{Day 16} Damn Hormones!

We all want to believe calories in calories out. Basically what we’ve heard over and over again. Eat less move more. Well…that’s all well and good, but

for us ladies our hormones play a major role in our fat loss. Now I specifically use the terms fat loss as I don’t believe in the scale. The scale isn’t an accurate measure of fat loss. Let’s face it for most of you, your goal isn’t to run around with a scale showing people you hit your high school weight. We aren’t on the wrestling team. But we would LOVE to hear from folks you look good have you lose some weight. You’d LOVE to look in the mirror NAKED and see the results! So. that is why today we talk about hormones. It’s our hormones that swing us back and forth.

If you balance out your hormones you will eat less, and the calories will take care of themselves. This is the essential difference between fat loss and weight loss.

The 9 hormones responsible for fat loss include:

1. Adrenaline — tells the body to burn fuel
2. Cortisol — during periods of stress, it shuts down all the hormones the burn fat
3. Ghrelin — this is what causes your stomach to growl
4. Glucagon — helps to regulate both sugar and fat usage as fuel
5. Insulin — helps to break down carbs and sends energy to cells, but too much insulin causes our bodies to store fat
6. Leptin — controls hunger on a day to day basis
7. HGH — responsible for body composition
8. Thyroid — stabilizes metabolism
9. Estrogen — it’s a sex hormone yes, but is also it what cause us ladies store more subcutaneous fat

I want to you to know that there is SO much more to hormones than what I just described. This is just a small overview. There are so many resources out there, I’m reading all the time. I feel for many of my clients it’s the hormones that’s causing them to stay stuck. Especially when they are eating clean, working out and being consistent.

Ways to help balance out hormones:

• Get more sleep — 7-9 hours/night.
• Quality of food matters — look for more whole food sources, if you can afford purchase organic, grass feed beef and limit dairy
• Add extra fiber in your diet — include ground flax seeds and chia into diet. Another source that I like to add to my shakes is Fiber Pro.
• Eliminate added sugars artificial sweeteners and high fructose corn syrup
• Exercise — breaking a sweat helps with stress management as well as way to get your hormones working for you
• Stress management — this goes back to mediation. We’ll talk about stress in another lesson.

When I mention exercise I don’t want you to think go hard or go home. As we’ve talked in early lessons some of you are cardio queens or lifting monsters. The key is to find the balance between both. I’m big fan of doing big combination sets.  For example a workout would like like this.

Set a timer for 5 min
10 Bentover rows
10 lunges/leg with bicep curl
10 squats
Keep moving until you are tired, rest and them come back in.
You’d repeat for 5min

Then you’d set the timer again for 5 min

20 mountain climbers total
10 jumping jacks
20 high knees
rest for 30 secs  and repeat for 5 min

Alternate back and forth for 30 min total and then walk on a treadmill as fast as you can walk without breaking into a run. You can do this on an incline or flat.

Balancing out your hormones can be done by changing your lifestyle. If you find that’s not working, if you feel you have an hormonal imbalance I HIGHLY recommend you see a naturopathic doctor. I say this because they can help you to understand what hormones maybe out of balance as well as test you to see if you have certain food intolerance’s that may cause inflammation. Now your general practitioner may be able to do this as well.

Resources:
The Hormone Diet

Today’s assignment. 

1. Pick 2 items from the hormone balancing list that you will implement.
2. Give the workout a try this week. Report your results. How many rounds did you get through.

Don’t forget Leave a comment below. Write a facebook post on the Fabulous Fit Squad. If you have a personal blog, write a blog post. Make sure you link back to the site so we can cheer you on and hold you accountable.

Just joining now” Don’t worry you can catch up.
Day 1 — Intro the challenge
Day 2 — Getting your mind straight 
Day 3 — Goal setting 
Day 4 — What’s on your plate
Day 5 — Lift
Day 6 — Cardio
Day 7 — Living on your own terms
Day 8 — Rest day
Day  9 — Forming a habit
Day 10 — Just Breathe
Day 11 — Fat loss secrets revealed
Day 12 — Can you pinch an inch
Day 13 — Dedicated and Focused 
Day 14 — Doubt
Day 15 — Rewards and Consequences