Hormonal Imbalances and How To Balance Hormones

Here’s one interesting fact about hormonal imbalances – as you age, the hormone levels in your body in general decline.

So by the time you reach your mid 30s and 40s, you can start noticing significant changes in your body.

You might find that you are not as healthy as you thought you were, your body is just not as robust as it once was and you’re starting to experience more health issues.

For example, you can start gaining weight and feel heavier.

You might feel fatigued or even exhausted after doing just the usual everyday things, let alone doing exercise. You might not feel as sexy anymore and your libido has declined.

You can suffer with anxiety and perhaps even depression because your life and your health are not where you want them to be.

So let’s take a look at some of the hormones that you really need to stay on top of to help you age with glow and grace.

Hormonal Imbalances: Four Main Hormones That Influence Your Weight

• Estrogen: Estrogen is a female hormone that is produced by the ovaries, as well as the adrenal glands. However, it is present in men too, but at lower levels. This is because, estrogen, which is also known as estradiol, is the main sex hormone for women, just as testosterone is for men.
• Insulin: This hormone is responsible for ensuring normal levels of blood sugar or glucose. If there is too much sugar within the body, insulin is unable to transport glucose to the body cells. This is known as insulin resistance, which is a condition responsible for diabetes and obesity.
• Cortisol: Cortisol is a stress hormone that is produced assist as during stressful situations. The more stressed you are, the more it is produced. This, in turn, encourages the body to store visceral fat around your abdomen. Additionally, it causes sugar cravings and food addictions.
• Adiponectin: This is a fat burning hormone. Hence, the less it is produced, the more fat you’re likely to gain.

Causes of Hormonal Imbalances

Now, what causes hormonal imbalances? You absolutely need to be aware of this in order to fix your hormones and lose weight.

There are natural causes of hormonal fluctuations such as puberty, perimenopause and menopause. However, the below causes are due to the choices we make.

Below are some of the major causes of hormonal imbalances:

• Poor diet
• Toxins
• Sedentary and unhealthy lifestyle
• Extreme stress levels
• Poor gut health
• Poor liver health
• Inflammation

So, now that we’ve highlighted some of the major causes, how do you fix r treat hormonal imbalances?

Hormonal Imbalances in Women

Perhaps your skin is not glowing like it used to and you are gaining more and more weight as the ageing process begins to take its toll?

As women, we go through three distinct stages in life:

• The first is when menstruation begins
• The second is when you have children
• The third stage is when you enter the menopause

Further to these three stages, there is another stage that we also go through – peri-menopause.

Peri-menopause can start as early as 35. If you have not been paying proper attention to your health and you are in your mid-thirties, or in your forties, this can have a big impact upon how you age and how you’ll go through the menopause.

Ageing Too Fast? Hormonal Imbalances Can Cause It …

There are 4 hormones that can affect your ageing and these include:

Insulin

More than 100 million people in the USA alone have pre-diabetes or diabetes, according to statistics. This starts to cause many negative changes in your body.

If or when it insulin resistance develops into full blown type 2 diabetes, this can result in:

• Heart and blood vessel disease
• Kidney damage
• Eye damage
• Nerve damage
• Toe/foot or leg amputations
• Adrenal fatigue
• Alzheimer’s disease
• Hearing problems

High levels of insulin can also have a direct influence on how you age.

Estrogen

Another hugely important hormone is estrogen, which is produced by your ovaries and also produced by your adrenal glands.

Your estrogen levels begin to decline as you approach your mid to late forties (for some women it can start earlier).

If you have weak adrenal glands, then they will not be able to produce enough estrogen. As a result, menopause can become a much more painful experience.

Progesterone

Progesterone levels start to decline after your mid 30s and this hormone gives you that glowing look.

When this hormone declines, your skin starts to look dull.

If you have a health problem like PMS, PCOS, or fertility issues, then this can start lowering you progesterone levels even further and you can age more quickly.

So if you’re ageing too fast, these 3 hormones might be out of balance.

Knowing all this … how do you want to age?

What reality do you want to experience as you get older?

This is an important question to ask yourself now. Start making the right choices today!

Strategies I Give My Clients To Balance Hormones

1. Lower your body fat percentage

The excess body fat that you may carry is biologically active.

It releases inflammatory molecules into your body on a consistent basis and can even lead to serious health challenges, like type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, hormone and fertility issues.

We talk about how to reduce your body weight with plant foods here.

2. Watch out for endocrine disruptors in your environment

There are literally hundreds of chemical endocrine disruptors in our environment nowadays and these chemicals can have a very negative impact on our hormones.

Common sources of these unwanted chemicals are personal care products, canned food, drinking water, conventionally grown produce, dairy products, animal meat (including fish), plastic products, cleaning products and many more.

3. Fiber (from whole plant foods)

Most people’s diets are sorely lacking in this vitally important nutrient and the health benefits associated with it are seemingly endless.

Fiber helps greatly with your digestion, elimination and attracting and nurturing friendly gut bacteria.

It also acts as a kind of brush that helps remove used and unwanted hormones from your body, like cholesterol and estrogen.

These used and unwanted hormones can otherwise stay within the body and have the potential to cause serious health issues, such as heart disease and even cancer.

4. Remove unhealthy inflammatory Foods

You need to drop the dairy products and animal meats that themselves contain animal hormones and even antibiotics.

There was a famous study carried out called the Harvard Nurses Study, which followed 18,000 women.

They were trying to get pregnant for 8 years and as part of the study they noted down what foods they consumed. What they found was striking.

They discovered that by adding just a single serving of meat per day, their risk of infertility increased by 30%.

So this meant that eating meat and in particular poultry appeared to negatively interfere with their ovulation.

In fact, a single serving of chicken (half a chicken breast) a day was associated with more than a 50% increase in infertility.

Here are some other foods that can cause inflammation:

• Processed foods
• Refined sugar and salt
• Gluten
• Fried food
• Coffee
• Alcohol

All these undermine your health and so negatively impact your hormones.

So remove them from your diet and instead replace them with whole plant foods.

5. ^[1] Eat Healthy Fats, in Healthy Amounts and a Healthy Ratio

Only fats from whole plant foods need to be on your menu plan.

So that means nuts, seeds, avocadoes, olives and coconut flesh. Oils are not healthy fats and here’s our article about them.

Your omega 6 to 3 ratio needs to be in balance as well, with 1:1 and up to 4:1 of Omega 6 to 3 being healthy ratios.

6. Appropriate Levels of vitamin D

Many of us live in climates that naturally have less than adequate amounts of sunlight and this can greatly impact our vitamin D levels.

If you don’t get enough vitamin D from sunlight or from fortified foods, then your next best choice is supplementation. Making sure that you have enough of the hormone we call vitamin D in your body is crucial for your general well-being

7. HIIT and Strength Training
Science is now telling us that high intensity interval training (HIIT) is more beneficial for your body than long duration cardio exercise.

Long cardio sessions can negatively impact hormones such as your thyroid hormones and increase cortisol levels and inflammation.

Interval training, along with strength training on the contrary actually increases human growth hormone, slows down ageing and helps you balance hormones.

One study showed how a 30-second sprint increased Human Growth Hormone by a whopping 430%!

Let’s recap and go over the strategies to hep you balance your hormones naturally:

1. Lower your body fat percentage by balancing your diet and lifestyle
2. Watch for endocrine disruptors in your environment
3. Eat a fiber rich diet
4. Remove unhealthy, inflammatory foods from your diet
5. Eat healthy fats and healthy levels of fat, including a healthy omega ratio
6. Appropriate levels of vitamin D
7. Correct exercise routine

Aging too fast? You might want to watch this quick video :

Ready for your big health leap?

We’re excited to invite you to our FREE online masterclass.

During our training, we’ll walk you through the 5 steps our clients use to overcome hormonal imbalances and drop pounds of extra weight … whilst never restricting themselves of carbohydrates and sugar.

Claim your spot here!