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Your hormones impact so many things—from your mood and energy levels to your weight.
Your hormones fluctuate monthly but also throughout the course of your life as you go from puberty to adulthood and then into menopause. Hormones can become imbalanced due to a variety of factors, including perimenopause, menopause, or lifestyle choices.
When you are deficient or dominant in any one hormone, it’s easier to gain weight. This is particularly true for women who are experiencing hormonal imbalances caused by the natural aging process.
If you’re someone struggling with weight loss, you might benefit from understanding your hormone levels and trying these natural ways to balance your hormones.
Understand Your Estrogen Levels
Estrogen is the hormone responsible for the development of female sexual characteristics (breasts and hips). There’s an interesting connection between estrogen and weight gain in menopause.
During menopause, levels of all your hormones tend to decrease, including estrogen and progesterone.
Your doctor may have told you that your estrogen levels are plummeting, which is why it’s confusing to hear that estrogen dominance can cause weight gain in menopause.
While estrogen levels decrease during menopause, if your progesterone levels are decreasing more than your estrogen, you can still have estrogen dominance.
Estrogen dominance is really about the ratio of estrogen to progesterone—if you have too much estrogen compared to your progesterone (no matter how little it is) you can gain weight and store more fat around your middle.
The typical thought process is that menopause is an estrogen deficiency disease.
Basically, your ovaries stop producing it, which is true. But if you’ve been on any hormone replacement or if you have lifestyle habits that expose you to environmental estrogens, then no surprise—you could have estrogen dominance.
Exposure to environmental estrogens, which are estrogen-like chemicals in our environment, can cause issues.
Some of these are things we ingest, like pesticides, hormones in animal products, and plastics—all known as “endocrine disruptors.”
How to balance estrogen for weight loss:
To avoid estrogen dominance, you want to keep a fine balance between your progesterone and estrogen.
Integrative Medicine Doctor Sara Gottfried, M.D., recommends eating a pound of veggies per day, as she states the fiber will help remove any excess estrogen from the body.
Gottfried also recommends that women should aim for 35 to 45 grams of fiber intake per day, increasing their amount slowly so as not to cause stomach upset.
You can also naturally balance estrogen dominance by:
- Reducing your red meat intake
- Eliminating excess sugar or processed foods
- Exercising daily to promote detoxification
Understand Your Cortisol Levels
Cortisol regulates your body’s response to stressful situations.
Unfortunately, we are so inundated with a constant stream of modern stressors, like the need to communicate across a variety of channels, that our bodies are creating a surplus amount of cortisol.
According to lead cardiovascular researchers at the University Medical Center in the Netherlands, having excess cortisol puts you at increased risk of heart disease, and it also causes you to store visceral fat around your internal organs, which often appears as excess belly fat.
Related: 5 Ways To Increase Your Metabolism After 50
How to balance cortisol for weight loss:
Simply put, you need to reset your body’s response to stress.
Gottfried recommends slowly weaning yourself off excessive caffeine or switching from coffee to tea. If tea isn’t your favorite choice. You can also do other things to lower your cortisol levels, such as practicing mindfulness.
This idea may seem vague, but it’s really straightforward: slow down, breathe, and pay attention to what you’re doing.
So often, we get distracted and rush from thing to thing, and this task-switching can significantly raise stress levels.
Instead, try paying attention to one task at a time.
Other ways you can naturally lower your cortisol levels include:
- Meditation
- Taking a magnesium supplement or B vitamin
- Consistently get better, longer sleep
Understand Your Leptin Levels
Leptin is produced by the body’s fat cells, and its primary function is to tell a part of our brain (the hypothalamus) that we’re satiated or full.
Our modern diet is saturated with a type of sugar called fructose, found in many processed foods (everything from pasta sauce to salad dressings).
When too much fructose floods your body, your body stores it as fat. This leads to an excess of leptin; when one has too much leptin, it’s possible to become leptin resistant, meaning your body no longer can tell if you’re full or not—and you keep eating and gaining weight.
PS – do not get this confused with the naturally occurring fructose in sugar.
Natural sugar combined with fiber is used differently in the bloodstream and is generally not a problem. Fruit can (and should) remain part of a healthy diet.
How to balance leptin for weight loss:
A huge component to balancing your leptin levels is getting enough sleep. When you don’t get enough sleep, your leptin levels are lower, and you don’t feel as satisfied after you eat. Harvard studies show that sleep deprivation reduces leptin levels and actually increases your body’s desire for fatty or carbohydrate-rich foods.
If you suspect a leptin imbalance is to blame for your weight gain, make sleep a priority each and every night—we should all be prioritizing sleep anyway for its myriad of health benefits.
But if weight loss is the kick in the pants, you need to start catching more zzz’s, then let that be your motivation.
Other ways to balance your leptin levels include:
- Take an Omega 3 supplement or eat more Omega 3 rich foods such as fatty fish, grass-fed meats, and chia seeds
- Decreasing your fructose intake by eating little to no added sugar
- Exercising regularly
Understanding Your Insulin Levels
Insulin is a hormone created by your pancreas which helps regulate glucose, or blood sugar, in your body. If you’re overweight or storing too much visceral fat around your organs, your body’s glucose regulator (insulin) gets thrown off balance, and you may have a harder time losing weight.
In addition, if you tend to eat sugary foods throughout the day, you keep your insulin working overtime, trying to clear the sugar from your blood.
Insulin stores extra sugar as fat.
How to balance insulin for weight loss:
One small step you can take is to start the day by drinking filtered water with two tablespoons of apple cider vinegar. This will help you regulate your blood sugar first thing in the morning.
If apple cider vinegar sounds too harsh for you, ease into it or at least drink 16 oz of water every morning before you eat or drink anything else.
This acts as a natural body flush. (I like to add lemon to my water for added health benefits.)
Other ways to naturally balance your insulin levels include:
- Getting enough protein with every meal
- Eating smaller, healthy meals more often
- Eating low-glycemic carbs (fruits, beans, non-starchy veggies)
- Eliminating added sugars from your diet
Hormone Balancing Summary
The bottom line is this: if you’ve been struggling to lose weight but can’t figure out what you’re doing wrong, your hormones may be to blame.
You can ask your doctor, nutritionist, or chiropractor to test your hormones, as well as use the above information to try different techniques to bring suspected problem hormones back into balance.
It’s your body, and you should know everything you can to not only lose weight but feel happy, healthy, and whole.
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Hi Ann, I feel the same way as you. You sumned up everything I wanted to say. Have you gotten any help with this issue? What have you done that helps?
I am also having the same problem I tried every thing I could please somebody help
Everything that everyone has said in their comments with their stories applies to me as well anything that anybody can give us any answers it would be appreciated I’m in the same boat.
Hi ladies,
made me sad to read your stories. Personally, i know how soul destroying it feels to have worked out all your life, been fairly happy with size to then hit the 50 and see the pounds pile on. Not only that, that mental feeling of just not feeling right.
All i can say is find a really good Homeopath, there are some excellent remedies out there that can quite literally lift your spirit and help you get your mojo back. I am currently taking a few liquids and b vitamins together with Apple Vinegar in water and can truly say feeling 21 again. Back at the gym daily and mentally feeling able to bring my body to its former self. Fibroids and estrogen seem to be the biggest factors for most of us. The 50’s are meant to be our years – take control back – you deserve it xxx
Good for you – you go girl xx
What is going on with all of us???? All of these stories sound like me!! I’m 57 and started menopause in my early 50s. I too have the weight gain in my breasts and belly that I cant get rid of and I’m doing everything right! Im on thyroid medication niw and estradiol patches and progesterone cream. In spite of 40 minutes of cardio 5 days a week, 3 days of strength training with a trainer and a strictly-adhered-to 1300 calorie plant based no sugar diet, i continue to watch my weight rise by a pound every month. Depressing. Yes…i was once 106 lbs at 5’3″ with a 25 inch waist and a petite b cup size. My waist is now 28″, and I’m wearing a DD. Yuk. I hate the way I look. I dont mind getting older but I dont want to get fatter!! Ladies. You’re not alone!
I recently came off the pill after basically not having a period for 16 years. Have gained 15lbs and cannot get them off – I have dieted, cleansed, and fasted! Its just not coming off! All the weight is in my arms and belly, its extremely stressful and disheartening to think what I could look like in ten years – don’t even have kids yet. I am 30 and exercise daily – working with a dietician to get testing and see what I can do!
Its not fun anymore!! why dont some women gain any weight and I gain weight monthly? seems as if nothing works. workout, eat, no eat, sleep, no sleep, water, coffee, no coffee. I am 56 and struggle last 10years since menopause started with hot flushes to no extend. on activelle, it helps for the hot flushes, but causes weight gain. can not live with hot flushes that makes me feel like hell on earth. can someone please give advise that works
Hello – sorry to hear about your struggle. Menopause can really be a doozy for many women! Definitely read this article and also check out another one about dealing with the most common menopause symptoms: https://gethealthyu.com/10-ways-deal-menopause-symptoms/ & https://gethealthyu.com/how-to-prevent-menopausal-weight-gain/. If you’re symptoms continue to be severe, it may be worth talking with your doctor!
I have also been through the exact same as all of you. My primary was an endocrinologist and found nothing wrong with my hormone levels. Told me to work out more and continue to eat healthy. So then my gynecologist said I had PCOS and prescribed metformin, birth control (low low estrogen fe), and Zoloft. I was still having issues and unable to lose weight. I sought a new doctor when I moved to Florida. They ran another blood panel and found that while my T3 and T4, and free T3 and free T4 levels fell within in the normal range, they were a little higher and there is a certain range that she likes to see women in. My free T3 were high. Then, a testosterone test was done. I had no idea that women naturally produce more testosterone than estrogen, and my testosterone levels were so low that the numbers did not even register on the test! The doctor took me off of birth control completely and put me on progesterone as that was also low, and I am also taking thyroid. Also, I now take weekly doses of testosterone. Because of the increase in testosterone, I was able to be weaned off of Zoloft, my energy levels have significantly increased so much that I don’t need coffee or caffeinated products anymore. I also take an omega-3 and Vitamin D (5,000 IUD and 10,000 IUD each, every other day). I also take Magnesium Malate or Magnesium Chloride, 1,000 mg per day, as well as MSM powder and Collogen powder. Ladies, for the first time in 10 years, I was able to do back to back days at Busch Gardens and Adventure Island. I rode all of the rides at both parks. Do not accept feeling poor. Seek out a medical expert who specializes in hormone care. My primary was an endocrinologist and even he had nothing to offer me. Hang in there and don’t give up!
Any of you, that posted this past summer, have an update on weight loss after being on hormones or supplements? Feeling better is one thing, but continued weight gain or no weight loss is very frustrating.
Julie? Hilary?
Thanks