effectively, which would increase fat storage and make it harder to lose weight.
Other age-related factors. As women age, many other changes happen that contribute to weight gain. For example:
- You’re less likely to exercise. Sixty percent of adults aren’t active enough, and this increases with age.
- You lose muscle mass, which lowers your resting metabolism, making it easier to gain weight.
- The rate at which you can use up energy during exercise declines. To use the same energy as in the past and achieve weight loss, you may need to increase the amount of time and intensity you’re exercising, no matter what your past activity levels were.
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Understand How Insulin Impacts Weight
Insulin is one of the most important hormones when it comes to weight loss and weight gain. Made by the pancreas, insulin is responsible for storing blood sugar, or utilizing it, depending upon your bodys needs of the moment. After you eat a large meal, a substantial amount of insulin releases itself into the bloodstream. It also enters the bloodstream as needed throughout the day, ensuring that blood sugar levels remain stable.
Another key function of this essential hormone is fat storage. Insulin decides how much fat to store, and how much to convert for energy expenditure. Chronically high levels of insulin can lead to a condition known as insulin resistance, which is linked to an uptick in blood sugar as well as continued elevated insulin levels.
Preventing this insulin imbalance is crucial, as it leads to weight gain, and eventually type 2 diabetes. When insulin levels remain high over an extended period of time, obesity and metabolic syndrome are often the unfortunate outcome.
How To Lose Weight Successfully
Eating a healthy diet and exercising regularly are the two main components of achieving a healthy weight, but these arent the only factors affecting your ability to lose weight. Hormonal imbalance could be playing a role too.
Hormonal imbalance can make weight loss difficult, and carrying extra weight can increase your risk of hormonal imbalance. Unfortunately, these factors work together to make weight loss even more difficult.
Its not easy to lose weight on your own, and our team at Medical Associates of North Texas provides the support you need to achieve success. If you have extra weight to lose, we offer comprehensive health evaluations to identify things that might hinder your progress.
We can help you identify potential hormonal imbalances, as well as other health conditions that may make weight loss more challenging for you. Then, we develop a customized weight loss program that may include regular doctors appointments, meetings with our dietician, and weight loss medication.
Achieving a healthy weight is possible. Plus, dropping those extra pounds can help regulate hormones, making it easier to maintain that weight loss over time.
Hormonal imbalance can create more challenges in your quest for better health, but lasting weight loss can still be a reality. Contact our team online or call our Fort Worth, Texas, office at 972-433-7178 for an appointment.
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How To Keep Estrogen At Optimal Levels
To balance estrogen levels naturally and prevent the weight gain that happens with an estrogen imbalance, youll want to do the following:
- Commit to a regular exercise routine. Many studies, including this 2012 one, published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, explain how exercise lowers estrogen levels in obese women.
- Eat your fiber. Fibrous foods help decrease elevated estrogen levels.
- Eat veggies in the cruciferous family. These include broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, kale, and bok choy. Anything green and leafy is always a good idea, too!
- Reduce your exposure to endocrine disruptors. Endocrine disruptors are chemicals that interfere with our natural hormones. Avoid plastic containers, cans, or water bottles made with BPA. Never microwave plastic.
- Choose organic foods when possible, and choose phthalate-free cosmetics and personal care products.
- Consider bioidentical hormone replacement therapy, which uses plant-based hormones identical to those produced naturally by the human body to keep hormones balanced.
Hormones Incidental In Weight Gain
According to Johns Hopkins Medicine, hormones can control everything from metabolism and energy levels to growth and development. Hormones play a role in weight, experts told USA TODAY but they are not the primary driver of weight gain, as the post claims.
Dr. Artur Viana, clinical director of the Metabolic Health & Weight Loss Program at Yale University, said that while hormones are involved in obesity, they are not the sole cause. Robert Lustig, professor emeritus of pediatrics at the University of California-San Francisco, told USA TODAY theres an ongoing debate in the nutrition field over the extent to which hormones contribute to obesity.
Is obesity a problem of energy balance, or is obesity a problem of energy storage? he said. If its a problem of energy balance, its all about calories. If its about energy storage, then the question is: Whats storing it? And the answer is one of two hormones: insulin and cortisol.
For example, when blood sugar rises, the hormone insulin goes up, allowing sugar to exit the blood and enter cells where it is needed. But when cells receive more sugar than they need, fat begins to accumulate. However, insulin itself doesn’t cause weight gain.
Lustig’s recommendation for people looking to lose weight is simple: Stop eating sugar.
Thats numbers one, two and three, he said. Get rid of the sugar, get rid of the sugar, get rid of the sugar.
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How Is Hormonal Weight Gain Different
When weight gain is the result of hormones, simple shifts in diet and exercise habits arent always enough, and a medical diagnosis is needed to identify the source and prescribe correct treatment.
Hormones are your bodys chemical messengers, controlling such important elements as growth, sexual function, reproduction, metabolism and even your mood. And changes in these hormones can sometimes result in unexpected and uncontrollable weight gain. A few examples include:
Estrogen shifts. During menopause, a decrease in estrogen is linked to lower muscle mass and increased fat stores for women, usually around the midsection. Conversely, higher than normal estrogen levels can cause endometriosis, fibroids or menstrual bloating.
Testosterone decreases. For both men and women, a decrease in testosterone means reduction in muscle mass, which lowers the bodys metabolic rate, resulting in increased body fat.
Increased androgens. In women, an increase in hormones called androgens is linked to polycystic ovary syndrome , which not only interferes with fertility but can cause cysts and weight gain.
Diabetes. Treating diabetes can cause weight gain if your daily prescribed insulin intake is higher than the energy you burn each day.
Thyroid deficiency. Underactive thyroid, also called hypothyroidism, slows the bodys ability to burn calories.
How To Fix An Imbalance
For each person and each hormonal imbalance, the treatment plan will be different. For some, simply losing weight while increasing muscle tone creates a cycle of change in the vital hormones of the body helping to create balance.
A workout as quick and simple as this 30 day Plank Challenge or Leg Challenge can increase metabolism for weight loss.
For others, hormone replacement therapy, birth control pills, and vitamin supplements can be used to balance hormone levels.
If you have or suspect a hormone imbalance the best place to start is talking to your doctor about having your hormone levels checked and creating a treatment plan that is customized to your needs. It may take some experimenting with different treatments to find the right treatment for your personal situation.
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Tips For How To Reset Your Hormones
With todays modern lifestyle, hormone imbalances are becoming increasingly common due to stress and other factors. Fortunately, you can make some lifestyle adjustments to your everyday routine to help get your hormones back on track. Here are some top tips for how to reduce belly fat and combat hormonal misfiring:
Get Sufficient Sleep For Faster Weight Loss
It may not seem like it, but while youre sleeping your body is busy doing the most important work for your well-being. Heres what I mean
You see, in order to reset your weight loss hormones your body needs time for R& R .
Rest and Repair cant occur when youre awake because youre already busy thinking, executing, planning and eating.
So, your sleep hours are when your body puts all the good stuff the smoothies, anti-inflammatory foods and supplements to use.
Give yourself enough sleep time every night, so that your body can do the hard work for you.
Thats hard work that you wont have to worry about
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Hormones Are The Body’s Most Potent Chemical Messengers And They Have The Power To Make Or Break Efforts To Lose Weight And Feel Good
Hormones are the body’s most potent chemical messengers, and they have the power to make or break efforts to lose weight and feel good. Hormones control metabolism and thus are intricately linked to the amount of fat you gain or lose, in addition to blood sugar control and insulin balance.
Burning fat and successfully losing weight is partly a hormonal event. Here are a list of six of the hormones that affect weight and how to improve them:
Insulin Hormones
Insulin is a key hormone in both weight loss and weight gain. Insulin is produced by the pancreas and is responsible for either storing or utilizing blood sugar, depending on your body’s needs. Following a large meal, a significant amount of insulin is released into the bloodstream. Insulin regulates how much fat is stored and how much is converted into energy.
Reduce your intake of all insulin-stimulating foods. White sugar, excessive alcohol, and all processed flours are examples of these. Make the majority of your carbs low glycemic and high in fiber rather than trying to completely cut them out of your diet. Whole grains, fruits, vegetables, and legumes are some examples. Also regularly engage in moderate exercise.
Estrogen
Increased estrogen levels have been linked to diets high in red meat, processed foods, sugar, and refined grains, which may increase your risk of developing chronic diseases.
Cortisol
Thyroid hormone
Leptin Hormone
Cholecystokinin Hormone
The Claim: Hormones Are The ‘true Culprit’ Behind Weight Gain For Women
Myths about health are common online, from how coffee can help you lose weight to how protein shakes are necessary to build muscle .
A adds to the noise, promoting via video the idea that hormones are the primary driver of weight gain in women.
Most women are told to exercise to get rid of weight, the post reads. This is often bad advice. Exercise plays only a tiny percentage of our daily calorie burn. Hormones are the true culprits behind weight gain.”
The post claims “most women constantly fight against their Hormones,” causing their “metabolism come to a standstill. The video has been viewed more than 600,000 times in two months.
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But the posts core claim that hormones are the true culprits behind weight gain isnt true. Multiple factors can contribute to weight gain, and while there is an ongoing debate about the role that hormones play, experts agree lifestyle is the key factor.
USA TODAY reached out to the Facebook user who shared the claim for comment.
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