How quickly you are able to lose some extra kilos is not determined by only your diet chart or how rigorous your workout regime might be. There are a lot of other factors that play a crucial role when it comes to shedding kilos and your hormones are just one of them. Hormones impact your mood, metabolism, appetite and eventually your weight. So, only eating right and exercising two times a day won’t exactly guarantee you’ll lose weight. You also have to balance your hormones for faster results, because there are some hormones that can make it difficult for you to shed those extra kilos.
Here are 5 hormones that may impede your progress and ways to manage them.
Insulin
Insulin, as we all know, is a hormone secreted by the pancreas and is responsible to regulate the blood sugar level. When you are overweight, the insulin levels in the body go off-balance, making it harder for you to shed kilos.
Moreover, if you keep on eating refined food then your pancreas has to work harder to produce more insulin to clear the sugar from the body and the hormones eventually end up storing extra sugar as fat. To balance your insulin level, cut down sugar from your diet, eat foods with low-glycemic index and include more protein-rich foods in your diet.
Cortisol
Cortisol is the stress hormone, produced by the body when we are under a lot of stress. This hormone is linked with insulin and even mild to the moderate stress hormone, spike the insulin level in the blood making it difficult to shed weight.
The rise in the stress hormones also makes your body store visceral fat around your internal organs, which results in a bulging belly. Meditation and peaceful sleep for 8 hours are two easy ways to control your cortisol level.
Ghrelin
Ghrelin, also known as the hunger hormone, is released by the stomach when it is empty. The hormones send a signal to the hypothalamus telling you to eat. The level of the hormone is the highest on an empty stomach and later decreases. But it has been found that in obese people the level of ghrelin does not reduce much after eating.
The hypothalamus does not receive the signal and they generally tend to overeat. Avoiding sugar and including more protein-rich foods are some of the ways to manage this hormone.
Leptin
Leptin is produced by the body’s fat cells and is responsible to reduce hunger and make you feel fuller. This hormone sends a signal to the brain that enough fat is stored and prevents you from overeating. But in obese people, the hormones do not work as it should.
The brain does not get signals to stop and the person ends up eating more. Two potential causes of this are elevated insulin levels and inflammation in the hypothalamus. To bring leptin in control one must eat anti-inflammatory foods (tomatoes, olive oil, salmon, sardines etc), exercise regularly and follow the good sleeping schedule.
Estrogen
Estrogen is a hormone responsible for the development of female sexual characteristics. Both very high and very low levels of estrogen can lead to weight gain. It has been found that the level of hormone is higher in obese women as compared to women of normal weight.
To manage the estrogen level it is important to make necessary lifestyle changes. Daily exercising and eating fibre-rich and leafy green veggies can help to control the level of estrogen.