How Hormones Affect Weight Gain

What Can You Do To Avoid Hormonal Imbalance And Weight Gain

You can prevent and correct hormonal imbalances by measuring your hormone levels regularly. Consult your physician or provider about the tools you can use to test your hormonal levels.

Kennebec Pharmacy & Home Care has easy to use blood spot and saliva testing kits. Our newest product is the Weight Management Profile. It measures progesterone, estrogen, dhea, testosterone, thyroid, cortisol, and vitamin D levels. You can use it to detect the risk of diabetes, insulin resistance, and metabolic syndrome. You can get this kit directly from us without a doctors prescription. It is convenient because you can use it at home.

Symptoms Of Hormonal Weight Gain

The most common symptom of hormonal imbalance is weight gain, which may lead to:

• Lethargy
• Anxiety
• Sexual dysfunction

So, consult a doctor if you face any of the above symptoms and go for a routine hormonal check-up for proper management.

Lets answer another common question that people have about hormonal weight gain.

Balance Your Hormones For Weight Loss

There is a strong connection between hormones and weight gain. When hormone levels increase or decrease, a chain of events occurs. Your body forgets its full, the metabolism slows, and your weight increases.

Thankfully, hormonal weight gain is treatable. Our team strives to assist men and women struggling with hormonal imbalances. Contact us to learn more about our hormone and weight loss treatments.

Also Check: Cat Ate Melatonin

Excessive Hair Growth In Women

Excessive and coarse hair growth is a hormonal issue faced specifically by women. It occurs when there are high levels of androgens in the body. Even though women naturally produce androgens, as men do estrogen, the amounts are much lower.

PCOS or polycystic ovarian syndrome is a hormonal imbalance condition that causes womens bodies to produce far too many androgens. Fluctuating hormones during menopause can also trigger hirsutism and hormonal weight gain.

How Is Hormonal Weight Gain Diagnosed

An evaluation with an endocrinologist can help determine if a hormonal condition is the underlying cause of weight gain. Declining estrogen, adrenal disorders, hormonal resistance, thyroid imbalance, and several other hormonal imbalances can lead to weight gain. Laboratory tests give endocrinologists insight to hormonal imbalances when combined with your symptoms and presentation, but it doesnt always tell the whole story. Blood and urine results can be influenced by many things. For this reason, we suggest special evaluations to see how metabolic information relates to the lab data.

Recommended Reading: Does Blue Cross Blue Shield Cover Testosterone Therapy

Youre Skimping On Quality Sleep

This still remains tried and true your hormones need sleep. Your brain needs it, your muscles, bones and every cell in your body needs it for repair and restoration. The two hormones that are key in the relationship between sleep and weight loss are ghrelin and leptin. Ghrelin is the so-called hunger hormone that tells you when to eat, and leptin its counterpart, the satiety hormone tells you when to stop. But when youre sleep-deprived , you have more ghrelin and thus more appetite.

At the same time you have less leptin, so you never get the signal that you are full, and continue to feel hungry all the time. These key appetite hormones operate on the sleep-wake cycle, so anything that disrupts that cycle, such as a high night cortisol level can upset the balance leading to overeating and cravings. Testing your melatonin in concert with cortisol stress hormones can reveal an imbalance that can ultimately impact weight.

People having sleep disturbances or jet lag often use melatonin and magnesium as supplements to get back on the right track, but dealing with the stress that is disrupting your sleep and eliminating sources of light in your bedroom that can interfere with natural melatonin secretion are good places to start.

A Daily Battle With The Bathroom Scale Can Cause Shame Judgment Suffering And Obsession With Weightcontributing Further To Weight Loss Resistance

Even worse, the drill-sergeant approach of restricted eating and harsh exercise can escalate hormonal and emotional problems. A daily battle with the bathroom scale can cause shame, judgment, suffering, and obsession with weightcontributing further to weight loss resistance. When meals are accompanied by guilt, suffering, or anxiety about our food or our bodies a physiologic stress response is activated, triggering a fight-or-flight reaction and raising cortisol.

How do you reset your hormones, or jump-start your metabolism? Can you do it through diet alone?

The best way to get your hormones back on track and reinstate a healthy weight is to correct hormonal misfires with changes to the way you eat, move, think, and supplement. Start with diet: In my experience, 80 percent of weight loss is determined by the hormone/food interaction, so you want to eat in a way that optimizes your hormones. Heres my priority list:

CHANGE THE WAY YOU EAT AND DRINK. Remove processed foods, refined carbohydrates, sugars and sugar substitutes from your diet. Eliminate alcohol for 21 days .

TAKE SUPPLEMENTS TO IMPROVE YOUR HORMONE LEVELS. Here are a few of my favorites:

What causes hormones to go haywire? Is it the natural aging process, stress, having babiesis there a primary culprit?

The main culprits of haywire hormones are:

You May Like: Can Having Your Tubes Tied Cause Hormonal Imbalance

Does Hormonal Imbalance Make You Gain Weight

Hormones, along with your lifestyle, influence your appetite, satiety, metabolism, and weight .

Stress, age, genes, and poor lifestyle choices can disrupt your hormonal balance and lead to a sluggish metabolism, indigestion, and uncontrollable hunger. This, ultimately, leads to weight gain.

So, lets find out which hormones cause weight gain.

What Hormone Helps With Weight Loss

Hormones that help with weight loss include: Testosterone: This sex hormone produced by both men and women inhibits fat storage, especially in the abdomen. Estrone: This form of estrogen helps women control their appetite and sugar cravings. Progesterone: This sex hormone facilitates the conversion of stored body fat to energy.

You May Like: Can Having Your Tubes Tied Cause Hormonal Imbalance

How To Get Cortisol Under Control

Tips for maintaining healthy, balanced cortisol levels include the following:

• Consider what relaxes you. Is it meditation? A walk in the park? A bubble bath? Engaging in a creative project? Find what relieves stress for you, and integrate it into your daily routine.
• Exercise regularly, and give yoga a try if its not already part of your workout regimen. The synchronized breathwork that accompanies a nice, flowing vinyasa routine calms the nervous system and reduces cortisol all while giving your body and mind a thorough workout.
• Listen to your favorite music. A 2011 study published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology found that patients who listened to instrumental music during surgery had lower cortisol levels than a control group.
• Get enough sleep at night. Have you ever noticed how easily stressed and anxious you become on days when youre sleep deprived? This happens because during a night of deep, restorative sleep, your body is working to balance all hormones, including cortisol. A study published in the peer-reviewed journal Aviation, Space, and Environmental Medicine explored how sleep deprivation impacted helicopter pilots on a 7-day emergency medical duty. Findings suggested it was sleep deprivation not the act of emergency medical care that elevated adrenaline and cortisol levels.

Hormones Responsible For Weight Gain In Women

by Ed Hagen | Jul 30, 2018 | Blog1, Women’s Health

Did you know that stubborn fat can be harder to lose if your hormones arent in balance? So its a great idea to get all your hormones in check first.

Which hormones? Here are the hormones youll want to get in check to ensure you can achieve the healthiest weight of your life.

1.Thyroid

The thyroid gland produces three hormones: T3, T4, and calcitonin. Togther, they regulate metabolism, sleep, heart rate, growth and brain development, among other functions.

Sometimes the thyroid doesnt produce the right quantities of these hormones, though, and it can lead to hypothyroidism.

Hypothyroid is associated with constipation, fatigue, depression, slow heart rate, and other symptoms. However, it is also related to weight gain, as your metabolism slows down due to the hormone deficit.

2.Leptin

When your body is 100% healthy, leptin signals that you are full and should stop eating.

But when we overeat foods that are high in sugar or processed foods, the oversupply of fructose is converted into fat, and it gets deposited in the liver, belly and other areas of the body.

That is a problem because fat cells can also secret leptin, desensitizing the body to it and causing the brain to ignore the signal to stop eating. This vicious circle can lead to high levels of weight gain.

3.Insulin

4.Estrogen

Estrogen levels that are too high or too low can cause weight gain.

5.Cortisol

6.Progesterone

7.Ghrelin

8.Testosterone

9.Melatonin

Don’t Miss: Can Getting Your Tubes Tied Cause Early Menopause

Weight Loss With Treatment

There aren’t many scientific studies regarding how much weight is gained or lost once hypothyroid people are treated with the synthetic thyroid hormone levothyroxine, but the limited evidence that is available indicates that not everyone loses weight with treatment and in the ones who do, it’s limited.

Once your hormone levels are within the normal range, you may lose a small amount of weight that mainly consists of the extra water and salt your body has built up. However, weight gain has multiple factors and yours is more than likely not all due to your thyroid’s slowdown. One way to tell is if treatment has helped all of your other thyroid symptoms but not your weight. This indicates that your thyroid very likely isn’t the only factor behind your gain.

Causes Of Hormonal Imbalance

Hormonal imbalance can be the result of a variety of risk factors. Though both lifestyle and diet can contribute to hormonal imbalance, it often develops from illness.

Issues with the thyroid or adrenal glands are a very common catalyst for hormonal imbalance. Thyroid conditions can affect the production of certain hormones. Hypothyroidism, in particular, is linked to significant weight gain. The weight gain and obesity that often comes with hypothyroidism is a result of hormonal imbalance.

Other causes of hormonal imbalance include:

• Age

• IT Band Syndrome Healing Time

Don’t Miss: Nugenix Estro-regulator Review

The More Medication Myth

You may have heard that thyroid hormones can be used to lose weight, even in people without thyroid disease. While synthetic thyroid hormones have been used this way in the past, research has shown that most people gain all the weight back once they stop using them. Worse, being on thyroid hormones unnecessarily can result in serious side effects.

For people who are already using levothyroxine, increasing the dose above what’s needed can lead to more weight loss, but it’s usually not significant and those pounds are often gained back once the dose is decreased again. This is also an unhealthy way to lose weight as an increased dose is also associated with adverse reactions, including heart issues, insomnia, headaches, menstrual irregularities and skin rash.

Hormones And Weight Gain: The Story You Arent Told

Im sure youve heard that losing, gaining, or maintaining weight is a simple matter of calories in vs. calories out. But what if I told you that this isnt actually true. Although calories are important, hormones can override the calorie equation and prevent you from losing weight. If this wasnt the case then certain medications wouldnt lead to weight gain. The prime example of this is Cortisone. Cortisone is the synthetic form of cortisol, your long term stress hormone, and often used to treat asthma. One of the known side affects of Cortisone is weight gain. Now if calories were the only thing involved in weight, then that cortisone pill would have to be packed with a bucket of KFC to cause such weight gain.

Our most basic desire is survival. During our evolutionary days, the amount of stored energy that we had directly correlated with how long we could survive during a threatening situation, such as a famine. Fat storage was therefore an essential bodily function. Your body controls all of your essential bodily functions without you needing to think about them. Although you have a certain element of control over them like altering your breathing or holding your breath your body will always have the superior power. If you hold your breath for too long then youll pass out, but your survival mechanisms will kick in and youll start breathing again.

Don’t Miss: Unisom And Melatonin

Youre Not Strength Training Or Getting Enough Exercise

Moderate exercise lowers stress hormones, which in turn reduces the bodys tendency to store fat, and increases calorie burning. Stretching exercises like yoga and Pilates, etc. also help to release tension in the body. Additional strength training or weight bearing exercise builds muscle, increasing anabolic hormones like testosterone and DHEA that rev metabolism.

In a nutshell, eating right, exercising and getting enough sleep are essentials that help keep hormones in balance, weight under control, and belly fat at bay.

Consider testing to identify existing imbalances that could be thwarting your best efforts to lose weight. It is simple, pain-free and convenient. The test results could reveal hidden imbalances and provide helpful information about what to do next. This is news we can all use.

You’re Consuming Too Much Sugar

I think of leptin as the hormone that says, “Darling, put down the fork.” Under normal circumstances, it’s released from your fat cells and travels in the blood to your brain, where it signals that you’re full. But leptin’s noble cause has been impeded by our consumption of a type of sugar called fructose, which is found in fruit and processed foods alike.

When you eat small amounts of fructose, you’re OK. But if you eat more than the recommended five daily servings of fruit plus processed foods with added sugaryour liver can’t deal with the fructose fast enough to use it as fuel. Instead, your body starts converting it into fats, sending them off into the bloodstream as triglycerides and depositing them in the liver and elsewhere in your belly.

As more fructose is converted to fat, your levels of leptin increase . And when you have too much of any hormone circulating in your system, your body becomes resistant to its message. With leptin, that means your brain starts to miss the signal that you’re full. You continue to eat, and you keep gaining weight.

If you eat more than the recommended five daily servings of fruit, plus processed foods with added sugar, your liver can’t deal with the fructose fast enough to use it as fuel.

You May Like: Can Having Your Tubes Tied Cause Hormonal Imbalance

Hormones That Affect Weight In Women

Do you experience fluctuation with your weight? Do you struggle with weight loss? Have you experienced weight gain just before or after your period? If yes, you should consider getting your hormones checked out. Women are more vulnerable to hormone imbalance than men. This imbalance can give us slow metabolism, uncontrollable food cravings and lethargy in different periods of our lives. This can be related to pregnancy, menopause, stress, chemical imbalances and premenstrual syndrome. Research has shown that weight loss, metabolism, female hormones and appetite are closely related to one another. Learning about your hormone mechanism can help you control your weight. You can learn about the ideal exercise routine and diet plan for you.

Our hormones an affect women of all ages. This will greatly affect our daily life and biological cycle, but what exact hormones affect our weight gain? Lets discuss each one thoroughly below.

What You Can Do: Stop Overeating The Foods That Cause Insulin Resistance

How do we ensure our insulin levels remain balanced? First, we need to stop eating too much. Its a known fact that overeating leads to insulin resistance, especially when we eat too much food thats no good for our bodies and minds. When we eat too much sugar, too much fast food, and too many processed carbohydrates, insulin goes haywire. These elevated insulin levels lead to weight gain and low-grade inflammation. A 2010 study published in the journal Diabetes found that even eating too much of these foods in the short term leads to insulin resistance and weight gain.

You may also want to restrict carbohydrates in your diet. According to a study published in the journal Nutrition and Metabolism, a low-carb diet prevents metabolic syndrome and the insulin resistance that causes it. Other findings show drinking green tea, consuming omega-3 fatty acids from fatty fish, and eating adequate amounts of protein all help balance insulin levels.

You May Like: Nugenix Estro Regulator Reviews

Obvious Signs Of Hormonal Weight Gain And How To Fix It

Weight Loss2

If you suspect that your hormones are making you gain weight, this article will show you signs of hormonal weight gain and how to fix it.

Hormones have a bigger impact on your body than you may realize. Unbalanced hormones can ruin your mood, cause fatigue, lower your libido, and trigger weight gain.

Dont be too quick to blame your hormones if the scale isnt budging. Most people fail to lose weight due to overeating. According to research, many dieters underestimate their calorie intake, which leads to weight gain.

However, hormonal imbalance can hinder weight loss, especially in women. Women experience more hormonal changes than men due to periods and menopause.

Men also struggle with hormonal weight gain due to poor nutrition, lack of sleep, excessive drinking, lack of muscle, and genetics.

Read on to discover the common signs of hormonal weight gain you should look out for. And then I will show you how to fix these imbalances.

How To Balance Leptin For Weight Loss:

A huge component to balancing your leptin levels is getting enough sleep. When you dont get enough sleep, your leptin levels are lower and you dont feel as satisfied after you eat. Harvard studies show that sleep deprivation reduces leptin levels and actually increases your bodys desire for fatty or carbohydrate-rich foods.

If you suspect a leptin imbalance is to blame for your weight gain, make sleep a priority each and every nightwe should all be prioritizing sleep anyway for its myriad of health benefits. But if weight loss is the kick in the pants you need to start catching more zzzs, then let that be your motivation.

Other ways to balance your leptin levels include:

• Taking an Omega 3 supplement or eat more Omega 3 rich foods such as fatty fish, grass-fed meats, and chia seeds
• Exercising regularly

Read Also: Nugenix Estrogen Blocker