How Hormones Affect Your Energy and Weight

Are willpower and self-control the real solution to low energy and high weight?

Maybe not.  It might be your powerful hormones.

And we’re not just talking about sex hormones here; we’re talking about the hormones that directly affect your blood sugar, metabolism, and appetite. Things that control your energy and weight.

Let’s go over a few of the critical links between your hormones, and how they affect your energy and weight. The links may be stronger than you think.

What are hormones?

Having healthy, happy hormones is all around the “health waves” these days.

And for good reason! Your hormones are part of the master control system of your entire body.
Hormones are compounds made by one part of the body that are used to communicate with another part. For example, insulin is made in the pancreas. When your blood sugar gets too high, insulin is released into the bloodstream. Then, it goes to your muscles and other cells to tell them to absorb that sugar out of the blood (and if there is still too much blood sugar, it signals to store it as fat).

Your hormones control not only your blood sugar, but also your metabolism and appetite (plus a host of other things). And you probably know that having healthy blood sugar, metabolism and appetite is a foundation for your optimal energy and weight.

So, how can your hormones get out of whack to zap your energy and pile up the pounds?

Common Hormonal Imbalances

In optimal health, your hormones would work great, and you’d have ample energy and be a good healthy weight.

But often there are problems with this whole setup. One common issue is that there may be too much or too little hormone released to have the desired effect. This is known as hypo- or hyper- “hormone” (i.e. hypo- or hyperthyroidism).

Another common issue is that, even if the right amount of hormone is released, the cells they communicate with can start ignoring them. This is known as hormone “resistance” (i.e. insulin resistance).

As you can imagine, if your hormones have such critical jobs, including controlling blood sugar, metabolism and appetite, they can cause issues with your energy and weight.

Hormones & Energy

Your metabolism is key for controlling your energy. Metabolism itself is basically how much energy (calories) you burn. One of the main players of this is...you guessed it! Your thyroid hormones.

Your thyroid releases hormones that affect the metabolism of all the cells in your body. If it’s too low and your metabolism goes down (hypothyroid), you may feel cold, hungry and tired. If it’s too high and your metabolism is too fast (hyperthyroid), you may feel hot, jittery and lose weight.

What you want is an ideal metabolism, ideal energy use, ideal temperature, and an ideal weight. Your thyroid hormones are the master controller here.

Hormones & Weight

Your weight may be controlled by hormones more than you think! Insulin controls your blood sugar, and whether that sugar is going to be stored as fat or not. And when your blood sugar is too low, you may start craving sugar and carbs.

You also have hormones that control your appetite! How hungry and how full you feel are controlled by the hormones ghrelin & leptin. When those get out of whack, you may find yourself wanting to eat because your body thinks you’re hungry and not satisfied...even if that’s not true.

And craving food (especially sugary ones) and not feeling full are going to be huge drives for you to eat more. Even if your body doesn’t truly need it, the hormonal signals tell you that you do.
And don’t forget that stress hormone cortisol. When it’s too high for too long, it tells your body to store fat. And not just any fat - belly fat!

What You Can Do

Your body is very complex and uses hormones to control a substantial number of functions. They control your blood sugar, metabolism, and appetite, among others. And these directly affect how much energy you feel, how much you weigh, and even where your body fat is stored.

Here are a few “hormone stabilizing” tips that might help you with your energy and weight:

• Get regular exercise to use up excess blood sugar before your insulin has your body store it as fat
• Try stress-relieving activities like deep breathing, meditation or even coloring to reduce your (belly-fat inducing) cortisol
• Support your thyroid with iodine-containing sea vegetables, fish, legumes, or even an egg
• Balance your blood sugar with extra fiber from raspberries, avocados, or flax seeds
• Reduce blood sugar spikes by replacing your juice or soda with fruit-infused water

If you need some support with your energy levels and/or weight, contact me (your wellness coach) for a free strategy session to see how I can help you.

REFERENCES

http://www.precisionnutrition.com/fast-weight-loss-changes-hunger-hormones
http://www.precisionnutrition.com/all-about-thyroid
https://authoritynutrition.com/9-fixes-for-weight-hormones/

How to Work With Your Energy Ebbs and Flows

When it comes to getting more done and being more productive, mindset is absolutely key. We need to be able to focus on our goals and stay motivated enough to take the steps necessary to accomplish them and that’s the only chance we have of completing challenges and getting to where we want to be.

But in order to do this, we often have to fight our impulses and our instincts. That means we have to force ourselves to get up and to work, even when we’re feeling tired and just want to go to bed. It means that we have to motivate ourselves to focus on a long, hard day’s work even when we’re tempted to go home early and watch the next episode of Game of Thrones (I haven't actually watched this show since I don't have cable or satellite).

This is what many of us think of as mental discipline: the ability to force ourselves to do that which we don’t want to do. To take our ‘medicine’ as it were and thereby keep progressing forward.

But it might not actually be the best method. Because as it happens, being at constant war with yourself is not conducive to great productivity!

So instead of doing that, how about working with your gut instead?

Understanding Your Energy Flow

A lot of us pay too much attention to time management. We act under the assumption that if we have time to do something, then we can do it.

In reality though, our ability to complete work is much more related to our energy. If you don’t have the energy necessary to focus or to work, then you won’t be able to do it or your work won’t be as good.

And as it happens, our energy levels come on in waves and are largely out of our control. For example, first thing in the morning many of us struggle with something called ‘sleep inertia’. This means our brains are still groggy from the night’s sleep and we aren’t as productive.

Likewise, we tend to be less efficient right after lunch or dinner. That’s because an influx of carbohydrates gets broken down to tryptophan and that tryptophan is then converted into serotonin. In turn, the serotonin is converted to melatonin, making us sleepy!

We’re all likely to be tireder during 4pm too and of course some days are worse than others depending on what we did the day before.

So instead of forcing yourself to change to meet your schedule, how about switching up your schedule so that you’re doing the most important work when you’re the most awake?