Importance Of Hormone Balance For Healthy Weight
Your hormones and your weight are very closely linked. It is important to have a good balance of hormones if you want your weight to be right. For instance, people who are overweight often lose their sensitivity to insulin, which is what causes type 2 diabetes.
“Insulin is an essential substance whose main function is to process sugar in the bloodstream and carry it into cells to be used as fuel or stored as fat. There are several reasons for excess insulin, but the main culprits are: stress, consuming too many nutrient-poor carbohydrates (the type found in processed foods, sugary drinks and sodas, packaged low-fat foods and artificial sweeteners), insufficient protein intake, inadequate fat intake and deficient fibre consumption.” – Chatelaine
Insulin is a hormone and if it is no longer able to process the sugar in your body, you will start to put weight on.
The Hormones That Regulate Our Weight
Hormones are hugely important to regulate our weight. It isn’t a case of a specific hormone making us put on or lose weight, but rather that certain hormones make us feel hungry or full, and others help our body break down the nutrients we give it.
“There are at least 40 chemicals in our bodies that influence our appetite and what we eat,” says Robert Greene, M.D., medical director of the Sher Institute for Reproductive Medicine in Sacramento and the author of several books on optimizing hormones … The good news is that we’re developing strategies to shift hormone signals to help people avoid weight gain as well as lose weight.” – Whole Living
Estrogen Dominance in Women
Women are at particular risk of hormonal imbalance and associated weight gain, or difficulty in losing weight. This is because of their production of estrogen, which is balanced by progesterone. If, however, women are exposed to too much estrogen problems can start to occur.
“But as women age, and especially between the ages of 35 and 50, the decline in progesterone occurs much faster than the decline in estrogen, and this gradual drop in estrogen combined with a steep drop in progesterone is what initiates a problem with estrogen dominance and growth of excessive fat tissue.” – Quick and Dirty Tips
Besides age, estrogen is also found in our environment, particularly in pesticides and meats that come from animals that are raised on high hormone diets, such as poultry and beef. Besides this, it is found in various cosmetic and cleaning products, stress, consuming too many calories, a poorly functioning liver and a deficiency in calories.
There are now various programs around that help people re-balance their hormones and hormone production. Before you throw yourself head first into one of these programs, however, see if there are things you can do naturally (and for free).
For instance, perhaps you are under too much stress or maybe you are not getting enough sleep. Look at your diet and see whether you could switch to organic food. There are a number of supplements you can take as well, of course, should you find that you really have a deficiency or surplus.