Estrogen. Estrogen, the female sex hormone, can cause weight gain whether it's extremely high or extremely low. Some ways to manage your estrogen are to get plenty of fiber in your diet, eat more cruciferous vegetables, exercise more frequently, and add flaxseeds to your diet.
Additionally, improving dietary choices, increasing physical activity, getting more sleep, managing stress levels effectively, quitting smoking, and limiting alcohol are all ways to decrease and avoid hormonal weight gain.
Hormones that affect female weight loss include:
Oestrogen and progesterone.
While body weight and fat are distributed equally in weight gain due to excess caloric intake, people with hormonal weight gain usually notice increased weight around specific body parts, such as the waist, arms, thighs, chest, and lower body.
Elevated levels of ghrelin in the blood can lead to weight gain. Obese people are particularly sensitive to ghrelin, encouraging them to eat more. Ghrelin levels can also rise when you're on a strict diet or fasting.
Because estrogen affects how your body distributes fat, low estrogen levels can contribute to gaining fat in your belly area. However, estrogen replacement therapy can help your body redistribute this fat to different areas on your body, rather than your abdominal area.
Leptin isn't a vitamin or mineral. You can't absorb it from a pill. In fact, “leptin supplements” don't contain any actual leptin. If they did, your stomach would simply digest them before they could have any effect on your body.
In other words, bioidentical progesterone triggers a metabolic response allowing weight loss to occur. When progesterone is added back into the body via bioidentical progesterone cream, it acts as a natural diuretic, thereby reducing the bloating.
Poor sleep, sedentary activities, and eating too many processed or sugary foods are just some of the habits that may increase your risk of weight gain. Yet, a few simple steps — such as mindful eating, exercise, and focusing on whole foods — can help you reach your weight loss goals and improve your overall health.
Many women also notice an increase in belly fat as they get older — even if they aren't gaining weight. This is likely due to a decreasing level of estrogen, which appears to influence where fat is distributed in the body.
Estrogen regulates glucose and lipid metabolism. If your estrogen levels are low, it can result in weight gain. Research suggests that this may be why women approaching menopause are likely to become overweight. Being overweight can increase your risk for obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease.
Increasing physical activity, getting enough sleep, decreasing sugar intake and including more fish in your diet are some steps you can take to improve leptin sensitivity. Lowering your blood triglycerides is important, too.
Leptin is made by the adipose tissue (fat-storing cells) in your body. Its main role is to regulate fat storage and how many calories you eat and burn. Leptin released from adipose cells travels to the brain via the bloodstream. It acts on the hypothalamus in the brain, which regulates hormones in your body1.
It depends on your situation. Not all women need, want or are candidates for estrogen therapy. Estrogen can reduce menopausal symptoms like hot flashes, night sweats and vaginal dryness. If you have a uterus, you'll likely need to take progesterone along with the estrogen.
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.
Estrogen is a type of sex hormone that plays an essential role in the body. Abnormal levels can affect many aspects of health. For instance, high estrogen levels may cause weight gain, low mood, and severe premenstrual syndrome (PMS) in females.