Estrogen causes a typical female fat distribution pattern in breasts, buttocks, and thighs, as well as its more feminizing effects. During the reproductive years, women get additional fat deposition in the pelvis, buttocks, thighs, and breasts to provide an energy source for eventual pregnancy and lactation.
One form of estrogen called estradiol decreases at menopause. This hormone helps to regulate metabolism and body weight. Lower levels of estradiol may lead to weight gain. Throughout their life, women may notice weight gain around their hips and thighs.
Exercise regularly. Research suggests that exercise can help to reduce high estrogen levels. Premenopausal women who engage in aerobic exercise for five hours a week or more saw their estrogen levels drop by nearly 19%. Cardio exercise helps the body break estrogen down and flush away any excess.
Magnesium promotes healthy estrogen clearance
By supporting the COMT enzyme (catechol-o-methyltransferase) in the liver, magnesium promotes the healthy excretion of estrogen (9). This may reduce the risk of the estrogen excess conditions (such as fibroids) associated with low COMT function (10).
The main culprit behind weight gain in your thighs is estrogen. This hormone drives the increase in fat cells in females, causing deposits to form most commonly around the buttocks and thighs.
Estrogen increases fat storage by upregulating certain receptors in fat deposits around the thighs and hips, known as alpha-androgenic receptors which are known to block fat burning.
The Hormone: Testosterone
“Women produce small amounts in their adrenal glands and ovaries, and it's thought to contribute to muscle and bone strength, brain function, and libido.” If you don't have enough, you may accumulate fat on the backs of your upper arms.
Your liver is the primary organ that breaks down and rids the body of excess estrogen, a common cause of hormonal imbalance. Therefore, you need to support the liver with supplements like turmeric, vitamin C, and alpha-lipoic acid. Eat plenty of vitamin C-rich foods like oranges and strawberries.
The foods you need to avoid include: flax seeds, dried fruits, sesame seeds, garlic, peaches, berries, wheat bran, tofu, tempeh, dairy products, meat, alcohol, grains, and legumes.
This is usually due to your genes. Leg fat may be comprised of different types of fat cells, including: Subcutaneous fat: most common in the thighs and located right beneath the skin. Intramuscular fat: fat dispersed within the muscle itself, much like the marbling seen in meat.
Sedentary Lifestyle: thigh fat is a sign of atrophied buttocks settling within the thighs. The main reason for this is rooted in a lack of physical activity. If you don't have a somewhat active lifestyle, your blood circulation slows down, resulting in fat accumulation and cellulite.
Hormones drive the deposition of fat around the pelvis, buttocks, and thighs of women and the bellies of men. For women, this so-called sex-specific fat appears to be physiologically advantageous, at least during pregnancies.
Estrogen is actually a group of sex hormones, each of them performing different roles in women's health and development. Estrogen helps make women curvier than men by making their pelvis and hips wider, and their breast grow.
Consuming 200 milligrams or more of caffeine per day-roughly equivalent to two cups of coffee-can either increase or decrease a woman's estrogen level, depending on her ethnic background and the source of the caffeine, a study from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) finds.
What foods cause high estrogen? Foods that reportedly increase estrogen include flax seeds, soybean products, chocolate, fruit, nuts, chickpeas, and legumes. Before we delve into why these foods are said to increase estrogen, we need to look at two important definitions; phytoestrogens and lignans.
Green tea consumption, but not black tea, was also associated with reduced levels of estrone and estradiol among postmenopausal women20. Green tea's estrogen reduction activity may result from tea polyphenols inhibiting aromatase, the key enzyme converting androgens to estrone or estradiol21.
A Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center study involving postmenopausal, overweight, and obese women who took 2,000 IUs of vitamin D daily for a year found that those whose vitamin D blood levels increased the most had the greatest reductions in blood estrogens, which are a known risk factor for breast cancer.
Aromatase inhibitors are a class of medicines that reduce the amount of estrogen in your body, depriving breast cancer cells of the hormones they need to grow. Aromatase inhibitors are only used in women who have undergone menopause.