Ask women anywhere, and they will probably tell you that the hardest thing to lose is the stubborn belly fat that sits around their waist and hips, especially the older they get. According to Dr. Sara Gottfried, “Being overweight often has nothing do with calories or exercise. For a huge number of us, the problem is misfiring hormones.” So what exactly does this mean? Although there is still a lack of major research and studies done to understand this concept completely, she goes on to explain why these hormones are seemingly affecting women’s weight, no matter how much they work out. While most are aware of how thyroid and insulin imbalances can both negatively impact women in their quest to lose weight, there are other “hidden” hormones that are hindering you from achieving the body you want. Here are a few ways that your hormones could possibly be causing you to gain unwanted and excess weight.
1. Eating Too Much Sugar
While it should be obvious why eating too much sugar would cause anyone to gain weight, there is actually a hormone called leptin that works to stop you from overeating. Your fat cells help by releasing leptin into your blood stream and into your brain, in order to signal that you’re full. But unfortunately, when we take in too much sugar in the form of fructose – which is found in processed foods and surprisingly, fruit – leptin has a harder time fulfilling its purpose.
Eating small amounts of fructose is to be expected, but it’s important to remain within the recommended servings of fruit, which is five per day. But unfortunately over the years, many fruits has been genetically altered and bred to actually be sweeter, which means fruit now contains more fructose than it did in the past. Processed food, on the other hand, especially those that have added sugars, are harder for the liver to convert into useable energy fast enough, forcing them to be converted into unwanted fats instead. They normally get passed into the bloodstream as triglycerides and eventually turn into unwanted fat in the liver as well as in the belly area.
So basically what happens is when your body has more fructose, more leptin is produced from the increased amount of fat. The problem is with any increase of hormones in the body, it ‘becomes resistant to its message.’ Simply explained, your brain is not getting the message that you’re already full, making you over eat and essentially, gain unwanted weight and excess belly fat.
2. You’re Overly Stressed
According to Dr. Gottfried, another reason for unwanted belly fat is due to being overly stressed. Being stressed is a normal reaction that everyone deals with due to a variety of issues, and it can have both positive and negative effects. But one of the negative aspects that occurs due to the hormone that produces stress, cortisol, is that when it rises, ‘it encourages the conversion of blood sugar into fat for long-term storage.’ Dr. Gottfried also shared some shocking data about another favorite daily intake that actually increases cortisol levels, which is coffee. Apparently drinking excessive amounts of coffee can also force the body to hoard what is known as visceral fat, lowering the chances of losing that unwanted belly. If you drink at least 5 cups of coffee a day or more, if you want to lose that extra belly fat, then cut back to only one or two cups per day.
3. High Estrogen Levels Are Expanding Your Fat Cells
Another hormone that Dr. Gottfried talks about is Estrogen, which is the hormone that is ‘responsible for making women uniquely women.’ But it can also be a problem when it comes to gaining unwanted fat when it’s not managed properly. Simply explained, eating makes a person’s blood sugar rise, which then causes the pancreas to release insulin in order to lower it, as well as sending it to ‘three different places in your body… it sends a small amount of glucose to your liver, a large amount to your muscles to use as fuel, and little to none for fat storage.’
As long as you are in good physical shape, then more often than not you also can rely on your pancreas and blood sugar being in normal range. But when your estrogen levels increase, the result is for insulin production to be strained, making you resistant to insulin and thus the levels of sugar in your bloodstream are heightened, which then stores the glucose in the body as fat. It may sound extreme, but a person’s fat tissue can enlarge ‘as much as four times to accommodate the storage of glucose,’ which is why the belly can grow quite big.
So how do you keep estrogen levels from rising unnecessarily? Most importantly, be mindful of your diet and the things that you allow inside your body. Meat, especially non-organic meat that has antibiotics and steroids in them, processed foods, sugar, sugar substitutes and other foods can cause higher than normal estrogen levels, so it’s important to be mindful of what you eat.
4. Your Metabolism Is Slowing Down Due To Low Testosterone Levels
Although testosterone is usually associated with males, women also need this hormone in order to maintain healthy muscles, bones, as well as help with the female sex drive. Women’s ovaries produce small but necessary levels of testosterone, whereas men produce at least 10 times that of women, with women really producing more estrogen. Dr. Gottfried also goes on to explain that the way the world works these days, women have to deal with much more toxins due to a number of reasons. From pesticides, genetically modified foods or food grown using GMOs, synthetic hormone treatments in meat and other foods, even the toxins that are found in prescription drugs, lipstick, and processed food, unfortunately these are all absorbed into the body.
Experts believe that this is also why they are seeing a shift in younger girls hitting puberty earlier than normal and getting their menses, as well as breast develop seen in much younger girls. This is all because these toxins found in the items listed above known as Xeno-estrogens, are causing a shift in the normal female’s body composition, and have even been ‘associated with an elevated risk of estrogen-driven diseases like breast and ovarian cancers and endometriosis.’
All of this “fake estrogen” ends up causing problems with the natural testosterone that is grown in the body, otherwise creating an estrogen overload which then ‘raises insulin insensitivity.’ All of these messes with a woman’s metabolism and causes them to gain belly fat. There has been a wide increase in the number of foods, products and other toxins that can be found on the market that interfere with a person’s normal hormone production and cause excess weight gain. This is also why there has been a huge growth towards organically grown and produced food all over the world in order to lessen the amount of unwanted toxins put inside the body.
The Bottom Line Is You Need To Deal With Your Hormone Imbalances
After understanding which hormones are causing your metabolism to break down and cause extra weight gain and belly fat, it is now easy to understand why being overweight isn’t because of your calorie intake, nor your lack of exercise in this case. Recognizing that it’s the female hormones that play a vital role in how your body processes and breaks down your food is the key to finally losing all that unwanted belly fat. Be sure to speak to your doctor about how to do a “hormone reset diet” by fixing your hormones in the first place. Once they are on the right track, your body will soon follow without too much of a struggle from you.
Recommended For You
