How Bodily Hormones Can Affect Weight Loss
The endocrine system is a collection of organs that produce and regulate hormones in the body. There are several conditions that result from chemical imbalances in the body, whether thats over- or under-production.
Whatever the case may be, its essential to know how bodily chemicals can affect weight loss, as they can significantly reduce the effectiveness of regular exercising and stunt progress. Whether the effects are significant or subtle, its best to know how the body works and what you can do to mitigate any adverse effects.
How Hormones Make It Hard To Lose Stubborn Fat
Sometimes diet and exercise arent enough to lose stubborn fat. Aging causes your hormone levels to change, and hormone fluctuations make it tough to burn fat and keep it off.
So, despite eating healthy and following an exercise program, you may still have unwanted fat because of your hormones. If thats the case, Dr. Jay Trussler may have the answer for you. Read on to learn how hormones affect fat loss and how to address the issue.
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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Balancing Hormones For Weight Loss: The Top Six To Know
Have you ever wondered how some people seem to diet throughout their lives while others keep a healthy weight without trying? Although they may have similar eating habits, their bodies could differ in metabolism, lifestyle, and possibly hormones.
Every person has their own personalized biochemistry. From genetic traits to distinct physiologies, we all have different makeups that make us unique.
While lifestyle choices make a major impact on health and weight, so do hormones. This article will provide an overview of the primary hormones involved in weight fluctuations and teach you how to balance them naturally.
What Is Hormonal Weight Gain
Hormones are chemical signals that control a wide variety of different functions in the body. Hormones influence everything from stress levels and mood, growth, sleep, reproduction, and yes, weight and appetite.
An imbalance in the hormone levels in your body, whether it is too many or too few, may cause a number of changes to your body and daily function. When looking at hormones and weight gain, these conditions may be worth discussing with your doctor:
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How A Hormone Imbalance Affects Weight Loss
You are doing all of the right things. You are regularly exercising and watching what you eat. But youre still frustrated looking at the scale because none of this hard work shows at all. If this sounds like your struggle, you may have a hormone imbalance that is holding you back from your healthier goals. Fortunately, there are things that you can do about hormone imbalances that can help you on your weight loss journey. This article will help you better understand what a hormone imbalance is and what you can do about it.
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.
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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.
Causes Of Hormonal Weight Gain And How To Prevent It
Have you been losing and gaining the same 10-20 pounds for the past couple of years? Its now halfway into 2020 and if your New Years Resolution was lose weight and you havent quite reached your goal yet, dont feel too discouraged.
Weight gain and weight loss are influenced by a lot of factors, some of which you may not know about and are out of your control.Keep reading to learn more about the reasons for hormonal weight gain and the steps you can take to prevent it.
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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.
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.
So How Can You Go About Losing Weight Without All The Hormone Trouble
So, how do you leverage the benefits of certain hormones while minimizing the downside of others? As a registered dietitian, I’m a big fan of a balanced diet rich in whole, minimally processed foods . This way of eating is naturally filling, so you’re less likely to struggle with post-diet rebound hunger. And it’s easy to sustain long term, since it doesn’t suggest restricting any one foodeven sweet treats are on the menu, when enjoyed in moderation.
True, the weight won’t melt off in a hurry. Instead, something even better will happen. You’ll shed pounds slowly, giving your hormones a chance to adjust to your new weight rather than shocking them into chaos.
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Shift Your Shape With More Movement
It is important to remember to take a reality check. You didnt get the excess weight overnight and youre not going to lose it all in a minute, advises Carol. She suggests if youre trying to lose belly fat, the best thing to do is start with cardiovascular exercises and activities that you love. If running on a treadmill is not your thing, then find a movement that brings you joy youll be more inclined to do it. Now, take your strength to the next level.
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“When I was in my 40s, I went on a ketogenic diet with my husband,” Gottfried said. “He lost 20 pounds. I gained weight.”
Gottfried added that it also is important to have a method that is specifically targeted to women, instead of treating all genders the same when it comes to weight loss.
“There’s a bias when it comes to the research,” said Gottfried. “We’re completely different, we’re not just men with breasts. We’ve got completely different hormone levels, so we have to eat in a way that helps those hormones.”
52-year-old Anu French, a mother of two, said that during the pandemic she dealt with weight gain and the onset of menopause. She was diagnosed with prediabetes and high cholesterol, and she wanted to lose weight. French said that with Gottfried’s protocol, she lost 40 pounds in three months and maintained the weight loss for a year.
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How Long Does It Take To See Results
Within 6 weeks of starting to include some exercises that increase lean muscle mass, you might see some shifting and definition, but youll already notice your strength has increased. Its so empowering it feels great! says Carol. Youll get faster results than youll get on your own. Its a kick start that involves all sorts of changes , including a shift in upper body posture, and more defined muscles.
What Causes Hormone Imbalances
Endocrine disruptors are chemicals that can affect the natural cycle of hormones. These sneaky guys can pretend to be a receptor for a hormone or block the hormones pathway altogether.
The results are out-of-whack body systems and hormone imbalances.
A hormone imbalance can also occur from an unhealthy lifestyle, like a poor diet or lack of activity. Of course, natural body changes that occur with aging, like menopause, can also be culprits.
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Your Weight Gain Is Only In Your Abdomen
Menopause puts your body through a whole host of changes, one of them commonly being weight gain. Why? Your production of estrogen, along with other hormones, takes a dip. Outside of menopause, low estrogen levels can be due to excessive exercise, disordered eating patterns, or pituitary gland issues. Decreased estrogen levels can change the fat distribution of your body, causing you to gain more in the belly as opposed to the hips, thighs, and buttocks. Estrogen deficiency can also impair the action of insulin, making it harder to regulate blood sugar and leading to increased hormonal belly fat. abdominal weight gain.
Your gameplan:
Melt away hormonal belly fat caused by low estrogen and insulin resistance by adopting a low carbohydrate eating plan, recommends Johnston. Between protein, fat and carbohydrates, carbs have the biggest impact on raising blood sugar and insulin levels, she says. Reducing high-carbohydrate foods such as refined sugars, breads, cookies, crackers, and pasta and boosting less insulin-stimulating foods rich in fiber, protein, and healthy fat can have a significant impact on your waistline.
Keep in mind that if your carb consumption dips too low, it can suppress your leptin levels and interfere with leptins ability to regulate your reproductive hormones so its important to keep some whole-food based sources of complex carbohydrates in the diet such as fruit, starchy vegetables, and whole grains.
What Do Hormones Do To Our Bodies
Hormones are small control units of our bodies. Think of them like little delivery people that send important communications to every area of our bodies.
They control our emotions, tell us when to grow, ramp up the immune system when necessary, and help develop our body systems. They even coordinate information between systems to make sure everything functions properly.
But, not all cells get affected by every hormone. According to PBS, hormones only interact with the cells that have receptors for them.
Its kind of like a magnet. If you put them together the right way, they attract each other if you try to change the position of one, they push each other apart.
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Why Cant I Lose Weight In Menopause
So lets start by first answering that question is it possible to lose weight in menopause? Yes it absolutely is, but as your hormones shift and other things change in your body as a result, you need to adapt with this and make tweaks to how you eat and how you move.
Before we can explore the changes you need to make, I want you to understand what is actually going on in your body as you move into the menopause. Firstly, your ovaries start to reduce your production of the sex hormones oestrogen and progesterone, which is why your menstrual cycles may start to shorten or lengthen, until eventually your periods stop. So whilst the ovaries dont produce as much oestrogen as they once did, your body compensates by producing oestrogen from elsewhere firstly from your adrenal glands and also from your fat cells, in the form of oestrone. So thats why you may start to lay down a bit more fat around your middle, because these fat cells help to produce a little oestrogen.
So whilst a little bit of fat can help to protect your bones and general health, by releasing some oestrogen, its important not to let this get out of control. For some women, it seems that no matter what they do, they cant get this extra fat accumulation to slow down. They start to feel out of control with their weight. And as more excess weight is held around the tummy, this can drive sugar and carb cravings and even increase your appetite even more.
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.
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Why Am I Putting On Weight And Why Is It So Hard To Take It Off
If you are putting weight on easily and having a hard time taking it off, you should know that hormonal imbalances affect weight-loss and weight gain and could be part of the problem or maybe even the whole problem. In fact, some hormonal imbalances can make it down right impossible to lose weight!
Plenty of people attempt various diets and exercise programs with the intention of taking off any excess weight. Sometimes it can be frustrating when results are not forthcoming, which can end by giving up all together. What many people dont realize is that there can be many underlying health issues which impede weight loss attempts. Not only that, but these same issues can actually be the cause of the weight gain in the first place, in addition to poor diet and lack of exercise.
Hormone imbalances and other deficiencies can very likely be the reason. We frequently get phone calls from patients who are desperate for help because the pounds keep packing on no matter what they do. Unfortunately, many of them have sought help from their doctor, only to be told that they just need to eat less and exercise more, period. This not only leads to feelings of shame, but also helplessness and can be quite demoralizing.
Youre Hungry All The Time
Labeled as the hunger hormone, ghrelin tells you when its time to eat and has a significant impact on the size of your appetite. If you were to start fasting tomorrow, skipping breakfast, lunch, and dinner, your body would take notice and as a result begin to release ghrelin, telling you to eat again. On the other hand, if you suddenly began to binge on candy, your stomach would quickly recognize this overconsumption and cut back on ghrelin secretion.
However, research shows ghrelin secretion can become dysregulated when you gain weight. In fact, obese individuals tend to have elevated circulating levels of leptin and decreased levels of ghrelin. Having elevated leptin levels, despite what you may expect, does not always mean you are more likely to stop eating. When you have consistently elevated leptin levels this can lead to dysfunction of leptin receptors which means your brain will not receive the message youre full. This hormonal confusion throws your hunger cues out of whack and you do the opposite of what leptin is designed to do, so you continue to eat without ever receiving the signal to stop, resulting in the undesirable hormonal belly.
Your gameplan:
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Visualize Yourself Eating Your Favorite Foods
According to some studies, seeing yourself eating the foods you want to eat can actually make you want to eat them less.
Before being given access to a bowl of M& Ms, 51 individuals were asked to envision eating either three or 33 M& Ms. On average, those who envisioned eating more M& Ms ate 60% less of the candy.
When the researchers performed the experiment with cheese instead of M& Ms, they discovered the same result.
The visualization exercise appears to fool your mind into thinking youve already eaten the desired foods, resulting in a considerable reduction in your desire for them.
VERDICT: Visualizing yourself eating the foods you want to consume can help you feel less compelled to eat them.