Hormones and Weight Loss

Diet and exercise are extremely important parts of healthy living, maintaining a healthy weight, improving many diseases and conditions and really taking control of our health from the inside out. But, are they the only factors?

As someone who has worked in the field of weight loss for many years, I know there are factors much more complex than simply diet and exercise. I've started to see patterns and, although everyone is different (their body has different needs, different calorie amounts, different balance of certain nutrients, etc.), I find a lot of similarities in my discussions with clients. One of those things that I see a lot of is just utter frustration or discouragement to the point of just giving up. My clients have tried 50+ different diets in their lifetime and feel like they have failed each time.

They feel like they have tried everything that they know to do and they feel it is personal. It feels like a personal failure where in reality there are so many factors outside of diet and activity level that impact our ability to lose weight or even to just maintain a healthy weight or our current weight. Diet culture has failed them. They are promised results that are unrealistic and unsustainable. I want to be able to help open more eyes to these other contributing factors.

So our focus today is how hormones affect our health. It’s important to realize that everything is interlinked and can become a vicious cycle. Many times our environment or our lifestyle is negatively affecting our hormones and then these hormones go on to affect our overall health.

First things first, I wanted to briefly address gut health. I talk about this in more depth in other blog posts, but I feel like it’s a necessity to start with gut health when discussing hormones because it largely impacts the production and function of many hormones in the body.

Gut health and hormones:

• Facilitate absorption of macro and micronutrients

• Aid the synthesis and regulation of hormones and neurotransmitters

• Have an essential role in the immune system

(I encourage you, if you’re intrigued by this topic, to do some digging on the Gut Brain Axis - there is new emerging research coming out all the time. This is a subject that we are just barely starting to scrape the surface of.)

So, how can you know if you're being affected by hormone imbalance?

Symptoms of hormone imbalance are things like:

• irritability

• weight changes

• fatigue

• hair loss

• changes in skin

• anxiety/depression

But interestingly enough, hormonal imbalances can also show up as:

• food intolerance

• “brain fog”

• reduced cognitive function

• disruption of the microbiome (symptoms of which are: bloating, bowel issues, etc).

Many of our habits and behaviors impact our hormone balance. We’re going to focus on some common issues and the role our hormones play.

Lack of sleep

When we lack sleep our hormones are negatively impacted. When our bodies are not properly rested we have decreased insulin sensitivity, an increased concentration of cortisol and that goes on to impact our gut hormones.

Many studies have found individuals who are sleep deprived report an increase in appetite. This change in appetite is most likely caused by a change in hunger hormones, ghrelin and leptin.

​Ghrelin is a hormone that signals hunger in the brain. Levels are high before consuming food and decrease after eating once the stomach is full.

​Leptin is a hormone that signals fullness in the brain and suppresses hunger.

When individuals are not getting adequate sleep, the body increases ghrelin production and makes less leptin. This imbalance in these hormones leads to increased hunger and less satiety. Now we are consuming more calories and missing the signal that says “stop” May also experience cravings for higher sugar/carbs/processed foods.

Stress

When we have a high stress level, our hormones are negatively impacted.

You might think about big stressors in their lives like family changes, job changes, moving busy seasons of life which are all absolutely true stressors, but we need to be more concerned about everyday stressors as well. If we looked at a scale of 1 to 10 one being no stress 10 being extremely stressed in most likely that most of us probably live somewhere right in the middle of that on a daily basis at five or six. We get to where maybe we don’t even recognize that amount of stress because that is our baseline or our "new norm". Unfortunately, that doesn’t get translated to your body. It means every single day your body is in a state of stress. Even if our brains have adapted to this amount of stress, it’s still not good for our bodies.

When stress levels (physical or psychological stress) is high, the body releases cortisol to cope with the situation.

How does this impact our health?

Short term effects - increase heart rate, blood pressure, breathing rate increases, glucose is released into the blood stream (not always a bad thing! We will talk about cortisol decreasing inflammation as a postivie)

Long term effects - Stomach ulcers, anxiety, increased cholesterol levels, suppression of the immune system

Serotonin also plays a roll in stress as a mood stabilizer. Serotonin plays a role in sleeping, eating, and digestion, stabilizes our mood, feelings of well-being, and happiness. This hormone helps brain cells and other nervous system cells communicate with each other.

If your body is not producing enough serotonin (especially chronic stress and trauma) to regulate mood or counteract high stress levels, symptoms may be depression, migraines, weight gain, insomnia, cravings for simple sugars/carbohydrates, and brain fog.

Fun fact: About 80% of serotonin is produced in the gut, which brings us back to the importance of gut health!

Gut bacteria are able to produce neurotransmitters, which are chemicals like dopamine (reward chemical) and serotonin that enable communication between neurons (50% produced in the gut)

The body’s longest nerve, the vagus nerve, runs from the brainstem to the lowest part of the intestines. The nerve is thought to be a two-way highway, sending signals from the brain to the gut to regulate digestion and bringing signals from the gut to the brain. This is thought to be where most of this communication takes place.

Inflammation

Many diseases and health issues like heart disease, diabetes, asthma, endometriosis, cancer, arthritis, PCOS, thyroid disease and bowel diseases like Crohn's disease are related to inflammation and several different hormones are affected

Increase inflammation - insulin, estrogen You may be familiar with the connection between insulin levels and inflammation. Insulin is a very common hormone that is discussed when talking about dieting, weight loss, carbohydrate intake and especially with diabetes or metabolic syndrome (resistant to insulin) Decrease inflammation - testosterone helps to regulate inflammation and decrease as well as low (healthy levels of) cortisol.

A few other hormones that play a role:

Oxytocin (which can be thought of as the love hormone - released during physical touch, petting a dog, holding a baby, giving compliments or selfless acts) Oxytocin is thought to “counteract” the stress hormone cortisol; helps aid in the ability to fall sleep and it said to have a calming effect

Endorphins - natural pain reliever chemical

Endorphins are such a fun hormone to study - I’m big into focusing on habit change and how to streamline our habits and positive behaviors to make them easier to perform even when you’re not necessarily motivated to do so. I think endorphins can be a great tool to help in this process. For example, instead of thinking “I need to go exercise or go to the gym because I ate so “bad” this weekend or I need to exercise so that I can lose weight”

If you went to the gym in hopes of producing endorphins and you’re able to think back about how great you feel after you exercise and basically think of the positive impact exercise has on your body WITHOUT the focus on - how much will the scale drop if I do this 30 minute workout. Looking at a bigger picture can really help bypass the motivation that we sometimes lack to complete the behavior.

Tips to Balance Hormones

1. Movement - move your body (stimulate production of endorphins, short term benefits of cortisol and stress reliever, etc.
   

2. Eat more produce/plant foods and less processed/convenience foods; buy organic when possible - Hormones in meat are having an impact on OUR hormones and antibiotics in meat can interrupt our gut bacteria just as they would if they were prescribed to us from the doctor
   

3. Proper sleep - 7-8 hours for the average adult (to avoid impact on our hunger hormones, cortisol and insulin levels)
   

4. Stay well hydrated - drink plenty of water
   

5. Manage stress levels - even baseline stress - Get some sun, meditate, walking outdoors in nature, gratitude practices
   

6. Eating fermented foods or adding a good probiotic supplement can help improve gut health which directly impacts hormone balance - Lactobacillus is one of the best strains of bacteria for gut health and hormone balance - Look for a probiotic with mutiple strains of different bacteria - Preferably, choose one in an acid-resistant capsule
   

It is important to understand that these changes are going to take time. I heard a fact on a podcast the other day that it can take 6-12 months for your microbiome to recover from even just one round of antibiotics. Gut health is not going to change overnight.

There are many different factors that can lead to an imbalance in gut health and therefore hormonal imbalance including - genetics, age, weight, diet, antibiotics, environmental pollutants, toxins in our products and much more. This is still such an understudied topic and we are just scraping the surface on what we know about hormones.

I know it can be overwhelming to consider all the factors that influence your health, but don't stress! Simply commit to taking baby steps to improve your hormone balance and your gut health. If you would like help with this, please reach out! I'd love to go on this journey with you.

I'm here for you and I believe in you!