Could Hormone Imbalances Be Sabotaging Your Weight Loss?

We're often led to believe that losing weight is solely about calories in versus calories out. 

That doesn't always tell the full story, especially if your hormones aren't balanced. 

Your hormones can play a huge role in helping or hindering your weight loss efforts. They can affect everything from your appetite to where you’re most likely to store fat. 

If certain hormones are out of whack, it can make it super hard to lose weight. 

But here’s the good news: it’s easier than you might think to control these hormones and keep your weight in check. 

Here are some super important hormones that can affect your weight. 

Stress Hormones 

Being super stressed and busy can mean that stress hormones such as cortisol are constantly being released. 

High cortisol levels are linked to overeating and weight gain, especially around the belly. 

Often, you'll be craving high carb and sugar-rich foods, especially if other hormones are also out of balance. 

Managing stress, getting regular exercise, and maintaining a healthy sleep pattern can help avoid super high cortisol levels.

Estrogen and Progesterone

Estrogen levels can be affected by factors such as body fat, intense exercise, and age.

If your estrogen levels are high, it can make it much more challenging to lose weight. It can sometimes be a factor in insulin resistance too. Your body becomes estrogen dominant, showing symptoms of mood swings, irritability, tender breasts, irregular menstrual cycles, acne, blood sugar dysregulation, and more.

Low levels of estrogen symptoms are hot flashes, night sweats, brain fog, vaginal dryness, low libido, depression, sleep issues, PMS symptoms, and more.

Progesterone is another sex hormone that has an impact on weight. It can be easily depleted by factors such as stress, birth control pills, and toxicities.  

Ideally, you want to have a healthy ratio of estrogen and progesterone — if one is higher or lower than it should be, it can quickly affect the other. Estrogen dominance and low progesterone can have a whole heap of similar symptoms and it’s likely for them to go hand-in-hand. 

If your sex hormones are out of balance, you’ll probably also notice many other unpleasant and debilitating health problems, including headaches, mood swings, fatigue, insomnia, anxiety, and menstrual problems.

Insulin

Every time you eat or drink something that’s sugary or rich in carbs, your blood sugar spikes. 

This triggers insulin production and your circulatory system collects the glucose and delivers it to your cells for energy.

If this insulin response isn’t balanced, to where you are constantly having blood sugar spikes that make insulin less responsive, it can negatively impact your metabolism and the ability to maintain a healthy weight.

According to studies, eating too many refined carbs and sugar in just the short term can pave the way for this. 

Making sure you get enough fiber will help with this. Add more cruciferous vegetables to your plate!

And as an added bonus, the extra fiber from non-refined carbs will keep you feeling fuller, and snacking is less of a  problem. 

The end result? It's easier to keep weight in check when your blood sugar and insulin levels aren't erratic.

Leptin and Ghrelin

Leptin and ghrelin are two more hormones that are heavily linked to appetite. 

When your leptin levels are balanced, you feel full after meals. 

If you're still feeling super hungry even after eating a big meal, leptin may be at least partly to blame. 

Leptin levels can be balanced out with diet and exercise. 

For some people, it may need a bit more than this, especially if you've been eating many unhealthy foods for years and are experiencing leptin resistance. 

According to studies, leptin resistance is more likely to occur if you’re overweight. Even if you have higher levels of leptin in your body, it doesn’t have much impact. 

It’s thought this might be due to the inflammatory chemicals pumped out by fat cells, which impede the effects of leptin and encourage you to keep seeking out high-calorie foods. 

Ghrelin is also a super important hormone for keeping appetite in check. 

Ghrelin stimulates appetite. Under normal circumstances, ghrelin levels fall after eating and rise again when you're hungry. 

This balance avoids overeating but it can quickly be tipped the wrong way, especially if you're overweight. Not eating enough protein and going overboard on sugary foods and drinks can also affect ghrelin levels. 

Thyroid Hormones 

Your thyroid can play a key role in your metabolism.

If you have a sluggish thyroid, it can be a super strong culprit for weight gain and fluid retention. It can also contribute to lots of other issues, including fatigue, dry skin, sensitivity to the cold, hair loss, and depression. 

In summary, there are many factors in trying to keep your hormones balanced. It’s important to get 7-8 hours of sleep, focus on eating whole foods, cut back on alcohol and caffeine, and make sure to get movement in daily! Strength training is important, as well as good old walking. You may also want to cut back on your HIIT workouts as they could be causing more stress and more harm than good.

I created a 12 week program to teach women about toxin removal and nutrient deficiencies. I teach you to focus on the foundations and teach you how to balance hormones. My 12 week program even includes a functional lab test that can be done at home to test your very own hormone levels!

Find more information HERE.