Want to reclaim your waist? Try resetting your hormones
What you need to know:
- Insulin. This is a hormone most people have heard of in relation to diabetes - but all healthy people secrete insulin after they’ve eaten a carbohydrate-rich meal.
- The job of insulin is to get the glucose from the meal you’ve eaten into your cells, where it is then burnt to give you energy.
- Insulin resistance occurs when your pancreas pumps out more and more, but your body stops listening.
When Mary, a 33-year-old mother of three, came to see me, her complaint was a permanent muffin top. Despite going through several weight loss regimes, the weight just wouldn’t go down. The reason? Two important hormones were out of balance in her body: Leptin and insulin.
Leptin is a hormone that your fat cells make and it tells your brain when you’ve had enough to eat – or at least it should. But if your leptin isn’t working well, you’ll experience feelings of intense hunger, insatiable cravings and overeating. What causes your body to become resistant to leptin? Eating too much sugar and having high blood triglycerides.
Next up, insulin. This is a hormone most people have heard of in relation to diabetes - but all healthy people secrete insulin after they’ve eaten a carbohydrate-rich meal. The job of insulin is to get the glucose from the meal you’ve eaten into your cells, where it is then burnt to give you energy. Insulin resistance occurs when your pancreas pumps out more and more, but your body stops listening. The result is a reduction in fat burning hormones, a rise in your appetite, and an increase in abdominal fat.
While a diet high in sugar and refined carbohydrates can contribute to this, the resultant nutrient deficiencies can make things worse. That’s why Mary, in addition to a change in diet, was prescribed chromium, magnesium
manganese, carnitine and zinc. These help to reduce excess hunger as well as cravings.
With leptin resistance, snacking is actually one of the worst things to do. Mary started eating three balanced meals a day (half colourful veggies, a quarter protein or good fat and a quarter carbohydrate) with nothing in between and two litres of water spread throughout the day (bye bye tea, coffee and sodas).
Losing weight by getting into good habits was much easier than she expected, and I cannot stress the importance of getting eight hours of quality sleep. Many a weight loss programme has failed because of this.
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