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.
Lower Your Stress Hormone Cortisol By Doing The Following
- 1 Set aside some time just for YOU to do something relaxing.It could be a relaxing bath, listening to music or going for a walk in nature.Make sure you ring fence this time and dont feel guilty about looking after yourself.
- 2 Make sure you get a good and restful sleep.Whilst you sleep your body is working hard to rebalance your hormones.Lack of sleep results in unbalanced hormones, which in turn leads to disrupted sleep. Its a vicious circle. Do what you can to sleep well.
Things that may help include
Poor Quality Sleep And Insomnia
Do you go to sleep only to be wide awake at 3am with a racing mind, unable to snooze back off?
This may be due to lowered levels of Estrogen and Progesterone, especially around menopause. Low Estrogen can also contribute to night sweats which will keep you awake and lead to you feeling exhausted and fatigued.
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Progesterone Helps You Sleep Better
If you canât sleep or you donât get good quality sleep, hormone balance may be to blame. Progesterone is one compound released by the ovaries that helps you sleep. Low levels may make it difficult to fall and stay asleep. A small study in postmenopausal women found that 300 milligrams of progesterone restored normal sleep when sleep was disturbed. Estrogen levels decrease in perimenopause and after menopause. This may contribute to night sweats and hot flashes, which often disrupt a womanâs ability to sleep. See your doctor if you believe an imbalance in hormones is contributing to sleep problems.
Hormones And Weight Gain After 40
Its one of life cruel tricks that sadly, hormonal issues and weight gain do become more common after 40.
Hormone changes related to Perimenopause and Menopause can lead to weight gain, especially in the hips, thighs and Belly area.
Women are often made to feel there is nothing that can be done about this middle aged spread but thankfully thats not true.
Controlling your hormones and making lifestyle changes can work to reverse the menopause weight gain.
Can a hormone imbalance cause weight gain? Pin for later
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Hormones Tell Our Cells What To Do
Our hormones, which reside within the endocrine system, are responsible for many inner workings of the body. Different hormones correspond with different cells. Together, they work to govern a myriad of bodily functions: regulate stress, balance metabolism, maintain healthy weight, regulate appetite and cravings, prevent depression, and much more.
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What Causes Sudden Weight Gain
Everything has a cause and so does, obesity or excess weight. People generally feel that all obese people eat a lot and this is what makes them fat. Well, surprisingly there are many causes which make one gain excess weight. Obesity has taken epidemic proportions in the United States and is a huge cause of worry. Excess weight causes many health problems and must be controlled. Fat people are usually victim of teasing and remarks which dampens them psychologically.
These harmful effects must be avoided by losing weight . But in order to do so, the underlying cause of excess weight must be found.
Here is a list of common causes of obesity in both men and women. Before going into the details, first do know that every person, irrespective of male or female, gain weight if they dont satisfy the below conditions.
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Balance These 4 Hormones For Weight Loss
Your hormones impact so many thingsfrom your mood and energy levels to your weight.
Your hormones fluctuate monthly, but also throughout the course of your life as you go from puberty to adulthood and then into menopause. Hormones can become imbalanced due to a variety of factors, including perimenopause, menopause, or lifestyle choices.
In this article, we cover ways to naturally balance four hormones that can impact your weightestrogen, cortisol, leptin and insulinso you can lose weight naturally and feel great.
Hormone Imbalance: What Are The Symptoms And Treatments
When youre browsing social media or watching TV, you may have come across ads telling you to ask your doctor to check your hormones as the first step toward diagnosing and relieving a troublesome set of symptoms. Its true that hormone imbalances can be associated with many problems, such as period problems, unwanted hair growth, fertility struggles, weight gain, and even difficulty sleeping. You should absolutely talk to your doctor about these things. But you may be surprised when your doctor tells you that they cant just give you a hormone check.
A hormone check sounds simpleafter all, we check cholesterol to get a handle on our heart health. However, your doctor cant just give you a hormone test because a single test to check all your hormones doesnt exist.
So if there isnt a simple hormone test, how does your doctor discover hormone imbalances? And how can you learn what could be causing your symptoms?
Lets look at problems caused by hormone imbalances and how your doctor could potentially determine which hormones may be responsible for your symptoms.
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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
What Is A Hormonal Imbalance
Hormones play an integral role in maintaining many of the important processes within the body. Hormones are produced and dispersed by your endocrine glands. They act as chemical messengers, which travel through the body within your bloodstream. Hormones act as an important trigger for bodily functions such as metabolism and reproduction.
Hormonal imbalance occurs when you have too much or too little of a specific hormone. Even small changes in hormone levels can critically affect your health. Because hormones play a significant role in regulating your metabolism and the way your body uses energy, hormonal imbalance can cause weight gain.
Hormone disorders that affect your hormone levels such as Cushings Syndrome can lead to significant weight gain. Hypothyroidism is another condition that disrupts hormone levels and can lead to weight gain.
Other factors such as age may lead to a hormonal imbalance that causes an increase in weight. Hormonal imbalance can interfere with healthy food cues and regulate energy levels. This can eventually lead to significant weight gain and obesity.
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Painful Or Heavy Periods
If you are still having periods, you may find that they are worryingly heavy or irregular.
Pain in the stomach, lower back or during sex can indicate you may have fibroids. Fibroids seem to be stimulated by Estrogen. Although non-cancerous, fibroids can impact your quality of life severely. Make sure you see you Doctor to get them checked out and treated.
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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The Symptoms Of Pcos A Hormonal Condition That Causes Weight Gain And Acne
- PCOS symptoms include excess hair growth, weight gain, acne, darkened skin, and thinning hair.
- Women with PCOS may also experience irregular periods because of disrupted ovulation.
- It’s important to manage PCOS symptoms to reduce the risk of complications like sleep apnea.
Polycystic ovarian syndrome is a common condition where the ovaries produce excess male sex hormones called androgens, which causes hormonal imbalances that can lead to a range of symptoms.
As many as one in ten women experience PCOS, which can cause symptoms like missed periods and weight gain. PCOS symptoms can start any time after puberty and over time, it can lead to serious complications like diabetes or heart disease.
As far as the symptoms go, not all women experience them the same. As a result, PCOS can go undiagnosed in as many as 75% of people with the condition, which is why it’s important for women to understand the signs of the condition.
How To Balance Estrogen For Weight Loss:
To avoid estrogen dominance, you want to keep a fine balance between your progesterone and estrogen.
Integrative Medicine Doctor Sara Gottfried, M.D., recommends eating a pound of veggies per day, as she states the fiber will help remove any excess estrogen from the body.
Gottfried also recommends that women should aim for 35 to 45 gram of fiber intake per day, increasing their amount slowly so as not to cause stomach upset.
You can also naturally balance estrogen dominance by:
- Reducing your red meat intake
- Eliminating excess sugar or processed foods
- Exercising daily to promote detoxification
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How Can Weight Gain Caused By Hormone Imbalance Be Treated
A hormone imbalance at the root of weight gain can be treated in a number of ways however, women should start by making healthy lifestyle changes, including:
A healthy dietTaking exercise Sleeping for at least
However, if women are concerned that their weight gain is having a serious effect on their health, they should visit their medical practitioner. Obesity that begins with hormone imbalance is a dangerous disease that can have many unpleasant and dangerous side effects. Both women and men should avoid carrying too much weight around their waist. A doctor is often able to advise ways to treat a hormone imbalance and control weight gain. Click here for more information about treating weight gain caused by hormone imbalance.
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Get Sufficient Sleep For Faster Weight Loss
It may not seem like it, but while youre sleeping your body is busy doing the most important work for your well-being. Heres what I mean
You see, in order to reset your weight loss hormones your body needs time for R& R .
Rest and Repair cant occur when youre awake because youre already busy thinking, executing, planning and eating.
So, your sleep hours are when your body puts all the good stuff the smoothies, anti-inflammatory foods and supplements to use.
Give yourself enough sleep time every night, so that your body can do the hard work for you.
Thats hard work that you wont have to worry about
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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.
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
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What Are Hormones And What Do They Do
Hormones are the tiny messengers in your body that carry information through your bloodstream to all the other parts of your body. They tell organs and tissues what to do, how to do it, and for how long.
Hormones are the responsibility of your endocrine system, which is a vital part of your overall health. They work efficiently, but slowly, so it may be difficult to know if you have a hormonal imbalance. Hormones affect processes like your metabolism, sexual function, growth, mood, and reproduction.
Weight gain is the most obvious and common sign of a hormonal imbalance. Weight fluctuations are normal, but if youve gained a significant amount of weight in a short period of time, we at Balance Hormone Center can help.
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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
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How A Hormone Imbalance Can Cause Weight Gain
Some of you may know that I recently found out I have a hormone imbalance. I have probably had it for a significant amount of time but never really thought to look into it.
As you may know, I always talk about how a hormone imbalance can cause weight gain. I have been experiencing weight gain and difficult losing weight, and it wasnt until I did a bit of research that I suspected I might actually have a hormone imbalance.
I know there are probably many of you experiencing the same thing and dont even realize that you have a hormone imbalance. So I wanted to share what I have learned in the hope that it might help some of you too!