Despite what we’ve long been told, and the tendency to food- and fat-shame in our culture, the number on the scale isn’t always a simple reflection of the number of calories we consume vs. the number we burn. In fact, the stress brought on by extreme diets and exercise can undermine them entirely and actually cause weight gain. So why is it that sometimes diet and efforts at the gym just don’t pay off on the scale? Often the real key to losing unwanted belly fat, and gaining energy, clarity, and a better mood lies with your hormones. Weight loss resistance is often hormonally based in women and these imbalances not only have an effect on our weight, but also on our mood and happiness. Here I’m going to talk about what to do if hormones are out of whack and the most important things we all should know about hormones, regardless of what we may weigh.
There is a common misconception that weight-loss is just a case of simple maths: eat less, exercise more and et voilà, you’ve lost weight! This hypothesis has been widely disproven and remains the greatest misconception people have about diet and weight loss. Calories matter, more to some people than others, but hormones matter more. Almost anyone who struggles with weight also battles a hormone imbalance and there are many hormonal imbalances that will have an effect on your weight:
High cortisol causes belly fat deposits, PMS, disrupts other hormones and not to mention gives you a short fuse.
High insulin increases blood sugar.
Leptin can be blocked causing you to be continually hungry.
A slow thyroid can cause hair loss and fluid retention.
Problems with the HPA (hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal) control system.
The list goes on. Addressing these imbalances will not only help you lose weight more easily, but your mood will improve, your energy will increase and your daily outlook will no longer be determined by the bathroom scale and your battle of the bulge. Let’s take a look at these imbalances and how they affect us more closely.
The root cause of cortisol imbalance is usually a dysregulated HPA (hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal) axis, which is the boss of all of your hormones. When the HPA axis is up-regulated, you churn out too much cortisol resulting in excess belly fat, feeling like you’re constantly racing from task to task, feeling wired but tired, quickness to anger and irritability, and rapid weight gain. Since the root cause is usually the HPA axis, the key is to reset it, starting with cortisol. Any other attempts at fixing the hormones will likely fail in the long-term if the wayward HPA axis is not addressed. Here is my (simplified) protocol for becoming more objective about your stressors and balancing cortisol in women (all suggestions that are proven in randomized trials, the best evidence we have):
- Talk through what’s stressing you with a girlfriend.
- Practice some form of meditation or yoga regularly.
- Add B vitamins and omega-3s to your diet if deficient.
- Take phosphatidyl serine until you perceive less stress.
- Get a massage once or twice per month.
- Limit alcohol and coffee, or ideally switch to green tea, which contains L-theanine, an amino acid that reduces stress without sedation.
- Increase your greens especially cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli, kale and cauliflower to aid detoxification of hormones.
- Eat extra dark chocolate (80% cacao or higher).
- Try an adaptogenic herb such as ashwagandha. This one of my favourite adaptogens. It helps to reset cortisol, so it’s not too high or too low during the day.
Here is a breakdown of the other hormones that are often problematic:
INSULIN: Insulin is a fat-storage hormone. Insulin resistance means your cells can’t absorb the extra blood glucose your body generates from the food you eat, when that happens, your liver converts the glucose into fat. Insulin resistance usually causes weight gain and sugar addiction.
LEPTIN: High leptin causes weight gain and excessive hunger. Leptin is nature’s appetite suppressant. When you’ve had enough to eat, leptin signals your brain to stop eating. When you are overweight, your fat cells produce excess leptin. When your brain gets bombarded with leptin signals from too many fat cells, it shuts down; leptin levels keep rising, receptors stop functioning, your body doesn’t get the leptin signal, and you don’t feel full. You keep eating the wrong foods in an addictive pattern, and you keep gaining weight.
OESTROGEN: Oestrogen dominance is when you have too much oestrogen compared with its counter-hormone, progesterone. Having too much oestrogen in the body causes a number of symptoms, including weight loss resistance, moodiness, PMS, and heavy periods.
THYROID: Your thyroid acts as the gas pedal of your metabolism, managing how fast or slow you burn calories. When the thyroid is sluggish, it can cause weight gain, fluid retention, hair loss or thinning, depression, and constipation, among other problems.
It is also important to remember that emotional, mental, social, and spiritual factors can also affect your hormones. “Stress” is often a catchall for emotions, and it is the over-activated stress response that can often lead to weight loss resistance. Mental and emotional obstacles, beliefs, and attitudes can sabotage weight loss. Also, unprocessed and/or troublesome emotions can lead to overeating, drinking too much alcohol or binge-watching TV for example, to self-medicate. Even worse, the drill-sergeant approach of restricted eating and harsh exercise can escalate hormonal and emotional problems.
The best way to get your hormones back on track and reinstate a healthy weight is to correct hormonal imbalances with changes to the way you eat, move, think, and supplement.
CHANGE THE WAY YOU EAT AND DRINK. Remove processed foods, refined carbohydrates, sugars and sugar substitutes from your diet. Eliminate alcohol for 21 days (even a single serving can reduce a woman’s metabolism by more than 70%! It’s a temporary effect, but can add up over time if you drink most nights).
TARGETED EXERCISE. Make sure to keep moving, and choose forms of movement that you love, but exercise smart. Avoid chronic cardio as it places so much stress on the body that cortisol shoots sky-high. Interval training and more gentle exercise such as Pilates or yoga are more likely to stabilize cortisol than running a half marathon. Interval training involves short periods of high intensity exercise with moderate-level exercise as recovery. It is incredibly efficient and comes without the cortisol-raising side effect of a long run. Not only that, but it is extremely effective at raising growth hormone, the growth-and-repair hormone that maintains your lean body mass, a crucial indicator of how your body is biologically aging. Other excellent forms of exercise include lifting weights twice a week at a minimum to prevent osteoporosis, walk or hike briskly at an effort level of 9 to 10 (out of 10) for 3 minutes, alternating with an effort level of 6 to 7 for 3 minutes, for a total of 30 minutes, a protocol shown to foster weight loss.
SUPPLEMENTS. Here are a few of my favourites to help balance hormones:
MAGNESIUM is required for over 300 different processes in the body and deficiency can result in sleep disorders and anxiety, which in turn affect your hormones. Today, due to farming practices our soil has been depleted of magnesium and the percentage present in food has fallen drastically so supplementing is your best option. Take 400mg-600mg of Magnesium Glycinate a day in the evening.
BERBERINE is the most proven supplement to reset insulin and support weight loss in women. It activates an important enzyme called adenosine monophosphate-activated protein kinase, or AMP, nicknamed the “metabolic master switch.” Take 300 to 500 milligrams one to three times per day. It works better when combined with milk thistle.
DI-INDOLE METHANE (DIM): This supplement is akin to eating 25 pounds of steamed broccoli. Many women with weight loss resistance have oestrogen dominance, a problem that affects 75 to 80% of women over thirty-five. Specifically, DIM reduces 2-hydroxy-estrone and 2-hydroxy-estradiol, so that you have more protective oestrogens and fewer bad oestrogens. Dose is typically 200 mg/day but must be adjusted to the individual. Alternatively: Eat more lightly steamed cruciferous vegetables, which can improve your good-to-bad oestrogen ratio by 30%.
CONSIDER GENETIC TESTING. It can guide the best ways for you to eat, move, think, and supplement for hormonal harmony and weight loss. For example, changing your food strategy can reset the way certain genes are expressed: You can reduce your carbohydrate intake to reset the ADRB2 gene, which controls your weight changes in response to exercise.
If you think hormones are playing a role in your inability to lose weight get in touch with us to book a consultation so we can discuss testing options and provide you with a fully tailored plan to help you get control over your hormones again and get back control of your weight.
For delicious recipes visit our website. Or you can check out Bexology’s nutrition, fitness & wellbeing pages for advice you can trust
