Your life would be so much better if you only lost weight right?
Every year billions of dollars are spent on these seemingly easy cures to help ourselves feel better, drop weight, increase energy, sleep better and even reverse aging. Despite the hype and handing our credit card over, most of us are not losing weight for good, feeling better or reclaiming their energy.
What does it really take to lose the weight and feel better? Why does it have to be so hard?
A Different View of Weight Struggles
In natural medicine we know the body has what it needs to heal, including from weight, if we provide it the support it uniquely needs. The common approach to fulfilling this support is the restrictive diet approach coupled with harsh exercising and current shakes, pills, shots, and products. We know this approach well but very few actually see results or results that last long term.
Naturally though, support does not equal these approaches and products in the way it is commonly presented for how to lose weight. Instead it means understanding what the body needs and providing that in its most natural form. This approach requires we break up with diet mentality, product cures and other messaging that tells us what the ideal size is for us and how that is accomplished. It is a whole person approach beyond just the fact we are carrying extra weight. What that looks like is a personalization unlike any packaged diet plan. It fits our own needs and it is understood that it is completely different from anyone else.
Alas, there is no one sized fits all approach to losing weight.
Once we break up with idea there is not one sized works for all way, we begin to see our true options for building health and reaching our health related goals. This step alone can be overwhelming because diet thinking is so engrained in our culture and society norms. Yet, it is the very first step necessary to begin a journey of building health, reclaiming our body and navigating the tough topic of weight loss. It really does require us to release the idea there is a magic cure because the magic we need is actually already within our own body.
What if I told you the real magic cure to your weight problems is already within your body?
My clients usually come to me after they have tried everything else, including every diet trending on TikTok, every cortisol drink, prescription and non-prescription pills and so many other things it is maddening to them that results were not realized or did not stick around. When I tell them they have the answers already, it is a Dorothy and ruby slippers moment that many struggle to believe is true.
Your body wasn't designed to work at half power or be weighed down. That is the result of a lot of things including processed foods, misguidance on nutrition and diet likely from a young age, stress, more stress, and missing key elements to our lifestyle. Often when we realign on these things our body's natural fight for us power kicks in and excels at healing all on its own.
It's within you.
Now this doesn't mean you won't need help along the way or that a product (natural) won't be necessary. It could mean those things. Maybe not though. It really depends on where you are and what your body says it needs. That changes all the time too. When you work with a professional trained in holistic and natural medicine they help you know how to decode the messages of your body and help you hear them.
Hormones and Your Weight Loss Woes
The very thing so many of us blame for our problems in our health can be the source of our greatest progress when it comes to meeting health goals and seeing improvements in our well-being. Hormones and weight are tied together for a reason but we often only see them in the negative side of the scale. When it comes to weight loss though, hormones play a critical role, particularly the hormones leptin and ghrelin.
These two hormones work in partnership with other hormones to influence our appetite, energy, absorption of nutrients, emotions and mental outlook. They also influence our relationship with food and how we use food when we feel certain ways. Just like other hormones, when they are out of balance, they can spike or plummet making the work they do feel out of control as well.
Interesting that diets don't address this and instead just force feed you certain calories and food products isn't it? Forcing compliance in your health is one of the surest ways to see it derail in my opinion.
Leptin and Ghrelin Balancing is where weight loss happens
Leptin and Ghrelin are known as the hunger hormones. They regulate appetite, energy balance and metabolism. Working in tandem with the body's other hormones, they maintain the body's energy levels and balance body weight. Ironically, as weight and toxicity from weight increases, the levels of these two hormones become imbalanced. This leads to the spiral effect of constant weight gain and stubborn weight loss complexities.
As you age, hormone levels do change across the body. These two hormones are no different in that respect. However, as you'll see in this article, maintaining healthy levels of both is not only possible but helps us in the long term road of what our energy is like as we age.
It is with these two hormones we also find the ravaging cravings, appetite increases and struggle controlling what we eat when going on a diet. As the body tries to adjust to restrictions and changes in diet, these hormones are struggling to restore balance. This is the battle of the wills point many dieters face as early as day 3 on most diets and throughout their diet experience that makes dieting hard. Until these hormones are balanced and the emotional aspects of eating are rebuilt with healthy patterns, there will continue to be the war waged making weight loss and weight maintenance levels possible.
Leptin and Ghrelin Roles in our Weight - A Complicated Relationship
Leptin is the hormone that lets us know we are full. It signals the brain with the satiety message in order to trigger the regulation of our energy balance post meals. Depending on what we ate that can mean we feel sleepy or have a boost of energy that we want to use.
Higher levels of leptin in the body correspond to lower food intake and increased energy expenditure. Meaning we feel hungry less often and feel full faster on less food. This is achieved not only by building up leptin in the body but having a digestive system that can convert more nutrient dense our diet the more we convert food to energy in an optimal way to create energy balance. This is great news for those wanting to lose weight but it doesn't always happen as fast as we like.
What's interesting here is that when you are carrying every weight, your body makes and stores leptin in the fat cells. It unfortunately though is not being used optimally due to energy blocks in the body.
It can take longer to release built up leptin and more importantly learn to recognize this hormone's message than it does other hormones. The reason is emotional eating, habitual eating, and behaviors that if left unmodified or only restricted during a diet period do not also change in correlation to leptin increases. We can override the leptin hormone that says we're full and continue eating. Mindless eating is a big reason for this situation. This is where it is necessary to heal the whole person for supporting changes and recognizing the need for personalization in approach. If we only address the hormone level and restrict the diet, we leave out the important aspects that set us up for long term success.
Ghrelin is the hunger hormone. It is produced in the stomach and signals the brain when food it needed. Ghrelin typically rises before our normal eating times in the day and decreases after we eat.
This hormone becomes imbalanced when we are not able to turn off the amounts we eat and often find we overeat. This hormone is also spiked in those that are overweight because we often have overeating due to the inability to decode ghrelin's messages properly and habits that reinforce when we think we should eat. Here too, emotions play a role and must be worked in partnership with the changes in quantity and timing of meals. We can have false hunger indicating the block of true ghrelin messages. While ghrelin may spike in the body letting us feel hungry all the time, we can also feel the effects of mindless emotional eating at the same time complicating the ability to decipher if it is real hunger or not.
Dehydration and Ghrelin
The old advice to just drink water when you think are you hungry and reassess after 30 minutes was at one time brilliant advice. Dehydration plays a role in triggering false hunger. It can also though dilute real messages when food is needed. Often when we are experiencing dehydration with spiked ghrelin hormone levels we also find we have several nutrient deficiencies. Dehydration spikes ghrelin causing to feel hunger in hopes of getting the missing nutrients through food. Most of the time though we are eating a highly processed diet of food products that lack the nutrients resulting in even more ghrelin production and complicated craving effects as well as increased risk of dehydration.
While dehydration can distort the hormonal interpretation of hunger, it will not however give us full clarity if our pathway to decoding the hormonal message is blocked. If we are experiencing stress, holding onto old emotions that are left unprocessed, have trauma, anxiety, or a host of other emotional and mental concerns this can also be confused for hunger. Denying food in some of these situations, believing it to be dehydration, can make matters worse.
The only way to know if you are hungry or not is to balance the hormones and create clear pathways to decode their messages and support the body with what it needs. That can take some time to work through which is where working through good foundational habits like drinking water, moving the body, sleeping, and getting natural sunlight can help in the transition. It also requires we have some grace with ourselves and that alone can seem counterproductive in the quest to lose weight.
Cravings Relationship with Leptin and Ghrelin
When leptin and ghrelin are imbalanced and we are dealing with stubborn weight, it contributes to cravings for specific foods which increase in intensity based on emotions and other hormonal activities. It triggers other hormonal reactions in the body including cortisol elevation and inflammatory responses. Most cravings are either emotion in nature, a nutrient deficiency or both.
The imbalance of these two hormones and link to cravings creates the primary reason most dieters struggle with controlling cravings when using restrictive dieting. Yes cravings can be diminished over time but they will quickly return often being the first problem encountered in rebounded weight after a diet stops. The ability to balance leptin and ghrelin but not resolving emotional ties to food influences the depth to which leptin and ghrelin also can be balanced. Again, this is where we see limitations in diets that prevent long term results.
What makes matters worse is the intake of sugar and processed food ingredients. These food products distort the balance of hormones further and introduce other factors like destroying the microbiome, creating constipation, spiking glucose hormones, and increasing inflammation. In this scenario we also see cravings increase and the ability to stick with a healthy diet become more complicated. At the core of it all is the balance of leptin and ghrelin and this will help other hormones and the microbiome start to balance as well. Time is often the factor most people don't account for as this is not always quick depending on the severity of detoxification and balancing the body has to undergo to establish this balance.
Rebalancing Hormones to Lose Weight
Weight loss can take a variety of paths but hormones are often seen as the missing step in many long term dieter plans. Working to balance the hormones upfront not only makes the journey of weight loss easier but sets you up for that longer term success that avoids rebounded weight gain.
Stress Hormones and Weight Loss Challenges
Like most hormones in the human body, the number one factor they respond to is stress. Chronic stress elevates cortisol and depletes adrenal reserves, which interferes with leptin signaling and promotes weight gain through increased ghrelin production. Emotionally, it also taxes the body creating other hormonal imbalances and making nutrient use less than optimal. This is because stress responds in the body through increased energy burn making your body think you need more food to restore energy loss.
Stress also burns through nutrients faster which can leave us susceptible to the dieter's cold. This is a cold many people "catch" when they are on a diet and all of a sudden become ill with a sinus infection or cold. It derails the diet resulting in reverting to other eating patterns returning as we try to overcome it. It is simply a response from the body being overwhelmed with both daily lifestyle stress and a diet stress piled on top.
Restrictive dieting is stress to the body. On top of regular daily life stress, restrictive dieting is often the body's straw that broke the diet plan. This is the reason why Monday diets don't work, because Monday is often the most stressful day of the week for most people. It is also why we fall off our diets so quickly. The first step has to be mitigating stress in our daily life so we have a foundation to support larger changes we want to make.
Detoxification Process
Your body naturally detoxes while you sleep every night. This is why quality sleep is so important when making life and health changes. Without quality sleep your body does not filter the toxins that it needs to eliminate to support you.
Stress is a toxin. It has to be eliminated as much as microplastics, processed foods and other toxic elements that you are carrying around. Additionally, emotions feed into stress and oftentimes in our modern world we are not equipped to properly process emotions. They are then treated as toxins in the body as well.
Leptin is particularly susceptible to our sleep. The hormone decreases and ghrelin increases with poor sleep making it harder to balance hunger and full feelings when we are awake. This is because the body has not rested and recuperated overnight from stress that it could then not eliminate so it wakes in the morning under stress and toxin influence.
Besides sleep for detoxification, we need movement. Regular low impact movement increases leptin sensitivity, making it easier to feel full longer. Movement also supports the detoxification process so we win with the building of new healthy habits and hormonal balancing.
Diet and Hormonal Balance for Weight Loss
It deeply matters what you eat not only when you need to lose weight but every single day. Without proper nutrition a lot of health problems never go away and new ones rise. Diets are time framed situations where once you reach a health goal then you are left navigating the real world again. This often leads to the same situation you are in right now.
Instead of dieting, I help clients rebuild their food relationship. This gives you the framework to not only meet weight goals now but build the behaviors and habits you need well after your goal is met. Holistic nutrition helps you align to foods your body naturally thrives on and what it needs to meet nutritional needs. We also account for the emotional needs of food that must also be satisfied to make lifelong changes in our diet.
Once we baseline your nutritional needs, I work to help you incorporate the right strategies for eating. Not everyone benefits from say intermittent fasting but maybe you need smaller more frequent meals. Knowing what you needs and how to use it in the best way to support your health and weight goals personalizes the experiences and makes it easier to adopt into every day life.
In building improved nutrition we start to not only see shifts in our hormones that promote weight loss but less of the battle with our hormones from cravings, risks to "falling off the diet wagon", and opportunities to build our health in a way that is right for us.
Diet is much less to do with willpower and more about learning to listen, support, and love your body and the hormonal messages it is sending you.
Hormonal Balance and Metabolism Role in Weight Loss
Once hormones start to rebalance, we almost immediately start to see shifts not only in our appetite but our energy. I caution clients on this however, because depending on you this may not be as immediate as it is for others.
Metabolism requires several factors at work in order to be where we need it to support good energy. It may be necessary to support the body with specific supplementation during this time to help this shift occur. I like to recommend however that we see where the body is before we supplement so that we can align to what it needs rather than guessing.
In terms of supplementation, we are looking at nutrients and minerals such as NAC, collagen and other natural ingredients that support ATP production. Boosting these though without having the right levels of leptin and ghrelin in place can work in the opposite direction. It can stress the body, introducing susceptibility to illness, overeating, cravings and things we are not ready to navigate in your weight loss journey.
We can be eager to see results and this is where a lot of diets simply pile on the supplements and hard core rules to help you propel results. It is also where we can put too much on ourselves and end up feeling overwhelmed and not seeing the progress we desire. When your body responds in this way, it is self-protecting itself against what it sees as a threat. No, your body doesn't desire to be obese but it also doesn't do well under attack.
Addressing metabolism concerns can be managed in a way that is right for you when you apply natural means. Through a Metabolomic Assessment we consider where you are right now and what your body needs to improve energy. We fill those needs with nutrition and the aligned supplementation that is then monitored and updated when you need changes. Over time as you see progress you will also find your body produces more of its own energy and may need less supplementation. That is the best scenario of all!
Natural Medicine Support for Hormone Balancing and Weight Loss
The good news is there is natural medicine support to help with the process of balancing hormones, losing weight, and improving metabolism. From herbs to homeopathy we have tools we can use to support healthy changes.
I personally love EATactics which is a homeopathic and flower essence blend to support not only the physical side of working to lose weight but the emotional side of it too. I use this with my clients in the Holistic Nutrition program where we are working to improve our food relationship and building the strategies we need to enjoy eating again while meeting health goals.
Specifically for dealing with leptin resistance, I recommend an increase in fish in the diet and through supplementation, reducing inflammatory and processed foods, increasing fiber and gradually increasing movement. It is one of the key areas we focus on in the holistic nutrition program I work with clients on.
There are also several herbs and supplementation strategies we can apply such as berberine, magnesium, gymnema, and others that can help with cravings, appetite, sleep, fat burning, and cortisol. Here too we want to use what is right for you and the best way to know that is to work with a trained professional.
So yes, you do hold the answers within your own body to lose the weight you desire. It just needs a little nudge and support to get the healing process started in balancing leptin and ghrelin and incorporating the natural support you need.
Weight loss is a highly personal journey that is often met with a lot of frustration. I believe when we apply the right natural strategies to our approach the journey becomes one of welcoming growth and positive change. We can begin to experience changes in a way that is powerful to us individually and retain those successes longer as a result.
Understanding your body's hormones in the process of weight loss not only gives you an edge in the battle of weight but a deeper appreciation for the transition your body is going through to support your desired results. We stop seeing our body as the enemy we are trying to conquer and can work more in harmony within ourself to see transformative results that last a lifetime.
To work with me, please visit www.dragonspitapothecary.com/care
We offer virtual and in-person sessions as well as a full online apothecary.
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