How You Can Go From Feeling Frumpy & Fat to Feeling Fabulous!

I didn’t always wear size 4 jeans.

In fact, it wasn’t all that long ago that I had to endure sucky confidence, poor body-image, and a body that felt foreign.

Those were some of the loneliest times of my life. I can still remember what it felt like to struggle to get off the floor while playing with my kids & not want my husband to see me in my birthday suit, let alone touch me!

Some days I just wanted to give up on feeling good and indulge in every baked good I could get my hands on!

Then one day something really shocking happened to me. I was sitting in an exam room with a patient and she said to me, “I feel like these lab tests are all lying because they say I am normal but I feel anything BUT normal!”. And it’s at that time that I decided things needed to change. I needed to change. So I made the decision to figure out what was causing this deep frustration in the women that I worked with as well as myself.

It wasn’t easy.

At that time, I was a full-time, working mother, who was the breadwinner, so I was very short on time to study and learn what had NOT been taught in my YEARS of university education. There were days that I didn’t think I’d ever achieve my goal of helping women feel fabulous.

It didn’t help that other people didn’t think I’d succeed, either.

You have no idea how many times I have heard naysayers tell me things like:

• Why even bother? It is completely normal for women, especially moms, to feel exhausted!
• Getting older is a part of life- women should just accept that.
• Womens’ metabolism slows significantly as they age; they just need to diet & exercise.

It’s at that point that I realized that all of these other things going on in my life, like working a lot, feeling like a single mom, hating to exercise, being a picky eater, and more, weren’t really obstacles at all.

They were excuses.

And the only real obstacle I had was to get over my negative thinking patterns and start believing that women are very capable of leading healthy lives even being stuck in the throes of a busy life.

Now don’t get me wrong – I still needed to do a lot of other work and study in order to figure out what lab work was needed to get to the bottom of women feeling so crummy. I studied how our hormones affect our metabolism for YEARS. I talked to other practitioners who had found success in testing hormones accurately. And I learned a whole lot about how to optimize hormones simply through the process of trial and error.

But then one day I had a breakthrough: I was attending a hormone conference in Las Vegas. And suddenly, I was introduced to a whole new world of specialty testing. It was like the heavens had opened and the stars had aligned.

Access to this testing changed how I was able to view women’s hormonal issues!

How? Because traditional labs just are not able to personalize results and their “normal” ranges are very wide!

And I also was able to receive training from the world’s leading hormone experts.

Listen, I know it’s hard to ditch those stubborn lbs, especially if you are struggling with hormonal imbalances. However, I did it in spite of having all the obstacles. I just know that if I can do it, then you can too.

Hormones are the most powerful chemical messengers involved in many aspects of your health.

There are glands in your body — for example, the pituitary, thyroid, parathyroid, and adrenal glands — release hormones into your blood for delivery to the receptor sites. From there, they travel to all of the receptor sites in your body.

Hormones are involved in nearly every single aspect of health, including sexual function, growth and development, mood, appetite, and metabolism.

For this reason, hormonal dysregulation — when your body releases too little or too much of a hormone or one that is out of balance— can significantly impact health, and yes this includes our body weight.

If you’re struggling with weight loss despite having tried every diet and exercise regimen under the sun, getting your metabolism hormones tested is the next action step to take. Your primary care provider may be willing to check your basic thyroid levels. They may even be progressive enough to check a full thyroid panel including thyroid antibodies and T3! BUT- they are likely missing a critical component- the sex hormones. They may even dismiss the necessity of checking them saying that hormone levels fluctuate too much to even check. 

These are 3 hormones that are CRUCIAL for getting your metabolism in check.....

Estrogen is produced in 3 areas; the ovaries, adrenal glands, and fat cells. This hormone is responsible for, basically, our womanization- sexual characteristics, reproduction, and bone formation.

The Issue: If there is too much estrogen in the body (i.e. estrogen dominance), without enough progesterone to balance it out, can occur at any point in a woman's life, it can cause you to gain extra weight, especially around the waist, hips, and thighs.

Simple Solution: Eating lots of fiber (AKA veggies) can help your body get rid of excess estrogen through digestion. Therefore, constipation can be a BIG roadblock for many women. Avoiding foods that can cause estrogen levels to rise. These can be soy, excess sugar, and non-organic meat and dairy (if sensitive). Don’t use non-stick pans and never heat food in plastic containers, since the chemicals can seep into your food and raise your estrogen levels. Cosmetics can also be a big culprit for estrogen issues.

Progesterone is a hormone that is produced in the ovaries, the placenta (when pregnant), and the adrenal glands. It does exactly as the name says pro-gest! it is responsible for fertility, menstruation, and also helps balance estrogen like I mentioned above.

The Issue: Not having enough progesterone can cause weight gain. Less than optimal progesterone levels can lead to excess estrogen in the body, which can turn more calories into fat.

Simple Solution: Progesterone is BFF's with estrogen in the body. It helps your thyroid hormones function better, lowers your insulin levels, helps you sleep, and reduces fluid retention. All these things help you lose weight! Having not enough progesterone is more common than having too much and can happen at any age! You can increase your levels of progesterone naturally by avoiding foods that cause estrogen levels to rise, as I mentioned above. You can also add more fiber to your diet and eat more foods that are high in:

• Magnesium – Spinach, Pumpkin, Squash, Okra, Nuts & Seeds, Plantains
• Vitamin B6 – Sunflower Seeds, Walnuts, Red Meat and Poultry, Bananas, Spinach, Seafood
• Vitamin C – Yellow Peppers, Dark Green Leafy Vegetables (Kale), Kiwi, Broccoli, Oranges
• Vitamin E – Almonds, Sunflower Seeds, Olive Oil, Shellfish (Shrimp)
• Zinc – Red Meat, Shellfish (Oysters), Dark Chocolate, Pumpkin
• L-Arginine – Turkey, Chicken, Pumpkin Seeds

Lowering stress is also a critical aspect of progesterone optimization. When you are stressed over an extended period of time, the adrenal glands convert progesterone to cortisol (stress hormone).

Testosterone is produced by the testes in men and, in women, primarily by the ovaries. It is responsible for male characteristics in men but also plays an important role in us too. It helps increase muscle mass, energy, hair health, bone density, and libido.

The Issue: Low testosterone levels in either men or women can lead to a loss of muscle mass. This slows down the metabolism which, in turn, leads to excess weight. When we have too much testosterone, this can ALSO lead to weight gain! Too much testosterone can cause insulin resistance. Then the body tries to compensate by making more insulin and high insulin levels lead to weight gain. 

Simple Solution: Research has found that performing resistance training exercises, getting enough restful sleep, eating an adequate amount of healthy fats and proteins, managing stress, and getting enough vitamin D, can all naturally boost testosterone levels, which can help you lose weight.

On the flip side, focusing on regular ovulation can help you lower elevated testosterone levels!

If you have tried all the "diets" & exercise programs and followed them to a T, it is likely that your body is SCREAMING at you that something is off! Hormone optimization can make a critical difference in your metabolism efficacy.

If you’re struggling with weight loss despite having tried every diet and exercise regimen under the sun, getting your sex hormones tested is the next best step to take.