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.
Why Does It Matter Why Now
Working to prevent weight gain and striving to lose excess weight are particularly important after 40, as it can impact the risk of several dangerous health conditions that often arise with age. A large-scale study conducted in Finland found that peri- and postmenopausal weight gain was associated with the onset of hypertension regardless of initial weight, physical activity level, or hormone replacement status. They further determined that blood pressure rose relatively quickly after the weight was gained and that even a modest weight gain resulted in hypertension. Likewise, the risk of cardiovascular diseasea leading cause of death among womenincreases with age and the decline of estrogen levels as the menopause transition is approached. The risks of metabolic syndrome also increase with natural menopause and are even higher with surgical menopause. In other words, now is a critical time to take action to preserve your immediate and long-term health.
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.
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Can You Combine These Supplements
While you will want to speak to your physician about combining these supplements, as a general rule of thumb, you may be able to combine one or more of these supplements into your daily intake. For example, because pregnenolone supports DHEA, you may be able to take both of these supplements at the same time.
What Is Hormone Replacement Therapy
Women typically undergo menopause between the ages of 45 and 55. It occurs around one year after a womans last menstrual cycle. The menopausal transition affects the production of hormones produced by the ovaries. This leads to changes that may affect your health. Hormone replacement therapy including prescribed medication that boosts the levels of hormones lost during menopause.
A variety of hormone replacement therapies are available, but they can lead to various side effects. While some believe that HRT causes weight gain, theres no conclusive evidence to prove it. Theres also no proof that HRT encourages weight loss.
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Lose Weight This Year With The Help Of Hormone Replacement Therapy
If youre determined to lose weight this year, you should know that diet and exercise arent always the answer. Sometimes you can diligently exercise and watch calories, yet still fail to drop those pesky pounds.
Your struggle to lose weight may be the result of a hormone imbalance thats sabotaging your efforts. Here at BioAge Health, weve helped many patients in Eagan and the Twin City area of Minnesota successfully lose weight by restoring their natural hormones.
As a board-certified bioidentical hormone specialist and weight loss specialist, Dr. Catherine Kodama works closely with each patient, providing support and exceptional help with hormone deficiencies that contribute to weight gain.
How Does The Stress Hormone Cortisol Sabotage Weight Loss
How is this overproduction of cortisol related to weight gain? First of all, heightened cortisol is linked to overeating. Ever notice how you eat when youre stressed? A study published in the journal Psychoneuroendocrinology found that higher than normal cortisol levels were linked to overeating and weight gain. Another study links elevated cortisol levels to an increase in belly fat.
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Balance My Hormones: A Potential Weight Loss Key
How do I balance my hormones to lose weight? At Pellecome, we believe one key to weight loss can be found in supplements that help your body find a natural balance to aid in breaking down fat, increasing metabolism, and preventing dietary obesity. For more information about the selection of supplements that can help you balance your hormones and improve your health, please contact Pellecome in Randolph, NJ today!
Do You Gain Weight When You Stop Hormone Replacement Treatment: Withdrawal
Each type of hormone therapy for weight loss has a withdrawal period. Do you gain weight when you stop hormone replacement therapy? Healthcare providers warn patients about Prempro and weight gain when prescribing HRT. This side effect is in the list of rare adverse reactions in the information page to the drug inside the package or on its official website. Endocrinologists inform that a hormonal tablet, gel, oil, implant, vaginal ring, injection, and HRT cream and weight gain occur in fewer patients as the effect is usually the opposite.
When the organism gets medical assistance that demands a period longer than a week, the body will get used to it and depend on its help. If a patient takes medicine for a year or more, the organism will get stressed in case a person interrupts the supply overnight. Regarding guidelines and recommendations of experienced endocrinologists, average hormone therapy for weight loss takes from four to five years. Such durable dependence cannot disappear in a day. To prevent the response that can be dangerous for a patients health, an endocrinologist together with a GP creates a plan for gradual cessation.
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What Are The Risks Of Hrt
The health risks of HRT include:
- Increased risk of endometrial cancer For women who have had a hysterectomy , this is not a problem
- Increased risk of breast cancer with long-term use
- Increased risk of cardiovascular disease
- Increase in inflammatory markers
- Increased risk of blood clots and stroke, especially during the first year of use in susceptible women
All women taking hormone replacement therapy should have regular gynecological exams . The American Cancer Society also recommends that women over age 50 should:
How Do Hormones Cause Weight Gain
Your hormonal balance is directly linked to weight gain, particularly visceral fat in the abdomen that can threaten overall health and life expectancy. Hormones in the gut and produced by the adrenal system are tied to weight gain, meaning that overproduction or deficiency of these hormones makes it easier to gain weight. This is particularly true for women and men who are experiencing hormonal imbalances caused by the natural aging process.
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What Are The Stages Of Hormonal Change For Men
For men, andropause is a slow decline of normal testosterone levels, which begin to lower by about 1% every year around the age of 40. Because the decrease in testosterone production is slow slow, many men do not exhibit any obvious symptoms of andropause for nearly a decade after onset. Andropause is traditionally marked by low T, which features symptoms such as low libido, sexual dysfunction, weight gain, loss of muscle mass, mood swings, and more.
How Common Is It for Men to Gain Weight During Andropause?
On average, middle-aged men gain about 19 pounds during the onset of andropause, which can be a significant cause of concern for overall health. Weight gain is one of the more common symptoms of andropause and most men will experience some about of weight gain during late adulthood.
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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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.
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How Do I Balance My Hormones To Lose Weight
If youre over a certain age, it might be the case that your recent weight gain isnt caused by a poor diet or a lax exercise routine. For some of us, weight gain is inexorably linked to hormonal imbalance, which begs the question: how do I balance my hormones to lose weight? Well, its easier than you might think. At Pellecome, we believe that science holds the key to restoring the natural hormonal balance of your body.
Progesterone Therapy And Weight Loss
Hormone replacement therapy encompasses many different types of treatment, each with a particular set of purposes, such as in the case with progesterone therapy. This report will focus on one of the reasons both women and men gain weight as they approach middle age estrogen dominance. As crucial as estrogen is for both the female and male body, it also brings a wake of problems when the estradiol level in the body is higher than normal, and progesterone and testosterone are lower than ideal. That is why there is a direct benefit of progesterone therapy: weight loss!
While the targeted goal of doctor prescribed progesterone therapy is not weight loss, it is clearly a side benefit worth discussing. Ultimately, the reasons HRT specialists prescribe hormone replacement is to bring a state of homeostasis balance to the body. When hormone levels are balanced, everything can work in proper order, including metabolism. This allows for the proper conversion of food to fuel rather than to fat while also targeting fat cells for useful energy.
That help can be found in the form of progesterone treatment. Weight loss occurs because the higher level of progesterone in the body decreases the estrogen dominance and fatty growth.
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Helps Make Your Workouts Count
As you age, your body loses muscle mass its one of the reasons its harder to lose weight with age.
What does muscle have to do with fat?
1lb of muscle and 1lb of fat are not created equal!
The more muscle mass you lose, the less calories you burn, even on a lazy Sunday 1lb of muscle is believed to burn 6-25 times more than 1lb of fat at rest each day. If you replaced 3lbs of fat for muscle, youre burning between 126-525 more calories a week at rest.
Noxiously high levels of estrogen results in two things:
1. Accelerates the rate at which your current muscle mass is replaced by fat. 2. Thwarts your bodys ability to build new muscle .
The result? You burn less calories at rest and while exercising, blocking weight loss results.
Progesterone therapy has presented significant results in helping women post and pre-menopause build muscle mass.
- Increased gene expression up to 90% in 3+ genes
- Increase rate of muscle mass growth by up to 20%
- Increase muscle synthesis up to 50%
Lathering that progesterone cream on your muscles can make your workouts count in a way they havent in a long time.
Do Estrogen Pills Actually Work
In the treatment of troublesome menopausal hot flashes and night sweats, systemic estrogen therapy remains the most effective. Other symptoms of menopause may also be present. In addition to relieving vaginal symptoms of menopause, estrogen can also relieve itching, burning, and discomfort during sexual activity.
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Estrogen Levels And The Female Body
Estrogen levels correlate with and are responsible for a womans menstruation. For this reason, a womans estrogen levels begin to rise during puberty, peak in her 20s and 30s, and drop off in menopause. This menopausal shift causes increased and shifted body fat mass in older women.
In women of reproductive age, estrogen levels rise and fall with her menstrual cycle. During the luteal phase in which the uterus is preparing itself to be implanted with an egg a womans estrogen levels peak at four-six times the amount she might have at the low point in her cycle, the first day of menstruation.
There are three varieties of estrogen in a womans body. They are differentiated by the number of -OH molecules attached to them, so they commonly go by E1, E2, and E3.
The most prominent form of estrogen in the female body, at least before menopause, is E2. E2 is called estradiol, so when most women get their hormones level tested, this is the most commonly tested form. Yet, since E2 comprises the clear majority of a reproductive womans estrogen levels, and since all the forms of estrogen perform similar functions, calling E2 estrogen usually serves just as well.
What Are Bioidentical Hormones
When youre replacing deficient estrogen, its important to respect the wisdom of the body. No drug we give can approach the amazing complexity of the endocrine system. However, you can start by giving a hormone that is identical to the hormone thats missing. We call these bioidentical hormones.
Another important factor is the route of administration. Estrogen is most commonly given as a pill thats taken orally. Its convenient and easy to pop a pill. But easy isnt always the best. If were wanting to mimic the body, how does the ovary deliver estrogen to your tissues? I assure you the ovary doesnt dump a big load of estrogen in your stomach once a day!! A more natural way to take estrogen is by applying it to the skin as a patch or cream. Estrogen taken in a pill form overloads your liver with excessive amounts of estrogen that increase harmful proteins, clotting factors and proinflammatory substances leading to various problems. Let me explain how oral estrogen leads to weight gain.
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Hrt For Weight Loss In Women: How It Works
By SynergenX Health & Wellness Clinic
Who wants more belly fat, hot flashes, night sweats, insomnia and irritability? That would be no one. But women going through menopause experience these symptoms, which can last for years, as their menstrual cycles end. As hormones shift, specifically, a decrease of estrogen, many women gain fat around their bellies and even notice muscle loss.
But theres hope for relief from the increased belly fat and weight gain that comes along with menopause. A recent study of postmenopausal women, ages 50 to 80, found that those who took hormones had significantly lower levels of belly fat than women who did not take hormones.