#leptinresistance | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

bu11d0g-blog1 · 5 years

Text

How Your Hormones Affect Your Weight

Disclaimer We hope you enjoy reading this publication, however we do suggest you read our disclaimer. All the material written in this document is provided for informational purposes only and is general in nature. Every person is a unique individual and what has worked for some, or even many, may not work for you. Any information perceived as advice must be considered in light of your own particular set of circumstances. The author or person sharing this information does not assume any responsibility for the accuracy or outcome of your use of the content. Every attempt has been made to provide well researched and up to date content at the time of writing. Now all the legalities have been taken care of, please enjoy the content. Introduction For far too long our weight management efforts have been thwarted due to misinformation. Some of this was unintentional, but sadly, some was intentionally promoted by enterprises with a focus on profit, and not health. The general public is becoming more aware that effective weight management is a little more complex than some simplistic ‘solutions’ offered in the past. Two that come to mind are counting calories and ‘fat makes you fat’. A decade of millions of people starving themselves by counting calories, and scanning product labels in search of the laughable ‘97% fat free’, has resulted in record obesity rates. This eBook gives insight into factors that many people may not be aware of yet, but now doubt soon will be. Our hormones are incredibly powerful chemicals in our body. In tiny amounts, they trigger massive responses. When our bodies are running as they should, it is hormones that play a major role in keeping things operating. When changes occur, hormones are released to deal with it. Specific hormones play a large role in our weight management. Some are responsible for making us hungry, some for making us feel full. Others increase our propensity to lay down body fat, some of it even in specific areas. The information provided will help you understand how you can help your hormones to do what you want them to, instead of working against you.

Your Hormones Could Be Affecting Your Weight Loss

Four Hormones That May Be Out of Balance There are four hormones that make losing weight a real struggle, especially for women. They are cortisol, estrogen, insulin, and leptin. Cortisol Levels of cortisol, the “stress hormone” rise during stressful and tension-filled situations. Every time you are stressed, your body produces more cortisol. An overload of cortisol results in more stored fat, especially belly fat. High cortisol levels make you feel depressed, experience sugar cravings and can lead to food addictions. It’s a vicious cycle. The more stressed you are, the higher your cortisol levels will become. Abnormally high levels of cortisol, or hypercortisolism, can cause Cushing syndrome, which is associated with disorders of the adrenal glands. Estrogen Estrogen is a female hormone, although it is also present in men, but at a lower level compared to women. Both men and women can be subject to estrogen dominance, and too much estrogen can create an imbalance. There’s no set limit as to how much is too much. It’s relative to your other sex hormones. However, having too much estrogen makes you gain more weight because it can inhibit or block the thyroid hormone, which stimulates different metabolic processes in your body. If this happens, you may experience a slower metabolic rate. Estrogen dominance results in more fat deposits, makes you retain excess water and causes bloating. It therefore becomes more difficult to lose weight because it stimulates fat and water retention. Even if you have managed to lose weight, you may gain it again quickly if you don’t keep your estrogen hormone levels in balance, or at what is considered to be within a normal range. Insulin The hormone that regulates blood sugar or glucose in your body is the insulin hormone. Your pancreas produces insulin to help in the metabolism of glucose. It allows glucose to enter the cells to provide energy for your body. It is also a fat storing hormone. When your body develops insulin resistance, your muscle cells are less able to absorb glucose. The glucose remains in your bloodstream, and your liver ultimately converts the unused glucose into body fat. It leads to pre-diabetes, a condition where your blood sugar is persistently higher than normal, but not as high as someone suffering from diabetes. Leptin Leptin is a hormone produced by your body’s fat cells. It targets an area in the brain called the hypothalamus and sends a signal to let you know that you are full, and it’s time to stop eating. The problem with most of the modern diets consumed today is that we are overloaded with foods that are full of simple carbohydrates, especially sugar. Too much of these types of foods and our body converts them to body fat, which can lead to an excess of leptin being released. When leptin levels are persistently high, the brain starts to ignore the hormonal message. This, in turn, makes you become leptin resistant, which means your brain cannot detect the leptin signals, and you never feel full. You may even still feel hungry (or think you are) after eating a huge meal. One reason why you keep eating the wrong kinds of food is because you develop cravings for these high-carb, sugar-laden foods. In the process, you gain more weight, and losing weight becomes your losing battle. Knowing how your hormones work can help you to make some changes in your life. Get your hormones working how they should, and your journey to weight loss will not be as big a battle as before.

Balance Your Hormones to Help Your Weight Loss

Your hormones play a major role in your metabolism and fat burning, so bringing your cortisol, estrogen, insulin, and leptin into balance is a great start in your quest to losing weight. Here are a few steps to take, to do just that. Release Tension - When you're stressed, your cortisol levels are increasing. During emotionally stressful situations, find someone you can talk to and pour your feelings out. When you release your bottled-up emotions, you also release the tension. De-stress whenever possible and learn how to relax and stay calm. Take Time Out - Find time to meditate, or at least find some ‘you’ time, where you can be alone and think calmly. When you take time to reflect on past events, you can analyze your actions and decisions. You can either resolve or accept the issue. Drink Green Tea – Change your drinking habits to one that includes green tea, rather than coffee or alcoholic beverages. Green tea contains L-theanine, an amino acid which provides a calming effect, which helps fight anxiety and stress. It also has estrogen reduction properties contributed by its polyphenols that inhibit an enzyme responsible for producing estrogen. Eat Foods Containing Magnesium – Magnesium-rich foods include green leafy vegetables, avocado, banana, nuts, seeds, legumes, and raw cacao. Magnesium is an important mineral that regulates adrenaline and cortisol and has a vital role in the production of the thyroid hormones. It calms your nervous system and reduces stress. Adequate magnesium intake helps your muscles to relax and helps induce deep sleep. Regular sleeping habits are needed to maintain leptin sensitivity. Magnesium also helps lower blood sugar levels, thus controlling insulin levels. Eat Foods High in Fiber - Foods with high fiber content reduce leptin production, estrogen concentration, and increase insulin sensitivity. They help you feel full, therefore reducing your appetite. The leptin hormone is triggered and sends the ‘stop eating’ signal to your brain. Keep Hydrated - Drink plenty of water to keep hydrated. Dehydration leads to stress. Proper hydration has calming and soothing effects, so drink more water during times of intense stress. Take a full glass of water with 2 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar first thing in the morning to help keep your hormones in balance. Relax - Try relaxation and massage. Learning relaxation techniques such as yoga can help manage stress reactions. Massage therapy can loosen tight muscles and improve blood circulation, thus supplying plenty of oxygen to your body. Eat Probiotic Foods – Probiotic foods improve your gut health. Sources include yogurt, kefir, sauerkraut, kimchi, miso, kombucha, tempeh, pickles, or natto. Probiotics reduce stress levels and lessen anxiety, thus keeping your cortisol levels in a normal range and potentially in balance. Eliminate excess sugar or artificial sweeteners and processed foods from your diet. Follow a High Protein, Low Carb, Healthy Fat Diet - Eating clean proteins provides your body with amino acids needed to produce certain hormones, such as insulin. However, grain or hormone-fed meats cause an estrogen overload. So be careful when buying your meat. Choose grass-fed or organic meats. If you choose proteins that are plant or marine-derived, your estrogen decreases. Avoid These Foods - Avoid refined grains, hydrogenated oils, trans-fats, and processed foods to help keep your insulin and leptin hormones under control. Eat walnuts, chia seeds, flaxseeds, and fatty fish for their anti-inflammatory properties and omega 3 fatty acids. They reduce cortisol and adrenaline levels and increase leptin sensitivity. Get Quality Sleep - Maintain your circadian rhythm. It does not only affect your sleep pattern but also your metabolism. Changes with your circadian clock can influence melatonin and cortisol. Keep a strict sleep schedule by going to bed and getting up at the same time each day. Take your meals regularly too, to better avoid leptin resistance. Get Enough Exercise - Reset your insulin to normal levels and increase leptin sensitivity through physical activities, at least 30 minutes 5 days a week. Regular moderate exercise also increases dopamine levels (your ‘happy hormone’), while decreasing estrogen and cortisol levels. The more you’re stressed, the more cortisol is produced and often also leaving you with an excess of estrogen. This makes you crave for your favorite foods, which quite probably include sweets and processed foods, which in turn affect your insulin and leptin hormone balances. Clean eating and maintaining your general wellbeing can alleviate the harmful effects of a hormonal imbalance and help you to lose weight.

Leptin and Ghrelin Hormones and Weight Loss

Many weight loss problems don’t always revolve around diet and physical activity, or lack thereof. Other problems include hormonal imbalances. Leptin and ghrelin are two of the hormones that can cause problems with your weight loss efforts. Leptin is the hormone that lets you know you’re full and ghrelin is the one that lets you know you are hungry. If they are out of balance, you will almost have an impossible time trying to lose weight. For example, your ghrelin hormone may grumble at you all day to eat, especially if your leptin hormone is asleep on the job. Your leptin hormone won’t be letting you know to stop eating, and that your body has enough energy to keep going for a while. So, your hunger-inducing ghrelin hormone will be the winner. You’ll keep eating, and your body will store the excess for later, in case it needs it. The problem is, there is no later because the food supply doesn’t cease. Here’s where the problem lies. Your hormones are so out of whack that your body isn’t doing what it is supposed to be doing. Leptin Leptin plays an important role in regulating the amount of food that a person ingests. The amount of leptin that we have in our body partly depends on how much body fat we have. This is because leptin is produced by the fat cells of the body. Once this hormone is released into the blood, it travels to the brain and reaches the hypothalamus. This is where it signals the brain that you’ve eaten enough. If the amount of body fat increases, leptin is the hormone that sends the message to the brain letting it know there are fat stores and it’s time to reduce food intake. This is how the body tries to keep it lean and healthy. It’s why this hormone is called the good hunger hormone. Ghrelin The function of ghrelin is quite the opposite to that of leptin. This hormone is produced in the stomach. This hormone triggers feelings of hunger as it increases the appetite for food. The secretion of ghrelin occurs at regular intervals and is your body’s way of making sure that you eat and do not starve. Think of when you ‘feel hungry’, you can even hear the noise in your stomach. Times when your stomach becomes empty is when the ghrelin hormones are secreted. These hormones will send their own signal to the hypothalamus, letting the brain know that the body is hungry. After eating, the ghrelin secretion is reduced, and then, if all is in healthy balance, the leptin hormone will jump in and do its job and send the signal that it’s time to stop. This is how the leptin and ghrelin hormones work. If these hormones are running smoothly, you can expect them to work harmoniously with each other. When one hormone rises, the other hormone drops. However, in many people, an imbalance of these hunger hormones causes them problems with their weight management. How Leptin and Ghrelin Affect Your Weight Loss Efforts People who have issues with obesity or are overweight may have leptin resistance. Leptin resistance is preventing their brain from receiving the vital message saying they have consumed enough. Leptin is being produced, but their brain is not processing the message that satiety has been achieved. This is why, even after just an hour or two after eating a huge meal, a person with a hormonal imbalance may seek out more food because they feel hungry again. Your Body’s Starvation Protection The human mind and body are designed to sense and prevent starvation. This programming is essential to our survival, where food is a scarce resource. If you start losing weight, and if the amount of loss is more than 5 to 7 percent of your weight, your body will react, thinking it is starving. It will go into starvation mode for its survival. Regardless of how hard you try to lose weight, you are fighting with your own body. Your body’s responses will counter-regulate your weight loss efforts. This is one reason why it is so hard to lose weight and then keep it off. Sometimes it can actually make you gain more weight than when you first started because your body wants to be in better preparedness for the next food-reduction (which is perceived as starvation) cycle. How to Make Your Hormones Help You Lose Weight If you want to help your hormones and not scare them into survival mode, stick to a moderate weight loss diet, and don’t lose more than 5 percent of your weight fast. Don’t go for drastic weight loss. Eat at regular intervals, preferably between 4 to 5 hours. You also need to observe balance in your diet, especially in terms of your carbohydrates, proteins, and fats. Most of all, stick to your exercise routine. This will help boost your metabolism and get your blood and oxygen circulating throughout your body. Studies have shown that people who exercise are better able to manage their ghrelin hormone levels, compared to those people who only eat less in their efforts to lose weight.

What is Leptin Resistance?

Have you ever wondered what regulates your appetite? We don’t often get taught the ins and outs of how our body works, we just accept that in most cases it works automatically, without us having to think consciously on what it needs to do next. Our body’s automatic functions are incredibly complex. Simply though, our body has a system that is designed to trigger hunger when our blood supply is deficient in energy reserves, and to switch off hunger when our stomach is full and energy is available. The Role of Leptin One vital part of this complex puzzle is the hormone known as leptin. Leptin performs on receptors in our brain, in the hypothalamus. When the hypothalamus detects the presence of leptin, your body is in a state where it doesn’t need food as fuel. In a properly functioning system, you will not be receiving any hunger signals. However, this system evolved and developed to deal with a straightforward hunter/gatherer diet. Our modern western diet, overloaded with simple carbohydrates, throws this system into disarray. Most processed food produced today is not designed with nutrition as the major focus. Simply, it is created to tantalize and excite our taste buds, to make us buy and eat more of it. It works too well at this, and much ‘food’ consumed today is chosen solely for taste ‘highs’, with little regard for nutrition. Leptin evolved to trigger feelings of fullness and satiety based on a diet high in the macronutrients protein and fat. Because simple carbohydrates, primarily sugar in one form or another, is a primary ingredient (the one that gives the taste highs) it largely bypasses the leptin response. Leptin is released, but the brain is immune to it, as it is more focused on the current taste triggers. Most people have experienced how eating very tasty, high-carb foods actually sharpens your appetite, causing them to eat more and more of the same types of food. Leptin Resistance When this is an occasional occurrence, the body can deal with it, and moves on. However, when this the norm (as is common) more and more leptin is released. When high levels are persistently present it can cause leptin resistance, a lack of sensitivity of your hypothalamus to this hormone. This means you don’t know when your stomach is full, so you keep on eating. As in every other form of hormone resistance, this means that the mind and body become less sensitive to the hormone, even when larger amounts are released. Eventually, the person never feels full, or satisfied. They are always hungry, as their satiety response has been totally dulled. Their system is resistant to leptin, and they are at great risk of overeating, with all of the potential health risks that carries. Leptin resistance is very often one of the first steps in developing one of more of the lifestyle ‘diseases’ that seem to be an epidemic. Persistent overeating is almost always associated with poor dietary choices. This combination causes persistently elevated blood sugar and insulin levels. By unfortunate design (to prevent future starvation) this causes the body to lay down fat cells. All of this is the precursor to dangerous conditions such as type 2 diabetes and even some cancers.

How to Increase Leptin Sensitivity

The most common cause of insensitivity to leptin is a long-term diet based on an excess of high-GI carbohydrates. This triggers larger and larger leptin releases, which the mind and body become immune to. Another reason for the lack of sensitivity is hypothalamus inflammation. It can be diet-induced hypothalamic inflammation, or an associated disease which can affect glucose, fat, and energy metabolism. For this reason, dysfunction of your hypothalamus can also result in weight gain. For your health’s sake, it is essential to reverse leptin resistance. Especially when this has occurred as a result of adherence to a modern western diet, this can be addressed to a large degree by changing what we eat. Here’s how. Eat Anti-Inflammatory Foods To reduce inflammation in your hypothalamus, eat whole, nutritious foods, ones that contain antioxidants. These include beta-carotene (precursor of Vitamin A), Vitamin C, lutein, lycopene, anthocyanin, chlorophyll, zeaxanthin, Vitamin A, Vitamin E, selenium, or manganese. Antioxidants prevent damage to your body’s cells caused by free radicals, the by-products of your body’s metabolism and different chemical processes. If free radicals are not eliminated, it can result in oxidative stress which is linked to several health conditions. Antioxidants help in breaking down free radicals, which promotes overall health and slows the ageing process. Higher amounts of antioxidants and nutrients in your body help to prevent hypothalamus inflammation and makes it more sensitive to leptin. Examples of anti-inflammatory foods are: Fruits such as avocados, cherries, grapes, oranges, blueberries, cranberries, raspberries, strawberries, blackberries, and acai berries. Vegetables such as kale, spinach, broccoli, collard greens, and red peppers. Legumes such as chickpeas, red kidney beans, lentils, soybeans and peas. Garlic, one of the most potent natural anti-inflammatories. Others such as green tea, mushrooms, and turmeric. Follow a High Protein, Low Carb Diet Fatty fish such as salmon and sardines are rich in omega 3s and healthy sources of protein. You can also get your omega 3s from shellfish, such as Dungeness crab, lobster, shrimp, oysters, clams, and scallops. Other lean proteins include eggs, turkey or chicken breasts, sirloin, or lamb. High levels of triglycerides in your body are associated with inflammation. Eating fatty fish and shellfish rich in omega-3 fatty acids lowers the rate of triglyceride production in your liver, thus reducing inflammation especially in your hypothalamus and improving leptin sensitivity. Proteins boost your metabolism. These macronutrients make you burn calories from 80 to 100 more per day due to their high thermic effects or dietary induced thermogenesis, a process of heat production. When you eat protein rich foods, you produce more heat or energy, so you burn up stored fats in your body. Choose low-GI carbs such as cauliflower, rutabaga or turnips, beetroots, fennel bulbs, asparagus, green peas, nectarine, apples, and zucchini. They are also high in fiber which contributes to the feeling of fullness, thus controlling your hunger. They are also gluten-free which further helps maintain gut health and prevent hypothalamus inflammation. Not only is choosing the right foods is important, your portion control is too. Make a real effort to only consume the recommended daily allowance of macronutrients, especially carbohydrates. Take supplements if you are deficient in any vitamins and minerals. Choose complex carbs as in fruits and vegetables as snacks and avoid sugary, simple carbs, and processed foods. Work with Your Circadian Rhythm Make your eating and sleeping routines into healthy, mindful habits. Try to create healthy eating and sleeping schedules. Leptin works on your circadian rhythm. Simply put, eat when you should, sleep when you should, and get adequate sleep. Disruptions affect your metabolism and your leptin levels. Your circadian clock regulates leptin production and plays an important role in responding to leptin signals through your hypothalamus. Disruptions help cause leptin resistance. Have you ever experienced a craving for a favorite comfort food when you haven’t had enough sleep? Perhaps you had a late night and the next day you are craving for something you enjoy, just to give you a lift. This is why your circadian rhythm has a profound effect on your weight. Get Plenty of Exercise and Maintain an Active Lifestyle Prolonged exercise, from medium to high intensity, regulates your energy balance. With regular workouts, you will help with weight management since increased cell metabolism results in increased energy consumption. You burn calories by breaking down glycogen. When engaging in a low carbohydrate diet, you also break down fats which leads to leptin sensitivity. Keeping an active lifestyle does not mean pumping weights at the local gym. It means going for a walk or riding your bike. Brisk walking, jogging, swimming, or cycling is all it takes to get active. You can even work-out at home with the use of treadmills, elliptical machines or an exercise bike if you are so inclined. If you are elderly, doing the gardening or walking your dog is a great way to get your desired exercise quota. A healthy lifestyle enables you to manage and control stressful situations in your life. Stress can affect your eating habits and in turn, your weight. Highly stressed lifestyles produce high levels of cortisol, another hormone, and causes you to crave high-fat, and calorie-dense foods, that can lead to leptin resistance. Exercise helps you de-stress and maintain leptin sensitivity, and that’s exactly what you want in order to help keep your appetite under control.

Sleep Deprivation Affects Hormones and Weight

Society has become so industrialized that for some people, sleep has become a rare commodity. Life has become so fast-paced that many people try to extend their waking hours to accomplish as much as they can. A lack of sleep has almost become a way of life, rather than an exception. In the short-term, working round-the-clock is possible, thanks to your hormone, adrenalin. However, chronic lack of sleep is dangerous to your health. While you can deprive yourself of sleep for a period of time, it will ultimately catch up with you in more ways than one. Sleep is crucial for your survival, and your mental, and physical health. If you cut down on sleep to fit more in your day, you will wreak havoc on your hormones, and if you are trying to lose weight, it will affect your weight loss goals in the process. Some people think that depriving themselves of sleep will actually help them lose weight. On the contrary, lack of sleep will slow down your metabolism, and when this happens, you can expect to gain weight. Stretching your waking hours even for just a day will create a hormonal imbalance. Clinical Psychologist, Dr. Michael Breus said it best when he compared hormones to traffic signs, that tell the body to stop or go. The hormones ensure that the body does not only perform its functions well but remains well-balanced. When you are sleep-deprived, your traffic signals go crazy and as a result, your body is caught off-balance. Imagine your body being told to go, when it is meant to stop, and the other way around. Experts have identified hormones that will be greatly affected when you are deprived of sleep. Unfortunately, these hormones influence your body weight too, so you can expect to gain more weight as you continue to deprive yourself of sleep. These are the hormones affected. Insulin Insulin has become infamous because of its role in the management of diabetes. It plays an important role in regulating your blood sugar so that you do not suffer from hyperglycemia or hypoglycemia. While insulin is important for survival, it is a hormone that stores fat. The more insulin you have, the more fat you store. When you deprive yourself of sleep, you are at risk of becoming insulin-resistant, albeit temporarily. You are also bound to gain more weight. Ghrelin Ghrelin is a multi-tasking hormone, but one of its most important functions is to stimulate your appetite. It is known as ‘the hunger hormone.’ It’s an easy hormone to remember, because we associate hunger with a grumbling belly, so ghrelin is the grumbler. It increases your appetite and also promotes the storage of fat. It also slows down your metabolism. When you lack in sleep, your ghrelin levels will be affected. Leptin Leptin plays a key role in regulating your weight. If working properly, leptin sends signals to the brain that allows you to curb your appetite, but when it’s not working, then you can develop resistance and obesity occurs. Cortisol Cortisol is your stress or survival hormone, so if this hormone increases, you tend to overeat on your comfort foods. When stress becomes habitual, overeating, and not sleeping becomes a regular part of life. Unfortunately, it can increase your insulin levels. When this happens, expect to crave for foods with high fat and sugar content. HGF – Human Growth Hormone This hormone helps not only in cell repair and generation but also in metabolism. A reduction in your HGH levels due to age or a lack of sleep can lead to weight gain. More than that, it can also lead to suffering from serious health conditions, such as heart problems and diabetes. The production of HGH is at its peak when you are in a deep sleep. It follows that if you do not get enough quality sleep, then your HGH levels go down, along with your ability to lose weight. As you can see, there is more downside to losing sleep than seeing a few black bags under your eyes. Sleep deprivation will not only make you irritable and inefficient; it will also impede your weight loss efforts. Even machines need periodic maintenance if they are to function efficiently. You need to take care of your body, so that it functions like a well-oiled machine too. Subjecting your body to sleepless nights will ultimately make it weak and unable to perform its normal functions. So, the next time you are tempted to extend your waking hours, think again!

The Cortisol Hormone and Belly Fat

People often don't realize that their cortisol hormone could be causing some of their belly fat problem. Plus, many people are not even aware that their belly fat is made up of three types of fat. The Cortisol Hormone Cortisol is a hormone released in the adrenal glands that is activated during a fight-or-flight response. It is also known as a stress-release hormone, and as we know chronic stress is a precursor to many health problems. If your cortisol levels increase, you increase the risk of developing a lowered immune system, low bone density, hypertension, cholesterol, and what most people are worried about more, rapid weight gain. Persistently elevated cortisol levels are not good for you, period. Belly Fat There are three types of fat in the human body - visceral, subcutaneous, and triglycerides. Visceral Fat - This is located around the organs inside the abdomen. Too much visceral fat produces annoying belly fat or the obvious pot belly, and is often affected by hormones. Subcutaneous Fat - This is a type of fat located underneath the skin, just above the muscle. You can easily pinch your subcutaneous fat between finger and thumb. Triglycerides – You may have heard of this when cholesterol is discussed. Triglycerides are continuously circulating inside our blood stream. It is often used by our body for a variety of metabolic activities. Visceral and subcutaneous fats are the most visible type of fats and are storehouses of our body’s fat. These two fats are essential when it comes to energy contribution. They act together to provide the energy requirements when not enough food is eaten. Cortisol and Belly Fat — What You Need to Know Fat is stored in your body when you have consume excess calories that were not immediately converted into energy. If you eat more than your required calorie intake, your body will start to store the extra as fat. Depending on various factors, fat metabolism may process slowly or may accelerate. Both visceral and subcutaneous fats are stored inside your fat cells. Even though your fat cells are metabolically inactive, they are still triggering hormones that have different effects on the body. Visceral fat increases abdominal bloat, and the fat itself does not have much benefit. It may be present on people who have low subcutaneous fat. Visceral fat is dangerous for the body. Its presence is strongly associated with chronic cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, asthma, etc. Cortisol and Belly Fat Reduction To help reduce cortisol and belly fat build up, there are some natural steps you can take. If you are carrying fat in your abdominal region, you should be taking steps to halt and reduce it. Stick to a Healthy Diet Plan Become more aware of what you are eating. Remember, you are what you eat. A meal rich in protein and low in simple carbs is an effective start. Cut out all processed foods immediately. Remember, your body needs dietary fat, so include foods containing Omega 3 fatty acids, use olive oil instead of grain-derived oils, and enjoy an avocado. Reduce Your Stress Levels Apart from diet, an effective way to diminish belly fat and lower cortisol levels is to reduce your stress levels. Many people simply say “that is not possible with my life”. However, there are two factors here. Firstly, it is often possible with some deep reflection to actively avoid some of the stressors that trigger your stress responses. Secondly, there are proven methods to manage those triggers which may be largely unavoidable. Practice some yoga and mindfulness training. Engage in daily exercise, which will help to naturally disperse the cortisol buildup. This will help get rid of unwanted fats and boost your mood. If necessary, seek professional advice such as counselling or therapy. Remove bad habits from your life. Drinking, smoking, eating too much, these are all bad habits you need to stop. Yes, you have probably been told it before, and with good reason. Don’t let excess belly fat ruin your health, enjoyment in life, and your longevity. It’s not comfortable to carry around, and it’s certainly not an attractive look people strive for. Instead, be responsible and maintain a healthy lifestyle, belly fat free!

Superfoods for Balancing Hormones

If you suffer from a hormonal imbalance, or even if you just want to boost your hormonal health, you have to make sure you’re eating the right foods. The foods you eat will send a message to your hormones. Therefore, if you’re not eating right, chances are your body will be receiving the wrong messages. Unfortunately, having a hormonal imbalance can cause a myriad of health problems. Some of these can include depression, infertility, obesity, hair loss, digestive problems, and weight problems. So, if you want to take control, now you can. Start by adding a few ‘hormone balancing superfoods’ to your diet. Flax Seeds Flax seeds are known to help women balance their hormonal levels. Its active compounds help balance the ratio of progesterone and estrogen in the body. Maintaining a balance of these hormones can greatly benefit the thyroid, kidneys, and pancreas. These seeds are high in lignans content. These lignans function as phytoestrogens that work to reduce the level of high estrogen levels in the body. Flax seeds are deemed a superfood in terms of their omega 3 content. They’re also a good source of magnesium, potassium, zinc, and phosphorus. These nutrients help balance hormones. Carrots The fiber content in carrots is helpful in keeping estrogen level within a normal range. Eat a carrot daily and balance your hormones. Those who have problems with their digestion will also benefit from eating carrots. It’s also a great anti-cancer food. Buckwheat Buckwheat is a great source of complex carbohydrates, which are important for tryptophan production in the body. Tryptophan is one of the prerequisites of serotonin production. Having the right levels of tryptophan and serotonin will help ensure that your hormones are kept in balance. They will also help your mood and memory. Buckwheat is also known for its high levels of D-chiro-inositol. This is a vitamin-like substance found helpful in treating women who are suffering from diseases caused by a hormonal imbalance, such as polycystic ovary syndrome. Buckwheat is also gluten-free and contains B vitamins, all of which are important for hormone health. Spirulina Spirulina has high amounts of potassium, calcium, and magnesium. The hormone-balancing effects have been found beneficial in reducing cramps and improving mood. Inflammation and breast tenderness can also be reduced through regular consumption of spirulina. Spirulina contains other high-quality nutrients such as vitamins A, E, K, B1, B2 and B6. It is also a complete protein. Yes, spirulina contains all the 8 essential amino acids that are important for your overall health. That’s a perfect reason to add this superfood to your list! Avocados Avocados are a wonderful addition to your hormone diet. They contain plant sterols that help prevent the body from absorbing too much estrogen. The hormone balancing effects of avocados can also be attributed to their high, healthy, fatty acid content. These fatty acids serve as fundamental building blocks for hormone production. These plant sterols also aid in lowering cholesterol levels, making avocados an important part of any diet. Since a hormonal imbalance can lead to weight gain, you can help prevent this from happening by eating more avocados. This is because avocados help increase your satiety levels while reducing your tendency to crave unhealthy foods. Bee Pollen Bee pollen is traditionally part of Chinese medicine. It is used for people who have low energy levels, increased cravings, and digestive issues. Bee pollen is rich in folic acid and B vitamins, which play a role in helping the body counter a hormonal imbalance. Bee pollen has earned quite a good reputation among athletes and fitness enthusiasts. They refer to bee pollen as ‘the greatest food’ when it comes to building muscle. It builds muscles while increasing endurance and strength. Its ability to boost muscle strength is due to the 22 amino acids. Almost 50% of these can be assimilated quickly by the body for instant use. Bee pollen also serves as a powerful brain booster. It reduces brain fatigue, improves mental alertness, and ability to focus. Probiotics Your hormone diet wouldn’t be complete without the inclusion of probiotics. Probiotics play a crucial role in the production, as well as regulation of ghrelin, insulin, and leptin. Rev up your body’s ability to produce and regulate hormones by making sure that you consume probiotics every day. Great sources of probiotics are kefir, tempeh, miso, kombucha, and kimchi. With regular intake of probiotics, your immune system will also be improved. This is because up to 80% of your immune fighting microorganisms are produced in the gut. By keeping your digestive tract healthy through probiotics, you can be assured of a better fighting stance against any diseases.

Leptin Diet for Weight Loss

The leptin diet was originally designed by a clinical nutritionist named Byron J. Richards, and as he is nutritionist, it is based on sound dietary advice. It’s a diet to help people lose weight, and there is a big focus on portion control. The ‘Leptin Diet’ has five basic rules. Don’t eat after your evening meal. Eat three meals a day with a 5 to 6-hour gap between meals. Eat small meals. Start your day with a high protein breakfast. Limit your carb intake. Now let’s take a look at the five rules in more detail. 1) Don’t eat after your evening meal. There’s another step here, and that is not to eat anything at least three hours before you retire. So you have to make sure that you eat your evening meal 3 hours before going to bed. In the leptin diet, your breakfast and evening meals are the two most important. To follow this diet correctly, you also need to make sure you only eat within a 12-hour window. So if you first eat at 6.00am, make sure you need to have eaten your evening meal before 6.00pm. During sleep periods, the body’s metabolism generally slows down. Therefore, if you eat after dinner, you are placing a burden on your body’s processing functions. If your body has to continue to process excess fats while the metabolism is working at a slower rate, well as you can see, it’s not the ideal. Plus, if you insist on eating food after dinner, it will be added to your body’s fat stores. That’s not ideal either. During daylight hours, the 12-hour window for digesting your breakfast and dinner gives your body time to digest the food, without giving your metabolism a hard time processing it. 2) Eat three meals a day with a 5 to 6-hour gap between meals. Your breakfast, lunch, and dinner should have a 5 to 6-hour stretch in between. If we use the example above, the breakfast at 6.00am, that means you could have lunch at 12.00pm and your dinner between 5.00 and 6.00pm. Many believe that the human body requires three regular meals every day for it to function at its best. There are other thoughts on this topic. However, we are looking at the ‘Leptin Diet’ rules, so we’ll stick to the 3 meals per day theory. The reason behind 3 meals per day is so that the body gets all the important nutrients it needs. Remember, this should be done without any snacking! An important point to note here, in regards to snacks, is that most people do not realize that triglycerides prevent leptin from sending signals to the brain, letting you know you’ve eaten enough. Triglycerides can block the pathway of leptin over a period of time. If you are a habitual snacker, especially of high cholesterol foods, this pathway will clog up even more. However, if you stick to three meals a day, with an interval of 5 to 6 hours in between, your body will have the chance to use up the stored triglycerides. 3) Eat small meals. The leptin diet does not just focus on certain foods; it also focuses on how much you eat. It’s all about portion control. It also emphasizes on how you should eat. Do not wait until you are full, stop before you are. It’s amazing how, after eating, if you sit and wait just 10 minutes, you will feel sated. The 10 minutes prior you may have asked for seconds, 10 minutes later and your brain has processed the signal, that yes, you have eaten enough. That’s because it takes 20 minutes for the leptin hormone to reach the brain. Allow yourself time to be told! Next, slow down your eating. Instead of eating fast, it is highly advised to take more time eating. Put your knife and fork down instead of loading it up and getting it ready for the next mouthful. Again, give your brain time to receive the right signals. Slow, mindful eating is important here. 4) Start your day with a high protein breakfast. Instead of having a stack of pancakes covered in maple syrup, which is not recommended, by the way, opt for lean meat, organic eggs and other healthy sources of protein. Your breakfast requires 20-30 grams of protein. Protein after a 12 hour fast (your sleep period) is one of the most effective ways to increase your metabolic rate, by up to 30 percent. This is why it is important to start your day with protein-rich foods. 5) Watch your carb intake. If you do not reduce your high carbohydrate consumption, you will adversely affect your blood triglycerides, as explained earlier. You still need complex carbs in your diet, such as fruits and vegetables. It’s the simple carbs you have to reduce. They’re the foods that you know you shouldn’t be eating already, such as cookies and cakes. In conclusion, the rules are simple to follow. The leptin diet is not just a diet; it’s a lifestyle change that you can follow for life.

Your Hormone Diet Fix

Here’s a few simple questions for you to answer. Are you waking up in the morning and dragging yourself out of bed? Do you find it hard to concentrate mid-afternoon, and so reach for a cup of coffee to give you an added boost? Do you feel stressed at the end of the day? Do you feel hungry all the time? If you’ve answered yes to some or all of these questions, then you may want to look at following a hormone-friendly diet, to get your hormones back in balance. You have more control over your hormones than you probably realize. You don’t necessarily need a prescription to fix your hormones. One way to do this is through your diet, a hormone balancing one. Here are a few hormones you can target through diet. The Leptin Hormone Leptin is one of the hormones produced by fat cells in the body. If your body has excess fat, you are more likely to develop leptin resistance. When this happens, your body doesn’t know when you’ve had enough to eat. Consequently, your body will think it’s starving, when in reality, it isn’t. What follows is a sluggish metabolism, and more weight gain. Leptin is your anti-obesity hormone, so if you can keep it within normal levels and functioning at its best, you will find managing your weight easier too. Your Leptin Diet Fix One way to increase leptin sensitivity is to go gluten-free. Gluten is known to permeate through the intestinal walls, thereby affecting leptin sensitivity. Stay away from wheat, rye, and barley. Any foods that contain some amount of gluten should be avoided. Any food that contains sugar should be eliminated. A no-sugar diet helps reverse leptin resistance. Loading up on foods that are great sources of probiotics and prebiotics is also important. A leptin-friendly diet should also be coupled with exercise. The Ghrelin Hormone Sometimes referred to as the ‘hunger hormone,’ it sends signals to the brain telling you to eat. Ghrelin levels in the body typically increase just before a meal, or when you haven’t eaten for an extended period of time. Then its levels go down soon after eating. This hormone increases your appetite and in turn, makes you prone to seeking high-calorie foods. If your ghrelin levels are too high, you are more likely to feel hungry more often and find yourself eating when you don’t really need to. Your Ghrelin Diet Fix One of the best ways to lower the levels of ghrelin is to consume more protein. Protein promotes feelings of satiety and lets you feel full for a longer period of time. When you consume high-quality protein foods, your ghrelin levels will reduce. Your cravings will also reduce, and it will be easier for you to resist sugary foods. Eggs, fish, oysters, and organic meats are examples of foods that are really satiating. Their protein helps promote feelings of fullness. Hormone Insulin The main role of insulin is to pull extra glucose from your blood. It is one of the key players in your body’s metabolism. It regulates how the body uses and stores glucose and fats for energy. Over-consuming sugary foods will result in them being stored as fat. These fats will lead to excess pounds. If a sugar habit continues for a long period of time, there is a risk of becoming insulin resistant. For as long as your pancreas produces insulin, and its levels are kept within a normal range, you will not be at risk of developing high or low blood sugar levels. Your Insulin Diet Fix Following a Mediterranean diet has been proven to improve insulin sensitivity. This diet emphasizes the consumption of whole, clean, unprocessed foods. When you eat more whole, high-fiber, and organic foods, it will be easier for you to manage your blood glucose levels. Eat more fruits and vegetables that are high in fiber, but watch for plant-based foods that have a high glycemic index, or those that may cause a spike in your blood sugar levels. Foods that are good sources of high-quality protein and omega 3 fatty acids are also beneficial for overcoming insulin resistance. Insulin resistance increases your risk of becoming diabetic. Avoid alcohol, fried foods, and sugar in all its forms. Aside from sugar and refined flour, meat from factory-farmed animals can also be a hormone wrecker. Meat from these animals can contain hormones such as estradiol, zeranol, and trenbolone acetate - just to name a few. The same is true of dairy products that come from these animals. They may have growth hormones that cause damage to a person’s immunological, endocrine and neurobiological health. Whenever possible, always opt for meat from farm-raised, grass-fed animals. Once you have your hormone diet in place, watch the results. You will no doubt experience positive ones, that will encourage you to make this an ongoing lifestyle choice.

Conclusion

You may be doing everything right in order to lose weight. You’re following all the rules hoping that in due time you will achieve your desired weight loss goal. However, no matter what you do, the stubborn fat just won’t leave your body. Despite all your efforts, you try to remain positive and continue to fight what appears to be a losing battle. At some point, you may feel frustrated and with due cause! Well, don’t despair. You may be doing everything right, but your hormones could be the culprit, as your hormones can greatly affect the results of your weight loss efforts. Almost anyone who has a problem with weight is possibly, and probably, battling with a hormonal imbalance. Bringing your hormones back into balance is a great start to helping you reach your goals. Read the full article

0 notes