The Tangle of Hormones that Can Mess with your Weight
This is a continuation from part one of a weight loss series. Check out 8 Weight Loss Myths to lay a foundation for this. Now, as you develop your own strategy to lose weight lets look under the hood at some of the hormones and their actions and how they may be stalling your progress. Check out the video below and/or scan the summary below!
Information is Power (00:48)
Why am I giving you all this information? Our bodies didn’t come with a handbook…but I think they should have! A little information can go a long way and removing the guess work from your self care can prevent a lot of suffering. So let’s dive in!
You have it in you to live the life you want, to have the body you want to fuel that journey. You just need to know how.
What is a hormone? (2:17)
Hormones are messengers and they deliver!
Hormones are made by the endocrine system and are chemical messengers that hold both the instructions for an action and the key to unlock the process (a protein that is read by cell receptors.) They determine reproduction, metabolism, mood, growth, every process our body engages in! And they rarely, if ever, work in isolation. One hormones triggers another that acts on another that counters another. So it can be confusing and overwhelming sometimes.
The importance of balancing hormones cannot be overstated. If you aren’t losing weight despite all your efforts, if you lose weight and bounce back, if you are hungry all the time…it is likely hormones at play.
The good news is, hormones in general are largely balanced in the same way. So listen for symptoms that resonate with you and look for ways you can balance your hormones so they work for you, rather than against your goals.
Leptin: The Satiety Hormone (5:05)
It’s called the “satiety hormone” because it reduces your appetite and helps you feel full. It tells the brain there is enough fat in storage and no more is needed, so you won’t overeat. It is made in fat cells, so the more fat cells you have, the higher your leptin levels may be. One study showed obese people have 4 X as much leptin in their bodies. You think this would reduce appetite, however too much leptin has the opposite effect. LEPTIN RESISTANCE results from too much leptin and the brain’s inability to read it correctly. The brain thinks you are starving and pummels you with hunger signals.
If you have leptin resistance, you find you are always hungry and gaining weight because the calories get converted to fat and sent right to storage.
Also, losing weight causes leptin to drop and that can also trigger feelings of urgency to eat and make your body hold on to weight. (This is one reason that we sometimes plateau or even rebound after initial weight loss.)
Balancing Leptin:
Avoid inflammatory foods, especially sugary drinks and trans fats.
Eat anti-inflammatory foods like fatty fish.
Get regular exercise
Be sure to get enough sleep.
Supplementing with alpha-lipoic acid and fish oil can also help support leptin sensitivity.
Ghrelin: The Hunger Hormone (8:50)
Ghrelin is the hunger hormone. It’s easy to remember if you think of a growling tummy “Grrrrr..relin.” An empty stomach signals ghrelin to tell the hypothalamus that you’re hungry
Your levels are highest before eating and lowest an hour after. In people who are overweight, studies show that after a meal ghrelin only decreases slightly, so the hypothalmus receives only a weak signal to stop eating and overeating occurs.
BALANCE:
Avoid high-fructose corn syrup and sugary drinks that impair ghrelin signals.
Eat protein with every meal, especially breakfast.
Eat fiber.
Cortisol: the Stress Hormone (12:24)
Produced in adrenal glands, cortisol is correlated with stored weight around the middle area, especially in women.
Cortisol is vital to survival as it triggers a flight or flight response in times of danger and stress. Unfortunately, this isn’t as helpful as you’d hope when dealing with chronic stress. Chronic stress levels are a modern problem. You may not actually be under attack, but your body thinks it is: budgets, laundry piles, deadlines, that never-ending to do list all look the same to your body and it reacts as it would to a predator or fire!
Elevated cortisol can cause weight loss or gain; the difference is insulin. In the absence of insulin, cortisol triggers HSL (hormone sensitive lipase) to release fat from cells to use for immediate energy. You burn fat. But, in the presence of insulin, cortisol triggers LPL (Lipoprotein lipase) to increase fat storage and contribute to insulin resistance. You stubbornly hold on to fat and weight loss becomes next to impossible.
An important note about cortisol: YOU CANNOT SUSTAINABLY LOSE WEIGHT IF YOU ARE NOT SLEEPING. Chronic sleep deprivation leads to adrenal fatigue or HPA dysfunction caused by overproducing cortisol. Cortisol resistance can occur and you will not be able to regulate levels. You need to invest in a sleep routine and allow yourself time to catch those z’s or you will not be successful on your weight loss journey (not to mention other serious health detriments!)
Balancing Cortisol:
Balanced diet, real food, not too low in calories.
Meditation, purposeful pauses
Listen to music
Sleep more!
Store Fat or Use it? HSL and LPL (20:01)
Like many hormones in our body, there are many that work in opposition of each other. HSL and LPL are two of those. To illustrate what they do, I like to use a food storage analogy. You have an apple, will you eat it now or make applesauce to eat later? It probably depends on how many apples you have. If you only have one, you will probably eat it. If you have a whole case of them, it would make sense to sauce them and store them because you can’t eat them all before they go bad. Now, consider that you eat an apple, will your body burn that energy now or save it for later in fat stores?
HSL:
Hormone Sensitive Lipase is located in fat cells; it makes them LEANER by breaking down triglycerides (stored fats) and releasing them to be burned as energy. With HSL, you are eating that apple or cracking open a can of applesauce to eat. Fat stores are shrinking.
Note that insulin (more on this later) suppresses HSL to keep fat locked away and those jars of applesauce on the shelf where they can’t be used.
LPL
Lipoprotein Lipase is the hormone that deposits fat from the blood stream into fat cells, making them LARGER. It is shoving those apples right into jars and putting them on the shelves for later.
This leaves less energy for other cells to use so they signal for more food. Have you ever sauced all the apples and the kids are left begging for an apple to eat, but you have none left? That’s what’s going on here. LPL snatched and stored all the energy and the cells are saying “what about us? Eat something else now!”
This action causes us to overeat as we get fatter because more and more keeps getting stored. Without HSL, LPL will gladly keep packing applesauce on the shelves until your pantry is bursting! Insulin is the ruling hormone that decides when to play HSL and when to play LPL.
Insulin: the Hall Monitor (23:05)
Insulin is the most important regulator of fat.
It is produced in pancreas beta cells and secreted in small amounts throughout the day and large amounts after meals.
It “directs traffic” in the blood by moving sugars and fats into cells and for use and storage. Think of it as the hall monitor in your blood streams moving sugars and fats into assigned classrooms in an orderly fashion. It uses LPL and HSL to accomplish this.
We can only handly 1 tsp of sugar circulating in our blood at any given time—any more than that has to be stored or burned ASAP or damage occurs!
The classrooms are the storage cells and as the hall monitor continues to nag, the classrooms insist they are full and won’t take anymore. This causes elevated sugar levels in the body! Why is this a big deal? Well…
Your body can only handle 1 circulating tsp at a time of sugar! All the rest has to be used (glucose used for energy), or converted to glycogen, the storage form of sugar. We can only store about 400 calories in our livers and 1400 calories in our muscles, less than the energy needed to operate for one day! The rest is converted to fatty acids and stored as fat.
So Insulin is busy trying to get the sugar out of our blood streams, but the glycogen stores quickly fill up leaving it no where else but fat stores to move it all too. In this urgent process, it shuts down our ability to burn fat. The problem occurs when insulin is chronically elevated. If we are eating the wrong foods and eating all the time, insulin is constantly on call. But the fat stores (class rooms) are crying out that they are full and start to ignore the nagging hall monitor. This is called insulin sensitivity and leads to Diabetes Type 2!
Insulin—the bossy hall monitor—will get the job done any way it can. Remember, it signals for LPL or HSL and determines action of cortisol! It can put a lock down on fat stores that assures you will not be able to burn them fill the “halls” with more circulating energy. Not on insulin’s watch!
You simply cannot burn fat in the presence of insulin.
Insulin Sensitivity is Everything!
It’s important to not flood the body with sugars on a chronic basis and not eat foods that are unnaturally high in calories, causing an intense insulin response. We want to do everything we can to hear the hall monitor before she starts nagging and yelling! Anything we can do to increase insulin sensitivity will pay dividends in virtually every system in the body.
Balancing Insulin (27:21)
Avoid or minimize sugar
Reduce refined and starchy carbs
Eat protein and fats
Exercise regularly
Magnesium can improve insulin sensitivity
Experiment with longer time between meals (Intermittent fasting)
We have more control than we think! Type II diabetes is a preventable, treatable “lifestyle disease.” Remember, any condition that can be caused by food can be treated with food.
Estrogen (30:04)
Estrogen effects both men and women; it is produced in the ovaries and adrenal glands. Having too much or too little estrogen can put a halt on weight loss and even cause weight gain, the effects depend on factors such as age, action of other hormones, and overall state of health.
Obese women then to have higher estrogen levels than women at their optimal weight. Some researchers suspect this due to environmental influences.
Estrogen dominance is prevalent in our modern society saturated with chemicals. Exogenous estrogens (those made outside of our body) bombard our system and throw our endocrine system out of whack. Estrogen dominance can lead to suppressed thyroid function, increased fat storage, impaired blood sugar control and other health risks.
Balancing Estrogen:
Increasing fiber in your diet can help reduce and normalize estrogen levels. Give preference to cruciferous vegetables for extra balancing properties.
Eat clean, whole foods free of pesticides and chemical additives.
Exercise regularly. Even light movement every day—like a walk around the block—can help normalize estrogen levels.
Progesterone is the hormone that counterbalances the actions of estrogen. If you suspect you are estrogen dominant, it could be worth your time to talk to a doctor about starting on a progesterone cream.
Balancing Hormones and Setting Yourself Up for Weight Loss Success (33:01)
We just covered some of the hormones that effect metabolism. There are more, but the important thing to know is that if you are struggling, there is likely an imbalance. It is so much more than willpower! Luckily, the way to balance hormones are largely the same across the board (and taking these steps will help with more than just metabolic hormones!!)
Avoid foods that cause dips and spikes
That means simple carbs, sugars, refined and processed foods and liquid calories like juices and soda.
Avoid artificial colors, fillers, flavors, preservatives and other chemicals additives
Eat clean, whole food
It’s interesting to note that when there is a poison, nature provides and antidote. For example, fructose wreaks havoc on your system by spiking your blood sugar drastically. However, if you eat fruit in its whole form, there is enough fiber included in the package to negate the negative impact of the fructose.
Also remember, whole foods speak the language of your DNA. Your body recognizes it and knows what to do with it and where to put it.
Include healthy fats and ethically sourced protein
Conventionally farmed meat is a cocktail of antibiotic, pesticide, and other chemical residues. There are many other reasons to avoid food produced in CAFOs, but this one applies directly to hormone balance.
Eat the best quality you can
Many times, you’ll be satiated with less quality food that quantities of cheap food and the higher price tag is evened out by the need for less food. Not to mention the money you save on medical care in the long run by eating quality food today!
Exercise/Move regularly
You want to incorporate exercise in your routine, but not enough to spike a stress response (cortisol!). In time you’ll find your capacity increases and you can naturally add more weight/time/intensity to your workouts without putting your body into a state of excess stress.
Meditate
Find something to unwind you. Take time to breathe. Consider yoga or guided meditations. Pray. Whatever helps you loosen up and feel centered, take active steps to weave it into your daily schedule!
Sleep
The importance of sleep cannot be overstated enough! Your body cannot heal and balance if you are not getting enough sleep. If you’ve been sleep deprived for a length of time—even years!—you might need more than 8 hours of sleep to recover. It make take a period of 9 or 10 hours a night before your body stabilizes and can function on less. Whatever work you are getting done by staying up late, forget it. You can’t sell your sleep for productivity; the bill will always come due. Your body will exact a toll. Sleep!
Eat often enough but not too often (start sorting through cues!)
You aren’t contracted by law to eat 3 meals a day. Do you need all three at regular intervals? Experiment with eating when you are hungry and stretching the time between feedings longer to giver your body time to rest and recover. Look into intermittent fasting. Listen to your body to distinguish hunger from boredom. Get to know your hunger and satiety signals again.
In Conclusion
You got this. Understanding your body allows you to give it what it needs, hear its cues, and recognize imbalances. Your hormones are powerful and can wreak havoc on your weight loss plans. On the other hand, they respond powerfully to healthy food choices and lifestyle practices. You have more control than you think!
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