You may starve yourself and still not be able to shed that extra weight. The problem you’re facing may come from a hormone imbalance, but that doesn’t mean you’re stuck with weighing too much for the rest of your life. There are ways to get your hormones back on track, so you can function better and shed the weight you want to lose.
While estrogen, testosterone and progesterone are hormones, there are others besides sex hormones.
Some people hear the word hormones and automatically think of sexual hormones. While those do play a role in weight, there are so many other types of hormones that also do. Hormones are messengers that start processes throughout the body. They control everything from how you burn energy to your brain. Consider the hormone created by your thyroid gland. If you have too little, weight loss is tough and too much causes excess weight loss.
Insulin directly affects your weight.
Insulin is known for helping your cells use glucose for energy. It plays a big role in your metabolism. When you eat too much sugar, the body creates a high amount of insulin to be released. Releasing high amount over time can cause insulin resistance, which means it takes more insulin to make the cells open to receive the energy. Eventually, that vicious cycle will cause type 2 diabetes. In the meantime, it can cause a weight gain. Exercise and a healthy diet can reduce insulin resistance and get you back to normal.
Watch out for stress hormones, such as cortisol.
The hormones that take over when you’re under stress are important. They help you in times of real physical danger. However, today most stress comes from situations like traffic jams, angry customers and crying babies. Instead of fighting or running away, which the hormonal changes were meant to help you do, the hormones make changes that cause the accumulation of visceral fat—abdominal fat that’s the most dangerous type. Exercise helps burn off the hormones of stress.
Stress triggers the production of cortisol, which can cause the accumulation of abdominal fat.
Visceral fat—belly fat—is not only the hardest to lose, it’s the unhealthiest type to have since it presses on internal organs. Unresolved stress, stress that isn’t followed by fighting or running, which burns off the hormones created by stress, is associated with not only the accumulation of visceral fat, but also heart disease. Two ways to help combat stress are exercise and meditation. Stress burns off the hormones and resets you to normal. Meditation also helps reduce stress, but can be beneficial in preventing you from feeling stressed.
- If you want to boost fat and sugar metabolism for weight control, increase your HGH—human growth hormone—helps build muscle tissue. HIIT—high intensity interval training—and a healthy diet can boost your body’s HGH as it acts like a fountain of youth.
- Get adequate sleep and you’ll balance your leptin and ghrelin—the hunger and satiety hormone. Without adequate sleep, you have too much ghrelin that makes you hungry. Too little serotonin, can affect sleep cycles and weight gain.
- Some sex hormones do affect weight gain. Testosterone boosts muscle development. An imbalance of estrogen and progesterone can also create weight gain. A healthy diet and regular exercise can help prevent some of the symptoms caused by the imbalance, including weight gain.
- I’ll create a program designed specifically for you at Habitat Health and Fitness that addresses your specific situation and weight loss problems.