9 Weight Loss Hormones You Should Consider To Lose Weight
Of the some 50 hormones that circulate in the human body, there is not one that should be judged as ‘good’ or ‘bad’, but all should rather be evaluated from a perspective of balance.
Some commonly found hormonal dysregulations, such as insulin resistance, estrogen dominance, low thyroid, and chronic high cortisol (aka – stress hormone) – amongst others need to be addressed in order to start burning fat. And this is also the case if you want to keep it off once it has been burned off.
Hormone imbalances can play a very large role in losing weight. Even with multiple hormonal issues and imbalances, and if you are overweight you most likely have a slew of them, the dietWELL weight loss program can help you achieve your ultimate health transformation goals.
Although there are a number of hormone imbalances that are genetic and autoimmune in nature this article is not a get-out-of-jail-free card that completely takes away your personal responsibility for your weight issues.
How many times have you heard someone make reference to their hormones as being the culprit for all of their weight woes? Or maybe the thought crossed your mind that the reason you can’t lose weight is because you have “low thyroid”.
If you do in fact have a thyroid issue perhaps you have somehow felt vindicated that there is a true medical reason for your struggles with your weight loss. Well, that may be partially true, but even so you must not think that you can’t reach your weight loss goals and that your body does not have the ability to regain hormonal balance.
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Hormones That Effect Weight Loss
Let’s examine the key hormone players when it comes to weight loss:
Insulin
Insulin is the hormone that allows sugar to enter into cells for energy. High sugar levels means high insulin levels. In the presence of insulin fat will stay stored away and cannot be burned for energy.
That’s a big problem if your goal is to lose body fat. Insulin surges may additionally effect the hormones that regulate our circadian rhythms and can create a cascade of dysfunction with sleep cycles and adrenal function (more on this in a moment.)
Insulin surges, and it’s related dysfunction, create much more insidious irregularities in a couple of ways. First, the excessive insulin output necessary to handle a carbohydrate dominant diet will create insulin receptor sites to essentially “wear out” and become unable to get glucose out of the bloodstream (i.e. high blood sugar.) This is called insulin resistance.
Second, the body will signal the pancreas to produce more and more insulin and this will eventually result in compromised insulin output. These two issues are the cause of type 2 diabetes. What’s the short of the long? Don’t eat a carbohydrate dominant diet. Insulin resistance has been shown to improve by staying away from a carbohydrate dominant diet (i.e. the DietWell Eating Plan.)
Cortisol
Now back to the adrenal glands. Cortisol is a hormone produced by the adrenals and is often referred to as our “stress hormone.” Cortisol is a fat storing hormone and in high levels can make weight loss very difficult.
Cortisol levels will increase with stress and lack of sleep. When you are sensitive, foods containing gluten will put an inflammatory load on our bodies, essentially stressing them out. The same is true of any highly processed food.
Do yourself a favor by sticking to the real food on the Foods to Choose Shopping List to ensure minimal internal stress.
DHEA
DHEA is another hormone produced by the adrenal glands. Often portrayed as the anti-aging hormone, DHEA influences our ability to lose fat and gain muscle. It boosts libido and helps us feel motivated, youthful and energetic.
DHEA is a precursor to estrogen and testosterone and helps to counteract the negative effects of cortisol. DHEA is often found to be low and compromised with chronic high cortisol levels and adrenal burnout.
Ghrelin
Ghrelin is the “I’m hungry hormone” – the hormone that tells you that you must eat RIGHT NOW! – it’s the 500lb monkey on your back that ceaselessly drives forward it’s agenda of getting you to eat.
One would think that Ghrelin levels would decrease in overweight and obese individuals. Unfortunately, Ghrelin levels increase with increasing levels of bodyfat leading to overeating. Yikes! Ghrelin also increases when you don’t get enough sleep.
Leptin
Leptin is the “I’m full hormone”- the hormone that tells you that your body has been given enough food. Leptin is the satiety hormone.
In overweight people, for each pound added to an overweight body more and more metabolic dysfunction is created. This will cause what is called ‘leptin resistance’ and will make you feel like you never have enough food. Leptin resistance makes it so you’re never full and keeps you reaching for another and then another serving. Your body needs to become re-sensitized to leptin in order to get the proper signaling that you are full.
Studies also show insufficient sleep knocks leptin out of balance as well.
Human Growth Hormone (HGH)
Human Growth Hormone (HGH) is the powerhouse hormone that affects just about every cell in the body and has a major impact on our emotions, actions, and appearance.
It’s essential for tissue repair, muscle building, bone density, and proper body composition.
HGH tends to decline with age and is released during deep sleep and while we exercise. Abdominal obesity has been linked to low HGH secretion.
There is miniscule support for the supplementation of HGH as a means of losing weight. Rather, it is found that losing excessive belly fat leads to increased HGH production. So essentially, as the belly fat comes off you optimize your body’s HGH production leading to the potential for increased fat loss and lean muscle building.
On a side note, adequate HGH production for children is absolutely imperative for their proper growth and development. Obese children are found to have less HGH than children with normal body compositions. It is absolutely detrimental that children who are overweight resolve their weight issues so that they can reach their full developmental potential.
Thyroid Hormone
Thyroid hormone has a very important role in our body because they interact with every cell in the body. Thyroid is the catalyst for your metabolism and supports health body composition. It gives us a good mood and warm and toasty limbs to boot. It’s also good to point out here that around 20% of people with type 2 diabetes have hypothyroidism (low thyroid.)
Thyroid Hormone Interacts with Nearly Every Type of Cell Type in the Body
When it comes to understanding your thyroid it is important to understand the multiple components that make up a full thyroid panel test. It is of utmost importance to know if you are dealing with an auto-immune condition, such as Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis, that is the leading cause of low thyroid issues.
Thyroid expert extraordinaire, Isabella Wentz – The Thyroid Pharmacist, just informed me at a recent conference that 97% of low thyroid sufferers in fact have Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis. It’s also possible that your thyroid function is being undermined by other factors like stress, blood sugar issues, gluten sensitivity, or environmental factors (like endocrine (i.e. hormone) disruptors – truly scary chemicals like BPA that slow thyroid function by blocking thyroid receptors.)
A very simple overview of how the thyroid works is this: Thyroid Stimulating Hormone TSH is released by the Pituitary Gland and activates the Thyroid Gland to release Thyroid hormone (~90% T4 and ~10% T3.) Think of T3 as the super-premium gasoline that stimulates your metabolism and T4 as crude oil that needs a bit more processing within the whole thyroid feedback loop before it’s of much use to you. T4 is further converted not just into T3, but also a small portion of T4 is made into reverse-T3, which slows your metabolism in order to save energy. While reverse-T3 is intended to keep T3 in check and create homeostasis under normal conditions, it may be found that reverse-T3 is high, meaning it is slowing the metabolism beyond what is necessary.
Sex Hormones
How is it your sex hormones get involved in things when you are overweight? Maybe you thought that low sex drive of yours was there just because you weren’t feeling comfortable in your own skin and your self-esteem is shot carrying around your love handles.
Yep – that’s a part of things certainly, but more importantly you have to understand that body fat actually becomes its own hormone-producing organ and creates a slew of sex hormone imbalances. Most disruptive is that belly fat produces estrogen.
High Estrogen
Abdominal fat in men increases the conversion of testosterone into estrogen. As estrogen levels rise, so does the tendency to accumulate more abdominal fat, fueling the situation. The risk of prostate cancer also increases with higher estrogen levels.
A premenopausal woman with high levels of estrogen (also known as estrogen dominance) will likely have PMS, too much body fat around the hips, and difficulty losing weight. Menopausal women and, yes, men too, may experience low libido, memory loss, poor motivation, depression, loss of muscle mass, and increased belly fat.
Low Testosterone
Testosterone levels decrease as abdominal fat converts it to estrogen. It also decreases with increasing stress. While you are under stress, your body will tend to make more stress hormone (cortisol) than testosterone.
Testosterone levels tend to taper off with aging, obesity and stress, but today men are experiencing testosterone decline much earlier in life. This is quite an alarming finding, considering low testosterone has been linked to depression, obesity, osteoporosis, heart disease and even death.
Researchers from the University of Washington found that men with low testosterone are more likely to develop a potbelly and other body fat. They also found that testosterone may prompt the loss of body fat when deficient levels are replaced. Other signs that you may have low testosterone levels include a loss of muscle tissue, depression, and decreased strength, stamina, drive and motivation.
Fat is living tissue that has a survival instinct. It wants to stay put just where it is. It is highly vascularized, with approximately 7 miles of blood vessels per pound of belly fat. Losing weight, and most importantly keeping it off, will not come about by starving yourself and caloric restriction.
You must do the things that support hormone metabolism, health, and balance. This can come about for some with simple dietary changes alone, such as increasing your protein, fat, and vegetable consumption and by cutting out or removing grains. For others that need a more comprehensive look at the underlying function of their body we would suggest scheduling a complimentary Functional Medicine consultation.
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