Hormones have EVERYTHING to do with fat loss regardless of your age or gender! Most people seeking weight loss don’t know how or why to balance their hormones. In this episode we talk about how hormones and fat loss are linked, what you can do to balance your hormones through diet and exercise, and how your current eating habits might be causing hormonal chaos in your body.
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The Challenge: Most people seeking weight loss don’t know why or how to balance their hormones. They don’t understand the importance of hormones in the fat loss/weight loss game. Yet their symptoms point to massive hormonal imbalance. Seriously – do you have low energy? How about chronic stress? Are you hungry often? Do you struggle with cravings? How about irritability or mood swings? Trouble focusing? Weight gain or trouble losing weight? Trouble sleeping? Fatigue? Joint pain? What about depression and anxiety? Low sex drive? Infertility? Menstrual irregularities or hot flashes? Every single one of these is a symptom of hormonal imbalance and without hormonal balance you are fighting an uphill battle towards your weight loss goals.
The Solution: You can (and should!!!) balance your hormones with the foods you eat, the type of exercise you do and how much and how well you sleep. Seriously! A few simple tweaks can have a ripple effect that trigger weight loss, increased energy, improved mood, focus and much more! Once you get your hormones in balance it will feel like a whole new life! We have an amazing capacity to improve our hormonal balance through our diet and lifestyle.
Here’s the truth for you – Your hormones dictate your ability to lose fat. When you balance your hormones, everything else falls into place.
So what exactly are hormones? They’re chemical messengers in the body and they initiate communication within your body. Your hormones influence your thoughts, feelings, behavior, metabolism, libido, energy, immunity, inflammation, appetite – pretty much everything! These little signaling molecules tell your body how it needs to respond to what is happening both inside and outside the body. When our hormones are balanced we experience reduced inflammation, increased energy, decreased hunger and cravings, weight loss – especially that super stubborn belly fat – improved mood, better sleep and natural detoxification.
One common question people often ask when they start to understand the huge role of hormones on weight loss is, “so do calories really matter?” The answer is yes, calories do matter, but hormones matter just as much if not even a little bit more. Think about it for a second – have you ever cut calories and not lost weight? Or ate a ton of calories and not gained weight? Have you ever felt like you were doing everything right but not seeing results? Why? Hormones. In order to lose fat you need two things:
- A caloric deficit – you need to consume fewer calories than what your body needs to operate – this is the only way your body will allow your stored fat to be broken down to burned for energy.
- Hormonal balance – if you have a calorie deficit WITHOUT hormonal balance you’ll either burn MUSCLE instead of fat OR your body will fight any type of weight loss and respond by slowing your metabolism and you won’t lose any weight at all. Your hormones are what determine whether or not your body will burn fat, store fat, burn muscle or build muscle.
If we just focus on #1 – the calorie deficit crash dieting model – we create hormonal chaos. Our body responds by increasing hunger and cravings, slowing the metabolism, increasing the production of stress hormones, decreasing the production of thyroid and sex hormones – all this can result in depression, anxiety, and an impaired immune response. This approach is NOT sustainable and will not serve you in the long term!
We have to strive first towards hormonal balance. And here’s the great thing! When we balance our hormones, we naturally experience less hunger and fewer cravings so the caloric deficit we need happens naturally! You don’t even have to hardly focus on it!
The other awesome thing about our hormones is that they all impact each other – when we improve one, it has a ripple effect that helps bring the others in the line. On the flip side, when one is out of balance, it throws the others off kilter as well. It’s important to realize that there is a hierarchy here. There are some hormones that have a greater impact on weight loss and metabolism than others so if we focus first on nutritional strategies to improve the big dogs, we’ll have an exponential effect on improving the others with far less effort. It goes back to the 80/20 rule I love to talk about – just a mere 20% of our effortswill produce 80% of our results – we take advantage of this by focusing first on the most impactful hormones for fat loss. In this case, we’re talking about The big 3: insulin, cortisol and leptin. We’ll talk about some of the others – ghrelin, glucagon, thyroid and sex hormones in later episodes.
Insulin determines whether we’re in fat burning mode or fat storing mode. Carbohydrates control insulin and insulin controls fat loss. When we chronically consume carbs, we exhaust our short term storage and the excess is converted to and stored as body fat. Elevated insulin keeps us in fat storage mode, triggers cycles of hunger & cravings and reduces our sense of satiety. We can manage our insulin release by getting smart about our carb consumption.
Leptin is our satiety hormone. Its primary job is to regulate your appetite. Think about it as a fuel gauge for your body. It tells the body how much fat there is in reserve and what to do with it. Ideally, leptin should be the hormone that keeps you thin – as you put on a little more fat, your fat cells produce leptin and your body gets the message “ok, enough fuel in reserve, down regulate appetite, we’re good here.” When you have less fat in reserve, there is less leptin production and you don’t have that satiety trigger so you eat more, reserve more fat, and then produce more leptin to down regulate appetite.
Sounds perfect, so what the heck goes wrong? Our high carobhydate diet screws all this up! You see, our fat cells release leptin in response to high blood sugar and high insulin. So when we’re eating carbs at every meal and constantly elevating our blood sugar, our fat cells are constantly secreting leptin. What happens? Our body becomes immune (or insensitive) to the message. It’s like when you blast loud music for so long that it doesn’t seem loud anymore…you’re resistant. Our body becomes resistant to the message of leptin and we never feel satisfied. Our appetite is insatiable. So, we keep eating and eating and eating. We get sucked into a cycle that we can’t get out of. Eat carb rich meals. Secrete insulin and triggers fat storage. More fat, more leptin. More leptin, the less sensitive we are to its message, we don’t hear the satiety signals, our appetite is out of control, so we eat more! Ahh! What a nightmare!! But we can change all of this…
Ok, there is one more hormone I want to talk about today before we get into practical implementation. It is cortisol, one of our stress hormones. It is released in response to physical, emotional or mental stress. Here’s how it relates to our weight loss – elevated cortisol levels tell the body that there’s imminent danger – the body responds by PREVENTING fat burning – turning off all fat burning machinery – because it wants to reserve all fuel in case of an emergency. Your body is programmed to survive. If it perceives a threat(such as elevated cortisol), it will conserve all energy and stop non-esssential processes. This means holding on to stored body fat and not letting it be used for energy.
Practical Implementation: The strategies discussed in this episode include
- Eating to balance blood sugar and manage insulin via
- The right carbs
- At the right time
- In the right amounts
- Paired with the right foods
- Staying out of the carbohydrate cycle to manage both insulin and leptin
- Specific diet and lifestyle techniques to manage our response to stress and control our body’s release of the stress hormone cortisol
Resources:
Episode 007: Why You Should Eat Carbs at Night
Episode 009: Carbohydrate Spillover – Why Your Carbs Are Making You Fat
Dietary & lifestyle strategies for hormonal balance and fat loss – The ebook
Hi! When you talk about eating carbs with sources like fat and protein specifically what types. Can you give some examples of what is best to eat in the morning? Thanks
Absolutely! Sources of protein include eggs/beef/fish/chicken/game meats/pork, etc. Fat can include avocado, eggs, fatty meats like bacon, MCT oil, coconut, extra virgin olive oil, butter, nuts. Here’s an episode specifically on breakfast where I give lots of concrete breakfast options as well as recipes: http://primalpotential.com/healthy-breakfast-recipes/
I hope that helps!
If I understand correctly-you suggest only 4oz of carbs at lunch and dinner (for calorie fat burning). So what if you have a salad for lunch, do you limit it to only 4 oz in addition to your healthy fat/protein, and then no fruit? Then for dinner protein/fat and only 4 oz of a good choice carbohydrate and/or a 1/2 sweet potato/potato/carrots/peas/corn etc, in addition to that and then no fruit? (this with no exercise)
Are you saying 4oz is just a starting point? I’m working on the correct portions and currently 4 oz seems like I’m starving myself. I was on a professional diet program that allowed that exact amount 2x a day about 8 years ago! Lost weight but was always hungry and regained in about 6 months.
Right now I’m am working on my own optimal fat burning diet and am tweaking at a slow pace.
Cindy, First and foremost – it’s not about the measurement. yes, that is a starting point but as I try to emphasize in every single episode, you have to listen to your body. Fruit is a carbohydrate so if fruit is your carb choice, that’s cool. If sweet potato is your carb choice, that’s cool too. You have to listen to YOUR body. Personally, I experience less hunger and fewer cravings with less than 1/2 cup of carbs and eating more fat and protein. That is must my body, though I have many clients who have found the same thing. Check out Q&A 2 on carb tolerance – everyone will metabolize carbs differently and your hormonal biofeedback provides all the answers you need (along with your progress towards your fat loss goal). However, if you’re “starving”, I’d suggest looking to increase fat, protein and fiber first as those will help with satiety far more than carbohydrates in most people. Instead of measuring portions, I’d encourage you to listen to your body. You can start with whatever portions you like but from there monitor: your fat loss progress, your quality of sleep, your hunger, energy and cravings. If you are hungry, that is a sign of hormonal imbalance so you want to change something. I’d love to provide more specific info but it’s tough without knowing how much and what types of fat, protein and fiber you’re having at each meal. Hormonal balance for fat loss looks like this: infrequent hunger, minimal cravings, stable energy, quality sleep + moderate fat loss progress. You might consider checking out the fat loss lifestyle consultation under the “work with me” tab if you want some specific guidance. I def don’t want you to be hungry! For sure!!! I don’t beleive in measuring food, counting calories, etc but rather using your body as your most important feedback tool.
Did you say high insulin suppresses feeling fullness? I thought that was the opposite?
High levels of insulin isn’t a good thing so we won’t feel full, we will feel hungry. Hope that clarifies.
Thanks what kind of meals then would you recommend in morning – pre workout? I find eggs extremley boring so limited with carb choices
thanks
Hi Sharon! I personally don’t eat before my workouts but if you’re going to, it really depends on how hungry you are. I’ve talked about breakfast options in episode Q&A 6, 115 and 290. Any of those would work. You don’t want a ton of food in your stomach during a workout, but you can make a small meal from any of those ideas or even have a few bites. If I’m feeling really hungry before an AM workout I might keep it simple with a handful of nuts.
You might consider deleting this episode. I’m not even 10 minutes in and already you mentioned caloric deficit for fat loss and risk for burning muscle?? Things we now know aren’t true at all. Thanks.
This is such an interesting comment and I’m grateful you gave me the opportunity to clear up this confusion. First, I don’t see a need to consider deleting the episode, but I’m grateful for the suggestion. It’s certainly not easy to have someone listen to a fraction of your work and takeaway a summary that actually doesn’t reflect your perspective and then publically suggest you delete it. But: the great thing is that you gave me an opportunity to respond! Thank you so much for that! I actually DON’T subscribe to the calorie deficit model of fat loss, and I explain that in detail in episodes such as 062 and 329. However, calories DO matter. You cannot give your body more fuel than it needs AND burn fat. Calories are a consideration, but hormones are king. I think I make that point in this episode if you care to listen. Also, muscle loss is real, though not the first approach taken by the body and easy to avoid. I’ve recorded a voice note for you with my thoughts, because I believe that oral communication is often more clear than typing. I’ve emailed it to you and will share it here, so folks who also see this comment can benefit from my perspective on it. I wish you nothing but the best! https://primalpotential.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Elizabeth-82718.m4a
Hi Elizabeth!
I loved listening to this episode!
I just had a question when you said about a half cup of carbs if you meant for both lunch and dinner or for the day’s total? Also, do you have a page with sample meal ideas? Thanks!
I don’t do sample meal plans because I want to help people figure out what foods THEY love that love them back and meal plans are a dime a dozen on the internet. When I refer to the Golden Rules, I’m talking about starch at dinner, not lunch and dinner, but I always lead with doing what is an improvement for YOU and makes YOU feel your best. Hope that helps!