How Hormones Can Change Your Body Shape in Mid-Life

Are you feeling a little bit of anxiety about the fact that you’re going to be faced with a lot of tempting food choices as we start to head into the holiday season?. And even though you might already eat really clean sometimes that temptation is tough. 

Today, I wanted to talk about hormones, and how they can actually change our body shape. The first hormone I want to talk about is estrogen. Of the three sex hormones, estrogen, progesterone and testosterone, I look at them like Diana Ross and the Supremes. Estrogen, she is the diva. She is center stage and the attention is on her. And then progesterone and testosterone are more like the backup singers. They help bring everything into this beautiful balance and harmony in our body. 

But back to the diva. Back to estrogen. When estrogen fluctuates during mid-life, lots of things start happening. First, it’s important to know that there are estrogen receptors on almost every cell of our body. So, when estrogen declines, it’s not available in the body. The estrogen receptors on our body’s cells begin to realize there’s not enough estrogen being produced from the ovaries. The body then figures out where else it can find estrogen. How does it do this?

If you’ve noticed you’re putting on a little bit of belly weight even though you are still eating exactly the same and working out, there’s a reason. Now this belly fat is actually very, very different from any of the other fat that’s in our body. First, it’s not surface fat, it’s that deep, visceral belly fat. And it’s very hormonally active. It actually can produce estrogen. Our estrogen produced by the ovaries is estradiol. Estrogen, which is being produced by our belly fat is estrone, lovingly nicknamed the old lady estrogen. Our body is smart and it finds a way to get estrogen if it can’t get it from the ovaries. Our body realizes it can get estrone from belly fat. The body then thinks of ways to increase belly fat. 

Our body will start craving sugary foods, unhealthy fatty foods, because it knows that these extra calories can easily and quickly be turned into belly fat. The belly fat then becomes hormonally active and estrone is produced. 

Next, let’s talk about stress and insulin resistance. The sympathetic nervous system is our fight or flight nervous system, and when we have lower levels of estrogen, it actually encourages that trigger of that fight or flight response. When we stay in a continued state of stress, our body starts to produce cortisol and adrenaline. Back in the caveman times the saber toothed Tiger chased us we got a quick jolt of cortisol and adrenaline. We escaped (hopefully) and our stress levels would come down to normal. But that’s not the world we live in anymore. We seem to be in a constant state of stress and our on/off switch seems to be broken. 

When our adrenaline spikes our heart rate will increase, our breathing will increase. We might get butterflies in our stomach. Our mouths might get dry. When cortisol spikes, our body thinks it’s in fight or flight mode.The body needs to fuel itself fast so we can either flee or fight. To get the quick dose of fuel, the body releases extra glucose into our bloodstream. And it’s meant to be used during physical activity to escape danger. When the physical activity doesn’t happen the glucose remains in the blood stream and insulin is in order to store the excess glucose as fat. And we gain weight. We also are at higher risk for insulin resistance. And when you experience insulin resistance, you’re at a greater risk for heart disease and type two diabetes. 

Less exercise is also why we’re seeing changes in our mid-life body. Estrogen lubricates our joints. When we don’t have enough estrogen, our joints become achy. Estrogen also very important for bone health. But if your joints are achy, and you’re not feeling good, you won’t have like the motivation to go workout. So, you’re working out less and burning less calories. And maybe snacking a little bit more because you’re craving sugary, salty foods. It can be a domino effect. 

Next is sleep. Sleep is important for regulating our hormones and lower estrogen can start to disrupt our sleep. One thing estrogen does is works with the hypothalamus to regulate body temperature. When estrogen is lacking, the hypothalamus can over correct causing hot flashes and night sweats. Additionally, estrogen helps in the production of melatonin. Two other important hormones regulated by sleep is leptin, and ghrelin. Leptin tells our body when it’s full and ghrelin lets us know when we’re hungry. If we’re not getting enough sleep, leptin levels decrease and ghrelin levels increase. We can’t tell when we’re full as quickly, and we are more hungry than usual. 

Testosterone is another hormone that really plays a role in changing body shape. We actually produce more testosterone from our ovaries than we do estrogen. Lower testosterone means lower metabolism. Lower metabolism leads to lower lean body mass. And, less testosterone decreases energy levels. Ultimately, we really are not burning calories as efficiently as we once did.

Peace & Love!