How Women can Balance Their Hormones for Weight Loss

The topic of hormones is one of the most complex, misunderstood and important parts of being a woman, throughout all stages of life. They are particularly important when it comes to losing weight. Let’s take a deep dive into which hormones are the most crucial when it comes to weight-loss and fat burning, and what simple action you can take to bring each one back into perfect, healthy balance.

Estrogen Imbalance

Estrogen is the female hormone responsible for women having breasts and hips. Men also have this hormone, but far lower levels of it. However, all of us can suffer from having too much estrogen in the body which can cause a cascade of issues.

During the perimenopause and the menopause, women have elevated levels of estrogen and lower levels of progesterone

Having too much estrogen in your body can make it hard to lose weight, regardless of your age.

How to Balance: Eat lots of vegetables full of fiber and cut back on meat and dairy. The fiber in vegetables helps your body to excrete estrogen. Fresh beets or raw beet juice, goji berries and B vitamins are also excellent in the support of excretion of estrogen.

Insulin Excess

Many people unfortunately suffer from the extremely avoidable consequences of excess insulin. When you have too much fat mass, even if you are a normal weight - your insulin becomes imbalanced and you experience blood sugar that spikes and crashes. Insulin is the hormone that regulates blood sugar, or glucose. When it’s not working as it should, your weight suffers.

How to Balance: Avoid refined sugar and artificial sweeteners. Make sure you eat healthy snacks such as fruit, dates, nuts, or wholemeal toast with avocado. Keep your blood sugar in balance and you will have done so much to help your body and metabolism reset and heal.

Cortisol Excess

Cortisol is the hormone that is made in response to stress. The problem is that many people are constantly in a state of stress, due to chronic lifestyle and health issues. It’s just sadly become the norm to operate out of fight or flight all the time.

Having such an overload of cortisol causes so much damage to your body over time, plus it make you store fat in your abdomen, and not just any old fat - the visceral kind which is the most dangerous to your health.

Having high cortisol is also linked to food cravings and addictions, causing you to always reach for the wrong types of foods to give you that quick feeling of fullness plus a little sugar high.

How to Balance: One of the fastest ways to address an overload of cortisol is to calm your nervous system buy cutting back on caffeine. If you can wean off it slowly, introducing other, lesser forms of caffeine such as green tea or matcha - you will notice your sleep and stress levels radically improve.

It’s a good idea to address your mind as well as your body when it comes to cortisol, and incorporate meditation and mindfulness into your life.

Not Enough Adiponectin

This is one of the principal hormones that tells your body to burn fat. Its role is to regulate glucose levels and fatty acid breakdown. Unfortunately, some people do not make enough of this hormone, and when that is the case, fat composition increases in the body.

Adiponectin is also one of the hormones that regulates inflammation and oxidative stress, both of which increase fat gain and weight issues.

How To Balance: Studies have shown that eating pistachios can help improve the function of the hormone adiponectin in your body. A simple and healthy fix! Intermittent fasting is also shown to be effective, helping people to increase this fat-burning hormone.

The bottom line

Take a gentle approach to resetting you hormones and understand that you have a huge amount of control over your body and health. Become empowered to listen to the signs that your body gives you, and start to make better decisions and lifestyle changes to create the results that you want.