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What comes to your mind when you think of hormones?
Often, answering that question, many people will associate these chemical messengers with blood pressure, sexual reproduction, growth and development, moods, and more. One function that is often overlooked but strongly associated with is appetite and weight gain. There are certain hormones that are responsible for regulating your metabolism, that can make you feel hungry and cause rapid weight gain if they’re imbalanced.
Most of the time, if you’re gaining weight, it’s probably due to an imbalance of hormones. Hormonal imbalances can occur throughout your life when you’re stressed, undergoing menopause, taking medications, experiencing an injury, trauma, cancer treatments, and more.
It’s not uncommon to experience, but some of them can be managed with simple lifestyle changes. However, there are hormonal imbalances that need to be treated with hormonal medications, the most common and well-studied is hormone replacement therapy.
If you want to gain control of your weight, you should pay attention to the following hormones.
Estrogen
During menopause, your ovaries make less estrogen. Estrogen is an essential hormone required to help regulate glucose and lipids. When estrogen drops the following menopause, it causes your metabolic rate to decline and triggers your body to store fat, causing weight gain. This weight gain isn’t permanent and can slowly be managed with exercise and a healthy diet.
How to balance estrogen
Here are some methods you can implement to avoid weight gain in menopause. Some of which are the following:
- Consume more Vitamin D
- Eat phytoestrogen-rich food
- B vitamins
These are just a few natural ways to increase your estrogen levels. On the contrary, sometimes lifestyle changes might not always be enough to prevent weight gain. In these circumstances, it’s best to speak to a doctor who can prescribe your medical treatment like HRT, which can help restore your estrogen levels.
Human growth hormone
If you’re a woman and suffer from a growth hormone deficiency, you could gain weight. This can occur in young girls but can also happen to women at any time in their life. The typical symptoms of this are increased body fat around your abdomen and waist.
This mainly happens due to changes in your metabolism, one of which is insulin resistance. If not managed, it can worsen, making exercise more difficult due to less muscle strength.
How to balance GH
If you’re curious to know how to balance your GH levels, then you can try to make simple lifestyle changes such as:
- Getting a good sleep
- Regular exercise
- Eating lots of fiber
- Managing stress levels
- Add melatonin supplements to your diet
If you’ve implemented these changes and do not feel the effect, you should see a doctor. A doctor will be able to diagnose you through blood tests, x-rays, and MRIs to see if you have a growth hormone deficiency.
If tests confirm your diagnosis, you may be prescribed HGH injections, which can gradually help reduce symptoms associated with weight gain. You’re probably wondering when to expect HGH results month by month, trust me, you won’t regret it. Most patients feel first improvements within the first month of HGH treatment.
Cortisol
If you suffer from too much repeated long-term stress, your adrenal gland might produce too much cortisol. This hormone can stimulate excess energy, stimulating your metabolism to store carbohydrates and fat to be stored, triggering weight gain. It can also make you crave more salty, sweet, and fatty-based foods.
Excess cortisol can trigger cognitive decline, depression, sleep disorders, neuroticism, and more if you don’t make any changes.
How to balance cortisol
You can help manage your cortisol levels by doing the following:
- Getting frequent exercise
- Having sufficiency sleep
- Consuming less caffeine
- Breathing
If you’ve made adjustments and don’t notice many changes to your stress levels, it would be wise to see a doctor. A doctor can conduct tests for your cortisol levels through your saliva and blood and be able to prescribe you medications like ketoconazole, metyrapone, and mitotane to help restore them back to normal.
Insulin
From age 45 onwards, type 2 diabetes can become more common in women. When this happens, the cells in your body become resistant to insulin. If you don’t have enough insulin, your blood glucose level can’t be regulated, causing weight gain. Insulin resistance can be permanent, but it can be temporary too.
How to balance insulin
If you want to balance your insulin levels or prevent an imbalance, you can try the following:
- Have a low carb diet
- Consume less sugar
- Increase the amount of exercise you do
- Control your portion sizes
In addition to this, there are medical options you might want to implement to help you manage your insulin levels and reduce weight gain. Often a doctor will prescribe you medications to help insulin absorption.
Conclusion
Overall, weight gain can happen for a variety of reasons. However, to stop you from gaining, you’ll want to pay attention to your estrogen, human growth hormone, cortisol, and insulin levels. You can control these by simple lifestyle changes or seek medical advice with treatment.
