Essential Hormones Influencing Your Weight and Health and Effective Ways to Optimize Them Naturally
Hormones are chemical messengers carried through your blood that control every physiological process in your body.
An accurate hormonal balance is a crucial factor in precise body functionality and strongly influence your weight and health status.
Therefore is with key importance to know which hormones affect your weight and how to control them naturally and effectively by simple lifestyle changes and adjustments.
Fat metabolism in both women and men is directly dependent on their hormonal balance.
Still, hormones influence and control the composition of the fat tissues all over the body.
Several hormones affect your weight and stimulate unhealthy extra fat accumulation( especially in the abdomen) and optimising them would bring you great health and weight benefits.
Insulin
Insulin is a hormone produced from your pancreas that plays several roles in the body’s metabolism.
The pancreas secretes insulin in small amounts during the day but in higher amounts after the meals.
Often overeating and consistent consumption of sugary foods, refined carbohydrates, and fast food force the pancreas to produce more insulin, which is the leading cause of insulin resistance(Source).
Insulin is the primary fat storage hormone in your body because it controls how your cells take in blood sugar and how sugars are utilized from the body-for energy or transformed and stored as body fat.
This hormone, if you do not take care to keep it in healthy norms, makes fat cells to store more fat, and it prevents fat from being broken down, which would prevent you if you aim to lose weight.
When cells are insulin resistant, the glucose is accumulating in the blood, and both blood sugar and insulin levels go up significantly.
Chronically high insulin levels (called hyperinsulinemia) may cause many health complications, including obesity and metabolic syndrome (Source).
Here are some tips for normalizing insulin levels and improving insulin sensitivity:
- Reduce or avoid sugar: High quantities of fructose and sucrose in your diet are the leading causes of occurring of insulin resistance and increase insulin levels (Source).
- Reduce carbs intake: A low-carb diet will lead to an immediate drop in insulin levels (Source).
- Include more protein: Protein indeed increases insulin levels but in the short-term. However, in the long-term, it can reduce insulin resistance by improving your metabolism, provokes the release of the fullness hormone PYY, and helping you lose belly fat (Source).
- Include plenty of healthy fats: The healthy fats in fatty fish like omega-three and monounsaturated fats like coconut oil, extra-virgin olive oil, almonds, avocados, will help with reducing inflammation and can help lower fasting insulin levels (Source).
- Get supplementary magnesium: Research shows that that magnesium supplements can improve insulin sensitivity because Insulin resistant people are often low in magnesium (Source).
- Regular exercise: One study reveals that overweight women who performed regularly brisk walking or jogging had better insulin sensitivity after 14 weeks of cardio training (Source).
Leptin
Leptin is considered a “satiety hormone” that is produced by your fat cells, and its leading role is to send signals to the hypothalamus– which is the part of your brain that regulates appetite and food consumption.
It’s a hormone that controls hunger and may reduce your appetite, making you feel full.
Leptin can signal the brain that the body has enough stored fat, and there is no more needed. And that mechanism protects you from overeating.
Overweight or obese people are with higher levels of this hormone in their blood, and there is a study showing it. The study illustrates that leptin levels in obese people are four times higher than in people of healthy weight (Source).
But, if leptin decreases appetite, then obese people with high levels of leptin should be eating less at all and, therefore, to drop pounds.
However, this is not happening due to developed leptin resistance in obese people, where the leptin system doesn’t work as it should.
Thus when leptin signals are impaired, the message to quit eating doesn’t get through to the brain.
So the brain doesn’t understand that you have enough stored energy as body fat, which drives you to eat more and more(Source).
On the other hand, leptin levels are diminished when you start losing weight.
It is the leading cause of why maintaining weight loss to be so hard in the long-term. Your brain thinks you are starving and forces you to eat more (Source).
Two potential reasons that may lead to developing leptin resistance are the chronically raised insulin levels as well as inflammation of the hypothalamus (Source).
Here are several options on how to improve leptin sensitivity:
- Limit any inflammatory foods: Limit foods that cause inflammation, those like rich in trans fats foods, but also any sugary foods and drinks.
- Eat more anti-inflammatory foods: Eat more anti-inflammatory foods, such as fatty fish, olive oil, green leafy vegetables, and nuts like almonds and walnuts.
- Exercise regularly: Moderate activity can help you to better leptin sensitivity (Source).
- Get enough sleep: Studies indicate that poor quality sleep leads to a drop in leptin levels and increased appetite (Source).
- Use the proper supplements: In a study, where women on a weight-loss diet who took alpha-lipoic acid and fish oil have lost more weight and have had a smaller decrease in leptin levels compared to those in a control group.
Ghrelin
Ghrelin is well known as the “hunger hormone.”
When you are hungry for food because your stomach is empty, it starts to releases ghrelin, which sends a signal to the hypothalamus prompting you to eat (Source).
Typically, the ghrelin levels are higher before a meal and lowest about an hour after you’ve eaten.
However, in overweight and obese people, the ghrelin levels are often lower compares to people of healthy weight ( Source).
Researches have also shown that after obese people have a meal, ghrelin decreases only lightly. Due that the hypothalamus doesn’t receive as strong a signal to stop eating, but this eventually may lead to overeating.
Here are two tips to better the function of ghrelin:
- Attention with the sugar: Avoid any kinds of high-fructose corn syrup and sugar-sweetened drinks, because they can impair how ghrelin response after meals forcing you to eat more (Source).
- Eating protein at every meal: Include protein foods in every meal, especially in breakfast, will help you to reduce ghrelin levels and promote satiety (Source).
Therefore it is good always when you are hungry to have healthy rich in proteins snacks at hand.
Thus will supply your body the required protein, but also it will suppress reasonably and healthily your hunger.
The Built Bar is an excellent choice, and you can bring it with you everywhere.
Cortisol
Cortisol is well known in medical communities as a “stress hormone” because it’s released when you feel stressed or scared.
It is produced and secreted by the adrenal glands, and it plays a significant role in survival in critical situations.
However, the studies show that chronically raised levels of cortisol can cause overeating and weight gain (Source).
Moreover, women who carry extra weight around the waist respond to stress, so their cortisol levels increase more compared to other people.
It is a hidden cause for more belly fat accumulation,therefore, finding means for dealing with chronically elevated cortisol levels would help you with that(Source).
However, a stringent diet can also raise cortisol because of the stress over the body.
In a study, where women who are at low-calorie diets had higher cortisol levels describing feeling more stressed than women who at a regular diet (Source).
You can reduce cortisol levels with these strategies :
- Balance your diet: Try to follow a balanced, real, and organic food-based diet and, at the same time, don't cut calories to deficient levels. It can have the opposite effect of what you are looking for.
- Try regularly to meditate: Regular meditation will help you to reduce your cortisol levels significantly (Source).
- Sleep more: One study reveals that when pilots lost 15 hours of sleep for a week, their cortisol levels have risen by 50-80% (Source).
- Listen to music to relax: Scientists report that playing calming music in people throughout medical procedures causes less cortisol rises compared to if it is without music (Source).
- Efficient natural supplements
There are naturally balanced and effective supplements that can help you to reduce your daily stress and to manage your cortisol levels successfully.
That can provide you more mental calmness, physical relaxation, more satisfying sleep quality and will help you to relieve worry and nervousness due to fewer cortisol levels in your blood.
ProVanax is a palette of the best herbs and vitamins, which are naturally blended for promoting positive mood and emotional balance, and to improve your “brain chemicals” lowering your cortisol levels.
Estrogen and Weight
Along with hot flashes, infrequent menses, and irritability, in the menopausal shift, women need to deal with a trend to weight gain and visceral fat increasing that can harm their health in a long‐term.
Furthering, because of the lousy lifestyle such as unbalanced nutrition, smoking, overuse of alcohol, sedentary living, and increased stress levels, the body starts to release more cortisol, insulin, and estrogen.
The regular release of these hormones in the body, in consequence, boosts the process of synthesis of the fatty acids, leading to the growth of more belly fat.
Note:Estrogen starts to influence the women’s body at the onset of puberty and the menstrual cycle, appearing to be one of the two main female sex hormones. The ovaries, which are two glands located in the lower pelvis, are that mainly liable for the estrogen production. Still, fatty tissue, along with adrenal glands, also make estrogen in small amounts.
It has numerous other vital functions, as well, including:
- In blood cholesterol levels control
- Supports bone health
- Protecting the brain
- Influence on mood
Secondly, the fat cells themselves also have an increased affinity to binding to estrogen, thus becoming the warehouses for this hormone.
Thirdly, the fat cells further produce estrogen too, and contribute and force that unhealthy process.
It’s a vicious circle in the body where increased levels of estrogen stimulate the accumulation of fat, and fat, in turn, helps for maintaining higher estrogen levels.
How can you get out of this loop?
The most reliable way to work on this is by accurate dietary control, more regular sports activities, stress management, and the proper supplementation.
How You Can Achieve Healthier Estrogen Levels for Better Weight Control
Maintaining a healthy weight, even if being related to an imbalance in estrogen, starts with the right eating habits.
A healthful diet to control weight means:
- Rely on whole grains, lean proteins along with healthy fats.
- Try to avoid processed foods
- Eating high amounts of fruits and vegetables each day
- Drink a lot of water to stay hydrated permanently.
- Avoid beverages like soda, juice, and alcohol.
The level of your activity is also essential for managing estrogen-related weight gain. To perform regular cardio exercises, such as bicycling, jogging, swimming, or walking, is good.
It would be even better if you try to add strength training, which will help to build muscle and promote healthy bones.
Growth Hormone and Weight
The Growth Hormone(GH) is a crucial hormone that impacts all body functions. It is a significant factor for proper metabolism and overall health, and it usually starts to decrease progressively with age.
Why is GH important?
The growth hormone is a leading hormone(not accidentally called MUSTER hormone) that strongly influences processes such as:
- maintain blood sugar within a healthy range
- enhances the fat metabolism
- stimulates protein absorption and conversion in lean muscle mass.
However, over time and aging, this hormone decreases, which seems to be very decisive for how we are getting older. But also for our metabolism strength and the accumulation of extra pounds.
The aging process is accompanied by several critical age-related effects such as a decrease in lean body mass, an expansion in body fat(especially in the visceral/abdominal area), and a reduction in bone density.
That’s why with the aging, we lose muscles and adding more belly fat.
Although it seems like an inevitable process, we can influence it through healthy changes in our daily habits.
Easy Ways to Boost Your Growth Hormone (GH) Naturally
The truth is that they are secure and robust means for naturally boosting HGH(Human Growth Hormone), but unfortunately, they are hard to perform.
#1. Losing Belly Fat
The quantity of belly fat that you have depends on your GH production.
People with higher levels of belly fat will likely have reduced GH production and a more significant risk of diseases.
Losing belly fat will help optimise your growth hormone levels and other features of your health.
#2. Intermittent Fasting
Researches show that fasting leads to an increase in GH levels. Intermittent fasting can help optimise GH levels in two main ways.
First, it can help you drop down body fat, which will affect GH productionSecond, it’ll hold your insulin levels lower for most of the day.
On the other hand, insulin spikes can disrupt your natural growth hormone production.
#3. Improve Your Sleep Quality
Focus on improving your sleep quality and aim minimum for 7–10 hours of quality sleep per night.
The majority of GH is released when you sleep in pulses, based on your body’s internal timer or so-called circadian rhythm.
The most massive pulses happen before midnight, along with some shorter pulses in the early morning.
Managing your stress levels, and Getting a sufficient amount of deep quality sleep is one of the best approaches to enhance your long-term GH production.
#4. High-Intensity Workout
First of all, over the long term, exercise may help optimise your hormone function and reduce body fat, both of which will support your GH levels.
Exercise is one of the most effective means that significantly boosts your GH levels, but when performed with high intensity.
You can perform repeated interval training, weight lifting, or circuit workout to spike your HGH levels and maximise fat loss.
High-intensity interval training is the best form of exercise to keep high growth hormone levels.