Maintaining a healthy lifestyle through a balanced diet, regular physical activity, proper sleep, and stress modification can help with managing and reversing hormonal weight gain and decreasing the associated health risks that may result if it is not addressed.
Exercise. Exercising regularly is critical for keeping your hormones in balance and preventing weight gain over time. This is because exercise gives the body a boost of testosterone, which in turn helps it to burn fat, build muscle, and regulate blood pressure.
“It is possible to overcome hormonal changes, particularly in women with perimenopausal belly fat or menopausal weight gain,” explains Registered Dietician, Lon Ben-Asher from the Pritikin Center.
According to nutritionist Rashi Chowdhary, you need to reset three hormones — prolactin, insulin and thyroid antibodies — for optimal fat loss.
An endocrinologist can very often help you reverse weight gain that is associated with hormonal imbalances. Potentially useful interventions include lifestyle changes such as exercise, diet modification, or stress management, as well as treatments such as testosterone or thyroid hormone replacement.
Gottfried suggests overhauling what you eat. “I recommend 40 days of cutting out sugar, gluten, dairy, alcohol, and caffeine,” she says. “Aim to eat one pound of vegetables daily, such as cruciferous vegetables, along with anti-inflammatory protein.
What does hormonal weight gain look like? Hormonal weight gain looks like any type of excess weight. Factors such as age, sex, body type, and cause of weight gain may make you gain weight differently. However, it's not possible to know that hormones are causing your weight gain by the way it looks.
The hormones leptin and insulin, sex hormones and growth hormone influence our appetite, metabolism (the rate at which our body burns kilojoules for energy), and body fat distribution. People who are obese have levels of these hormones that encourage abnormal metabolism and the accumulation of body fat.
When your hormone levels start to fluctuate, it can change how your body stores excess fat and can even affect your appetite. That's why countless hours in the gym and a strict diet may not help you lose that fat if your hormones aren't in balance.
Estrogen dominance, at least in part, can be related to factors such as high environmental estrogen levels, stress, or poor gut health. Weight loss with estrogen dominance can be challenging because fat tissues can actually make more estrogen, so it becomes a vicious cycle.
Estrogen promotes the storage of fat for healthy reproductive years. When estrogen is balanced, the right amount of fat helps carry out female reproductive functions. However, when there's too little or too much estrogen, weight gain often results.
Exercise is an important part of banishing belly fat for women who are going through these hormonal changes. Cardio and aerobic exercises are great for banishing belly fat. These include walking, biking, swimming, cycling and group fitness classes.
How Estrogen Replacement Therapy Can Help with Belly Fat During Menopause. Recent studies show that menopausal women on hormone therapy tend to have less body fat, especially visceral belly fat. Because estrogen affects how your body distributes fat, low estrogen levels can contribute to gaining fat in your belly area.
This may be due to menstruation, heart or kidney failure, preeclampsia, or medicines you take. A rapid weight gain may be a sign of dangerous fluid retention. If you quit smoking, you might gain weight. Most people who quit smoking gain 4 to 10 pounds (2 to 4.5 kilograms) in the first 6 months after quitting.
Myalept is a leptin replacement prescription medicine used along with a doctor recommended diet for people with GL. Myalept helps treat certain problems caused by not having enough leptin in the body (leptin deficiency).