5 Tips To Stop Hormonal Weight Gain
There’s a lot of different hormones that can be out of whack in our system. But, for the women I work with, the most common hormones to be out of balance are cortisol, insulin, and estrogen. When these are not in balance they can have an effect on weight gain.
What can you do to bring these hormones back into a balanced state, and in the process, start losing some weight?
REST & RESET
The first thing you want to do is chill out a little bit. The reason is when we’re stressed, when we’re running on 24/7, our cortisol is firing nonstop. When cortisol is in our system, at that level, for that sustained period of time, our body thinks it’s in real danger. It is in fight or flight mode. The body wants to fuel the body in this very reactive situation. It starts to crave sweets, and carbs because those are two things that the body can quickly convert into energy. As we’re craving these sweets and carbs, our blood glucose levels starts to increase, and then our insulin levels start to increase. We put ourselves at risk for insulin resistance. And definitely, cortisol and insulin, are the perfect duo for creating weight gain, especially around the belly.
CATCH SOME SLEEP
It’s been scientifically shown that if you get five hours or less of sleep, you have a significant chance of increased belly fat. The other thing that happens when we sleep is it gives our body a chance to regulate two very important hormones, ghrelin and leptin. These are the hormones that create our hunger signal, but also signal our brain when it’s full. If these are out of balance, we can’t know when to push ourselves away from the table. We feel hungry a lot more than we normally would.
EAT LESS SUGAR
If there’s one thing to do to increase health and weight loss, it is to step away and eliminate the sugar. Sugar is a very highly inflammatory food. It really creates a lot of inflammation in the body. It also increases your blood sugar, and in response, your body starts pumping out more insulin. Insulin is known as the fat storing hormone. Once the cells have had their fill of food, which is glucose, insulin is going to take anything that’s leftover in the blood and store it as fat. And usually, it likes to store that fat in the belly area.
DRINK LESS ALCOHOL
Alcohol tends to be very reactive with estrogen. It tends to increase our estrogen levels. And as we get older and we’re postmenopausal, the estrogen that’s really active in our body is estrone. That’s considered the old lady estrogen. Drinking tends to throw estrogen out of whack, which in turn, tends to end up as fat on our belly, hence the wine belly.
EAT HORMONE BALANCING FOODS
Shop the perimeter of the grocery store. Stay away from processed foods. Stay away from sugary foods. Load your plate up with a lot of healthy fats. Think olive oil, avocado oil, avocados, seeds, nuts, flax seeds, chia seeds, those are all really, really good.Go for good healthy proteins. If you’re eating beef, make sure it’s grass fed, and hopefully grass finished. If you’re eating poultry, make sure that it is pasture raised with no antibiotics, or hormones. For fish, go wild caught or if they are farmed make sure that they’re more ethically farmed. Eat all the good veg, the cruciferous veg, like broccoli, kale, spinach, and all of those good things.
Peace and Love!