Slowing Weight Gain With Exercise
What You Need To Know About Leptin Resistance
When your body becomes resistant to leptin, leptin levels become too high. In fact, overweight individuals who get their leptin levels tested typically find their leptin levels to be as high as four times the normal level. Whats more, its really difficult to balance leptin levels once theyve become resistant.
With leptin resistance, communication between the brain and leptin is impaired, so that your brain doesnt understand that its full, and tells your body to keep eating. Its as if your brain thinks youre starving when in reality, youre just leptin resistant.
To reverse leptin resistance or prevent it from happening to you in the first place, lets talk food, drink, and supplements. Everything in your body impacted by what you put into it, and leptins no different. Sugar, in particular, can cause leptin levels in your body to skyrocket, so youll want to eat less sugar. Other ways to prevent or reduce leptin resistance include:
- Committing to a regular exercise routine
- Getting truly restorative sleep on a regular basis
Resolve Your Hormonal Weight Gain Issues
If you believe a hormone imbalance may be inhibiting your weight-loss journey, we are here to help you. We specialize in bio-identical hormone replacement therapy and design individual treatment plans for all of our patients.If you have any questions about hormonal weight gain or our program,;;or send us an email. Were here to help you on your journey to wellness.;;
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Youve Got Sugar On The Brain
Were not talking about wanting a cookie now and then. But if you cant deal without your sugar top-up each day, step back and ask yourself why. Cravings are often an early clue to hormone issues.
You may have leptin resistance. Remember, leptin is the hormone that helps regulate your appetite. It tells your brain when your belly is full. If your body starts ignoring leptins messages, thats called leptin resistance.
Researchers know that leptin resistance leads to weight gain. Talk to your doctor if you dont feel full even after big meals. Leptin resistance could be a problem, and it could be leading to overeating.
It could be an insulin issue. Another hormonal cause of belly fat? Insulin imbalance. Wild sugar cravings, sudden weight gain, and lack of focus could all indicate insulin issues. There are natural ways to lower insulin, but its also a concern you should bring up with your doctor.
Theres no magic fix for hormonal weight gain. Your game plan depends on which hormones are wonky and why. But these five tactics are a good place to start.
What Should I Eat To Lose Hormonal Belly Fat
You can overcome hormonal changes that are impacting your body weight by choosing low-calorie-dense foods. These foods help stave off hunger and cravings. This facilitates your ability to alter your body composition and helps you get back to feeling the way you did before the hormone changes.
5 Best Foods to Eat to Lose Belly Fat
- Vegetables
- Unrefined Complex Carbohydrates
- Beans
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What You Can Eat
Turner calls her food plan Glyci-Med,” since it’s a mix of foods low on the glycemic index and a traditional Mediterranean diet.
Foods you can eat include lean protein ; vegetables and most fruit; chia seeds, flaxseeds, and most nuts; olive oil and some other unsaturated oils and fats, like canola oil; and whole grains like buckwheat, brown rice, and quinoa.
On this plan, you’ll avoid or minimize caffeine, alcohol, fried foods, processed meat, peanuts, saturated fat, full-fat dairy, artificial sweeteners, and simple high-GI carbs like white bread.
You’ll eat often — every 3-4 hours — making healthy food choices at least 80% of the time. But you do get one to two cheat meals a week.
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.
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Level Of Effort: Medium To High
First, you’ll quit caffeine, alcohol, sugar, dairy, gluten, and most oils for 2 weeks.
Also, Turner recommends using pH strips and ketone strips to test your bodys pH balance; getting a series of blood, urine, or saliva tests to check hormone levels; and taking supplements including multivitamins, omega-3 fatty acids, and calcium–magnesium–vitamin D3.
Limitations: If youre used to eating prepared meals and snacks, The Hormone Diet might be a big adjustment, since it focuses on whole foods that you cook yourself. If you love coffee or soda, you may find it hard to give up these beverages in favor of green tea and other drinks on Turner’s list.
Cooking and shopping: The plan calls for eating organic foods as much as possible. The recipes and 1-week sample menu are fairly basic, so if youre not comfortable cooking the foods in the diet plan, your options may be limited.
Packaged foods or meals: Not required, though Turner recommends certain brands of supplements.
In-person meetings: No.
Exercise: Turner recommends getting roughly 30 minutes of exercise 6 days a week in a mix of strength training, cardio, interval training, and yoga.
Causes Of Weight Gain In Midsection & Ways To Get Rid Of It
It is really difficult to manage weight gain in midsection, especially when you dream to have attractive and flat abs.;Weight gain in midsection not only makes you look obese but also makes you prone to a number of health problems. It is important to know the causes of weight gain in midsection and ways to get rid of it.
Although weight gain can occur in any part of your body, but the midsection is more prone to excessive accumulation of fat cells than other parts of your body. Excessive weight gain in belly can increase the risk of developing heart disorders, breast cancer, diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular diseases and other health complications. There are many causes of weight gain in midsection, but natural ways can help to get rid of it.
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Create A List Of Reasons You Want To Lose Weight
Those who are most successful at losing weight after 40 do it when they have a very clear reason why they want to get leaner. Maybe you’ve been watching the scale creep up a pound or two every year and are ready to nix bad habits, or you’ve been given a wake-up call by your doctor that it’s time to get serious about how your weight is impacting your overall health. You need to have a mental awakening that puts you in a state of readiness to change. If youre not engaged mentally, its not happening, says Pamela Peeke, M.D., author of The Hunger Fix.
Top 10 Way To Prevent & Reverse Menopause Weight Gain
1. Try Hormone Replacement Therapy
Menopausal weight gain and the inability to lose weight are based on a litany of factors. The decrease in estrogen and progesterone during menopause are the primary factors. The calories in vs. the calories out arent just the whole story for menopausal women. Yes, calories matter, but in menopause and perimenopause, hormones matter more. Taking HRT can have powerful effects on preventing weight gain. A thorough review of the hormones and how HRT can help normalize the levels are presented in the next section.
2. Stop the Fatigue Due to Night Sweats
Night sweats associated with perimenopause and menopause can create an endless cycle of fatigue. People eat more when they are tired.3 Without enough sleep, people snack more and consume more calories. When they are sleep deprived, womens levels of appetite hormones increase .7;
Very few people function well on less than 7 hours of sleep. Sleeping 7 to 8.5 hours every night is critical to reducing stress. If sleep is regularly disrupted, the stress hormone cortisol increases, and weight gain ensues. HRT has been shown to reduce night sweats more effectively than any other treatment, allowing for restful sleep, decreased anxiety, and weight loss.3 A fan, cooling pillow, or white noise machine are all great options to improve sleep.
3. Regain Lean Muscle Mass
4. Switch the Workouts
5. Permit Mood & Anxiety Changes
6. Tune In to Taste Expectations
7. Move More
8. Regulate Metabolic Changes
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The Best Ways To Fix Your Hormones And Lose Weight Fast
When you hit a weight loss plateau, it can be very confusing. If youre eating healthy and exercising, and nothing has changed in your lifestyle, why arent you losing weight anymore?
Weight loss plateaus can be very discouraging and make you feel like all your hard efforts are for nothing. You want to lose more weight, yet you feel like you hit a wall and nothing you do is making a difference.
If this is the case for you, there might be something internal going on. Hormones could be the culprit. Hormone imbalances are a major issue that can affect your weight more than you expect.
There are three major hormonal pathways that control weight, whether it be weight gain or weight loss, in the body.
These include cortisol, your sex hormones, and your thyroid. Continue reading to find out how each of these three categories of hormones could potentially be the culprit of your weight loss plateaus.
Natural Remedies For Hormonal Imbalance
Physicians may prescribe pharmaceuticals for balancing hormones, but we know that taking medications indefinitely can often do more harm than good. Thankfully, there are a variety of lifestyle-based natural remedies for hormonal imbalance. The exact method you choose will depend on whats going on with your specific hormones, but trying out one or several of the below strategies should help you bringing your hormones back into balance:
All of these natural remedies for hormonal imbalance can help you restore proper levels of your hormones, which will have a huge positive impact on your overall health. Plus, most of these strategies are healthy lifestyle habits that we should all be adopting anyway!
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Start Your Day With Acv Or Lemon Water
Kick-start your bodys natural detoxification process first thing in the morning by drinking a glass of water with lemon or apple cider vinegar in it.
The acetic acid in vinegar helps your body burn fat and rids your body of toxins. It also gives you a little energy boost to start your day.
The benefits of apple cider vinegar or lemon in your water are endless! Just add a tablespoon or two of apple cider vinegar, or slice a lemon and squeeze it into your water.
Stress Eating: 5 Ways To Beat It According To A Nutritionist
Stress may wreak havoc on your metabolism. Here’s how you can stop stress eating.
I think we can all agree that stress is bad. Excess stress can cause headaches, muscle tension, digestive problems, sleep disturbances, and depression. Research shows it may also wreak havoc on metabolism and cause stress-induced weight gain.
We’ve known for some time that stress is connected to gaining weight, because a high level of the stress hormone cortisol has been shown to increase appetite and lead to stress eating, drive cravings for junk food, and make it easier to accumulate belly fat. And an Ohio State study shows that stress may also result in burning fewer calories.
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In the study, researchers questioned women about stress they had the previous day. The women were then fed a meal containing a very generous 930 calories and 60 grams of fat. After eating, scientists measured their metabolic rates and took blood samples.
In the seven hours after eating the mondo meal, those who had reported being stressed out within the previous 24 hours burned less of the fat they consumed, and they had higher levels of insulin, a hormone that contributes to fat storage. They also burned 104 fewer calories. That may not sound like much, but if you are aiming to lose pounds, it’s enough of a difference to account for a weight gain of almost 11 pounds in one year.
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Ways To Get Rid Of Weight In Midsection
If your waistband is getting tight day by day, then you are not alone. There are many people across the world experiencing weight gain in midsection and finding natural remedies to lose weight from their abdomen effectively. Increased belly fat and weight gain in midsection usually reduces good cholesterol and increases triglyceride level which can lead to cardiovascular diseases and strokes in people. Knowing the ways to lose weight in midsection can help to look great and reduce several health risks.
Regularly exercises and healthy diet are important to lose weight gain in midsection. Additionally, there are other steps that can help you lose weight in midsection naturally.
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What Types Of Birth Control Stimulate Appetite
Some birth control pills can cause women to feel hungrier than usual, which can lead to excess calorie consumption and weight gain. Unlike water retention, this type of weight gain is much harder to get rid of and is more permanent. It can be incredibly hard to make smart diet choices when a person is experiencing cravings for calorie-dense foods thanks to hormones.
Certain birth control pills increase insulin levels. High levels of insulin cause any calories obtained from carbohydrates to be converted into fat cells. Women who already have abnormal glucose metabolism are at high-risk of experiencing this side effect.
The types of hormonal birth control that are the biggest culprits for appetite stimulation are, again, pills with higher levels of estrogen. Low dose estrogen pills do not cause significant increases in appetite and insulin levels. For women who do experience weight gain on the pill, the average weight gained is 4.4 pounds within 12 months on a progestin-only pill.
Also, if a woman experiences significant weight gain after taking the pill, the birth control isnt necessarily to blame. Its possible that another health issue is causing weight gain, and its crucial that women speak to their doctor if this happens. Cushings Syndrome, thyroid disorders, and diabetes can cause sudden, unexplained weight gain.
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Think Seriously About Your Hormones
Many of us dont even think about our hormones; not giving them a second thought with us putting on weight. And yet, these chemical messengers feature high on the list for how our body works and our general health. When our hormones are upset, they can cause chaos in the body. Women will know all about this chaos when they ride the hormonal roller coaster every month, experiencing PMS, heavy periods, mood swings, and even missing periods. Some women have had babies and their hormones have left them feeling depressed. And what about the symptoms that come along with menopause? Lots of women dont even want to talk about those symptoms!
Actually, there is very little that our amazing hormones dont do for us. The shape of our bodies, the quality of our sleep, how our digestive system serves us; they involve our hormones. But we are also quick to use the excuse when someone is suffering from some malady, to say, Its just their hormones. But modern living today can lead to a lot of this hormonal chaos, throwing these precious workers in our body out of sync; out of harmony.