Hormone Type : Metabolic Sputter Metabolism
This type of hormonal imbalance typically occurs when your diet is high in inflammatory foods such as processed sugar or grains or if you have an under-active thyroid or sluggish liver. On the other hand, it can also happen due to not producing enough stress hormones or because youre under too much stress.
A key sign that you may have this type of hormonal imbalance is a high ratio of estrogen-to-progesterone and low-stress hormones such as cortisol and DHEA. Low progesterone levels could indicate an ovarian issue, while high estrogen levels indicate liver or metabolic dysfunction.
Which metabolic renewal hormone type do you currently have? Take the free quiz and find out now.
How To Fix Your Hormones And Lose Weight
Ive hit a stubborn weight-loss plateau, writes this weeks house call, even though I seem to be doing everything right, like eating the right foods and exercising. How can I overcome that obstacle?
Ive discussed different reasons for weight-loss resistance in past blogs. Many obstacles have nothing to do with what you eat or how much you exercise. Instead, they involve things like nutritional imbalances, chronic inflammation, metabolic challenges, leaky gut, changes in your microbiome, environmental toxins and your genes.
One huge but often-overlooked reason for weight-loss resistance involves hormonal imbalances.
No contest: The monster hormone that causes weight gain, inflammation and chronic disease is excess insulin. Think of this hormone as your fat cell fertilizer! My new book, Eat Fat, Get Thin, discusses how to naturally regulate insulin so you can shift your body from fat storage mode to fat-burning mode.
At the same time, insulin isnt the only player other hormones also affect your weight and health. Three big disruptors are: thyroid, cortisol and sex hormones. I discuss these hormones in-depth in The Blood Sugar Solution, however, lets briefly look at each of them here.
Thyroid
Research shows hypothyroidism, or low-thyroid function, affects one in five women and one in ten men. Unfortunately, in over half of these cases, this condition isnt diagnosed.
A common cause of hypothyroidism is gluten intolerance.
Cortisol
Sex Hormone Imbalances
What Is Hormonal Weight Gain
Weight gain associated with underlying hormonal imbalances. For men, hormonal weight gain can be caused by high stress or cortisol levels in the body. The heightened levels of cortisol may make the body go into survival mode and induce the production of fat cells which will cause a declining metabolism to store food for later use. For women, a specific estrogen hormone called estradiol decreases at menopause helps regulate metabolism and body weight. The lower the levels of estradiol may cause weight gain. Throughout a womans life, they may notice weight gain around their hips and thighs.
Recommended Reading: How To Test For Testosterone Deficiency
What Your Body Type Says About Your Hormones And What To Do About It
- The shape of your body gives clues to how well your hormones and body systems are working.
- Conventional weight-loss recommendations say to eat less and exercise more, but there may be more to it than that. If you have certain hormonal profiles, dieting and strenuous exercise could make you gain weight and make imbalances worse.
- Find out which body types indicate too much stress, too much alcohol or sugar, too much estrogen, or a lazy thyroid.
- Once you determine the reasons behind your body shape, find out what to do to level things out.
A lot of people want to lose a few pounds. Conventional recommendations say to eat less and exercise more, but is that the way to go? Depending on whats going on inside your body, there may be more to it than that. Extreme dieting and strenuous exercise could make you gain weight and make imbalances worse.
Can you tell what your hormones are doing just by looking? Sometimes, yes, and an experienced professional with a trained eye is even better at making a guess before they even run any tests. Here are a few common body imbalances that lead to specific weight distribution patterns.
What Not To Do
Conventional weight loss recommendations can backfire when your stress hormones are out of whack. Heres what not to do:
- Avoid strenuous exercise. Exercising stresses the body in a good way. Too much exercise leads to too much stress hormone, which brings your fat metabolism to a screeching halt. To boost weight loss efforts, opt for brief, infrequent high-intensity interval training and daily gentle movement like yoga and hiking.
- Dont restrict calories. Eating too little sends your body into a panic as well, whether you feel it or not. Choose satisfying, nourishing foods that keep your cells happy. Heres what to eat.
Read Also: What Is Better For Sleep Melatonin Or Diphenhydramine
What Is The Hormone Diet
The Hormone Diet is a book and diet program by Dr. Natasha Turner, a naturopathic doctor. Its primary focus is on hormone fluctuations that may negatively affect a persons weight. It also focuses on other factors that can contribute to weight gain and other chronic diseases.
The Hormone Diet is a 6-week, three-step process designed to promote hormonal balance and an overall healthier body through diet, exercise, nutritional supplements, and detoxification. The diet regulates what you eat and also tells you the right time to eat to ensure maximum benefit to your hormones.
The book boasts of being the first diet book to emphasize the importance of hormonal balance among all the hormones that influence weight. It also claims to be the first to explain the lifestyle habits that can help boost hormones to burn fat. These include:
- sleeping
- managing stress
- exercising
The diet aims for weight loss of up to 12 pounds, including water weight, in the first phase. It aims for about 2 pounds a week after that without calorie counting.
According to the author, following the entire protocol may help you optimize the levels of inflammation in your body as well as these hormones:
- acetylcholine
The full list is in the book The Hormone Diet.
The second phase also involves ridding your diet of human-made foods, which include:
- processed foods
- refined grains
- foods that contain nitrates, such as cured meats
How To Prepare The Hormone Reset Diet & Tips
The plan claims to lead to a staggering weight loss of up to 15 pounds in 21 days by improving the balance of seven different hormones to burn belly fat and decrease appetite.
The 21-day program is similar to an elimination diet as it excludes specific foods thought to cause hormonal imbalances. Dr. Gottfied claims that most women have at least one, if not three or more, significant hormonal imbalances. The diet plan claims to fix these imbalances by eliminating meat, alcohol, fruit, grains, and dairy.
It should be noted that there is no scientific evidence to back up the claims made by Gottfried regarding the Hormone Reset diet. Some of the recommendations for what to eat or avoid are based on a quiz taken in the book.
Recommended Reading: Does Melatonin Cause Memory Loss
What Are The Signs Of Hormone Imbalance In Men
Many concerns surrounding a mans bodily changes can be answered by fluctuations in the male hormonal makeup. If changes are being identified, it may be a good idea to see whether there are any deficiencies or overabundance in the bodys chemistry.
1- Low Testosterone: This is also known as Low-T and is defined by the American Urology Association as testosterone in the blood accounting for less than 300ng/dL .
Signs of Low-T include:
- Hot Flashes
- Trouble Concentrating
2- Increased Estrogen: An increase in estrogen production in a mans body can cause a condition called gynecomastia. This is where you begin to develop breasts. Increased estrogen levels can also cause problems with your prostate organ that is in charge of producing one of the fluids that make up semen. Obesity can increase the production of estrogen in a mans body.
3- Low Cortisol/Adrenal Fatigue: Men suffering adrenal fatigue often have difficulty focusing mentally and are excessively tired.
4- Hyperthyroidism/Overactive Thyroid: Signs of high levels of thyroid hormone in your body include:
- Rapid Heart Rate
Drtazs Holistic Approach For Increased Fat Burn And Faster Metabolism
Yo-yo dieting is a thing of the past. In this post, youll learn which methods really work to help you lose more weight. You dont need to spend hours in the gym, or remove entire food groups from your diet.
These are the ways you can use your natural hormone balance, along with simple supplements and easy changes to your routine to get the weight loss results you want. Plus, Ill share with you my dos and donts after helping thousands of women in my integrative medicine practice lose weight and keep it off.
Also Check: How Do You Get Your Hormones Balanced
Reduce Exposure To Exogenous Oestrogens
Hormonal imbalances may also be affected by our exposure to exogenous oestrogens. Exogenous oestrogens are an environmental source of oestrogen that mimics the oestrogen within the body and can cause imbalances.
Examples of exogenous oestrogens include:
- Female contraceptive pills
- Hormone replacement therapy
There has also been a rising concern surrounding day to day exposure from sources within food, plastics, and other household products.
To counteract and help balance exposure to exogenous oestrogens, there are some foods that can help balance the bodys oestrogen.
Foods to help balance oestrogen include :
- Broccoli
- Kale
- Collard greens
My blog on should women be worried about exogenous oestrogens explains more about where they are found and how to avoid them.
Hormone Type : Hormone Overdrive Metabolism
Excessive estrogen is one of the most common hormonal imbalances in women today. When theres too much estrogen, you can experience bloating, weight gain, mood swings, and fibrocystic breast disease.
Typically this type of imbalance is orchestrated by a sluggish liver that cannot process estrogen from the environment, food choices, and stress hormones.
Hormone Overdrive Metabolism symptoms are estrogen dominance, progesterone deficiency, adrenal fatigue, and hypothyroidism.
This imbalance typically occurs when your diet is high in inflammatory foods such as processed sugar or grains or if you have an underactive thyroid or sluggish liver. On the other hand, it can also happen because youre not producing enough stress hormones or because youre under too much stress.
Which metabolic renewal hormone type do you currently have? Take the free quiz and find out now.
Recommended Reading: Does Melatonin Help You Sleep Deeper
Metabolic Renewal Hormone Type : Ovarian Shutdown Estrogen & Progesterone Deficient Post Menopause
Following menopause, you are no longer subject to the hormone fluctuations youve experienced throughout your life, this also means you no longer have the fat-burning advantages experienced by women.
Your testosterone levels will be higher in relation to your estrogen and progesterone, leaving you with a metabolism similar to that of a man.
This results in a much higher likelihood of fat build up around the middle, and a much harder time losing the fat.
Also Check: Does Nugenix Have An Estrogen Blocker
Chubby Cheeks Belly And Back Fat Stress Hormones
A round face and a tendency to carry weight around your middle indicates that you need to dial in your stress. Extra weight in the midsection points to fat around your organs, which has its own set of risks on top of the dangers that fat around the muscle has.
You can thank stress and cortisol, your main stress hormone, for the extra belly and back fat. You may or may not realize that youre chronically stressed. You could be experiencing emotional stress that youre well aware of, like an intense job or a toxic relationship.
Or, your body systems might be triggering the fight-or-flight response and you have no idea. Things like living in a moldy house, or eating foods with a high toxic burden trip your fight-or-flight response, whether youre aware of it or not. Somethings causing you to release stress hormones several times throughout the day, and your stress hormones tell your body to hang onto fat.
Read Also: What Happens If You Overdose On Melatonin
Want To Learn More About Your Weight And Hormones
To make an appointment with Drs. McDonald or Wilson at OB/GYN Specialists, call 940-202-0566 today. You can also send us a message here on our website.
Our Denton, Texas, office is open Monday through Friday from 8:30am to 5pm to offer our patients the chance to ask questions, get informed, and start living the lives they most desire.
You Might Also Enjoy…
Your High Estrogen Levels Are Expanding Your Fat Cells
Although estrogen is responsible for making women uniquely women, it’s also the hormone that can be the most troublesome in the fat department. At normal levels, estrogen actually helps keep you lean by goosing the production of insulin, a hormone that manages blood sugar. When estrogen gets thrown off, though, it turns you into a weight-gain machine.
Here’s how: When you eat, your blood sugar rises. Like a bodyguard, insulin lowers it by escorting glucose into three different places in your body. When insulin is in good working formnot too high and not too lowit sends a small amount of glucose to your liver, a large amount to your muscles to use as fuel, and little to none for fat storage.
If you’re healthy and in good shape, your pancreas produces exactly the right amount of insulin to have your blood sugar softly rise and fall within a narrow range . But when your estrogen levels climb, the cells that produce insulin become strained, and you can become insulin resistant.
Gain *unlimited* access to Prevention
That’s when insulin starts to usher less glucose to the liver and muscles, raising the levels of sugar in your bloodstream and ultimately storing the glucose as fat. Your fat tissue can expand by as much as four times to accommodate the storage of glucose.
Read Also: Where Can You Get Your Hormones Tested
Does It Allow For Dietary Restrictions Or Preferences
Vegetarians and vegans: The diet includes protein sources that would work for you.
Gluten-free: You give up gluten for the first 2 weeks of this diet. After that, gluten isn’t completely off-limits. Turner does advise readers to avoid some processed carbs, like white flour and white rice, and to steer clear of any foods that they felt they had a bad reaction to after the detox phase.
How To Balance Ghrelin Levels
If you have a sneaking suspicion your ghrelin levels are in need of some TLC, here are a couple of ways to balance them:
- Eat adequate amounts of protein. Protein helps you feel full and should be consumed with every meal. Studies show how eating protein promotes healthy ghrelin levels.
- Avoid sugar as much as possible. As you can see by now, consuming too much sugar disrupts hormonal balance, making weight loss seem an impossible feat. Be sure to read labels. If an item contains high-fructose corn syrup, dont buy it. A 2013 study published in Nutritional Diabetes shows how high-fructose corn syrup is one of the primary culprits of imbalance when it comes to hormones and weight gain.
Recommended Reading: How Do You Balance Hormones Naturally
Can You Test Hormone Levels
Yes, you can. Hormone testing is routinely done these days and is available for all types of hormones that commonly become unbalanced, including women hormones, men hormones, thyroid hormones, cortisol and much more. Most hormone imbalance tests are blood tests that measure the level of certain hormones circulating in the blood stream, and in some cases, whether complimentary hormones estrogen and progesterone, for instance are present in the proper ratios to work together effectively.
- Hormone tests are commonly done for the following purposes:
- To diagnose hormonal imbalances
What Are The Different Types Of Hormones
Endocrine glands are located throughout the body. These glands include the:
- Hypothalamus: controls thirst, hunger, sleep, sex drive, moods, body temperature, and the release of other hormones
- Parathyroid: controls calcium
- Ovaries, in women: controls female sex hormones
- Testes, in men: controls male sex hormones
There are several different types of hormones in the body. When you have a hormonal imbalance, you may have a problem in one of more of these glands. The specific hormone thats imbalanced will determine the signs and symptoms that you experience as a result. Some of the major hormones found in the body include:
- Estrogen: controls sex drive in both men and women, and regulates the menstrual cycle in women
- Progesterone: influences the bodys changes through pregnancy
- Testosterone: controls sex drive in both men and women
- Cortisol: controls stress
- Melatonin: controls the bodys circadian rhythm and sleep cycles
- Serotonin: controls sleep cycles, appetite, and mood
- Growth hormone: controls the reproduction of cells and their subsequent growth
- Leptin: controls appetite, signaling when youre full
- Ghrelin: controls appetite, signaling when youre hungry
- Insulin: responds to sugar in the bloodstream
If your hormones are well-balanced, you will thrive. An imbalance, however, is something you cannot afford to ignore.
Recommended Reading: How To Dose Melatonin For Sleep
Key Takeaways About Hormonal Weight Gain
Focus On Diet Quality
Overall, diets that are high in a variety of whole foods that are rich in fiber, vitamins and minerals, and phytochemicals promote healthy hormone levels.
Hormones such as insulin, cortisol and sex hormones can be negatively affected by a lower-quality diet, such as one that has lots of refined carbohydrates along with hydrogenated and saturated fats from fried foods, fatty meats and highly processed foods.
To reduce elevated insulin levels, eating better-quality carbohydrate sources and less carbohydrates overall may help.
Higher-quality carbohydrates tend to be lower on the glycemic index, minimally processed and higher in fiber. Examples include whole grains such as 100 percent stone-ground whole wheat, rolled or steel-cut oats and barley, pulses such as lentils and chickpeas, sweet potatoes, and berries.
There is also some evidence that low-carb diets can help lower elevated insulin levels.
Eating too much or not enough is also not desirable from a hormone perspective: Overeating can cause insulin levels to rise, while undereating or chronic dieting negatively affects levels of cortisol and sex hormones.
You May Like: Where Do You Buy Testosterone