Weight loss and the Importance of Hormones
Did you know that at this present moment, over 108 million American adults are dieting? Of these 108 million, 90-95% of them will regain back any weight lost within one to five years. That means of 108 million dieters, over 102 million will fail at maintaining their weight loss goals. There are many reasons for this, one which we have talked about many times – trying to do it on their own. Weight loss is not a quick short term goal, it needs to be maintained and most people lack the motivation that they need to maintain their weight loss goals. This is why so many people are now hiring personal trainers! But aside from that, there is one other factor that is preventing people from maintaining their weight loss goals. What is it? Their sheer focus on counting calories.
What do we mean by this? When people are trying to lose weight, their main focus is on counting every calorie. And don’t get us wrong, if you want to lose weight, you will definitely need to watch what you eat. But in focusing so much on calories, a lot of people miss another important aspect of weight loss – hormones.
Hormones are crucial for any weight loss goal. If they are unbalanced, or if you have any heightened or lowered elevation of hormones, it can be virtually impossible to lose weight.
What are hormones?
Hormones play a large role in almost anything we do – how we think, how we act, and how our bodies develop. You can think of them as small control units that constantly send communication to different areas of our body. And all is fine and dandy when our hormones are working properly, but through an endocrine disruptor into the mix and, well, everything changes. Without making things too complicated, endocrine disruptors are chemicals that affect the natural cycle of our hormones. In other words, they cause hormone imbalances. And when we experience hormone imbalances, a lot of things can go awry – we can be moody, we can feel constantly fatigued, and we can, yes, gain weight.
There are 6 main hormones that can affect our weight:
– Ghrelin and Leptin (the hunger hormones)
– Cortisol/Estrogen/Thyroid hormones
– Insulin
For now, that’s all you need to know (we will tell you more about each of these hormones in more detail later). So what can you do to get your hormones under control?
1) Monitor your portion sizes and calories – Calories and hormones are intertwined. If you aren’t intaking enough calories, your hormones will be thrown out of balance. But if you take in too many calories, you will inevitably gain weight. So the goal here is to maintain your macros profile that we have talked about so many times before.
2) Drink plenty of water
3) Get your beauty rest.
That’s all we are going to say for now. You now know the basics of what hormones are and how they can affect your body. Stay tuned and we will delve deeper into the world of Each hormone, and give you more tips on how to get your hormones to work for you not against you.
In Health
No Excuse Fitness
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