How to Start Balancing your Hormones
Many women struggle with ongoing hormone symptoms or those that show up at certain times during their monthly cycle. Your symptoms are messages and they don’t have to be your norm.
There is hope! You can have a pain-free period that you didn’t even see coming because your PMS symptoms were so minimal. You can start sleeping better and get over the weight loss resistance hump. You can get a regular cycle and clear skin.
In this article, I will discuss:
common symptoms that point to a hormone imbalance (hint: it’s goes way beyond estrogen and progesterone)
the 4 foundations that need to be in place if you want to feel better, see change, and reach your health goals
Signs your hormones may be out of whack
Do any of these sound like you?
you have a hard time losing weight no matter what you do
you’ve been gaining weight even though you aren’t eating any differently than normal
you have a hard time falling asleep at night or you wake up in the middle of the night
if you do happen to get a good night’s sleep, you still aren’t waking up refreshed
you have irregular or absent menstrual cycles
you have PMS or PMDD
you have low (or no) sex drive
you struggle with breakouts or acne
you are fatigued or have very low energy
you notice blood sugar swings throughout the day (i.e. shaky, tired, hangry)
you have lots of food cravings
you are easily irritated and feel like your mood is all over the place
How many of these were you nodding ‘yes’ to?
So often when a woman hears the word “hormone”, she most commonly thinks of her monthly cycle. Maybe it’s the PMS or the bad cramps or maybe she’s not cycling at all. These symptoms are due to our sex hormones: estrogen, progesterone, & testosterone.
But there are many different hormones our body produces and they all have the potential to get out of whack causing symptoms that show up in a variety of ways. Other hormones that can get out of balance and contribute to the symptoms above include cortisol, thyroid hormone, insulin, ghrelin, and leptin.
What’s interesting to note is that imbalances in cortisol, insulin, and thyroid hormone are often what lead to the imbalances in the sex hormones. For example, high cortisol can lower progesterone. High insulin can cause high testosterone. Low thyroid hormone can lead to high estrogen. For this reason, it’s important to understand the foundational things that will support healthy hormones and a healthy metabolism. Read on to learn more!
Building your happy hormone foundation
There are 4 key areas you need to pay attention to if you want to have hormone-balancing success. I will walk you through each of them below.
Step 1: Balance your blood sugars
Have you ever eaten a meal and then immediately felt like you needed to take a nap? Or maybe you haven’t eaten for a few hours and now you’re shaky and irritable? These symptoms are due to fluctuations in blood sugars leading to high insulin and high cortisol levels. Erratic blood sugars are crazy stressful on the body, and over time you are more likely to develop insulin resistance which puts you at risk for developing Type 2 diabetes down the road.
The release of cortisol tells the liver to make glucose so that blood sugar levels can come back up. Blood sugar levels go up and more insulin needs to be produced. This can create a viscous cycle unless you understand the best way to eat to avoid it. Rather than having these sharp spikes and drops, we’d rather this line looked more like gently rolling hills.
In order to have better balanced blood sugars, there needs to be a balanced plate. This means your meal or snack would not only include carbohydrate sources, but also plenty of protein, healthy fats, and fiber. Too much carb + not enough of the other macros and you will have a large blood sugar spike. The lack of protein, fat, and fiber means the food digests quickly and you’re likely to be hungry soon after or have an insulin surge that results in a low blood sugar.
General guidelines:
Aim for at least 25 grams of high quality protein per meal, 1/2 of your plate would be non-starchy veggies for fiber, 1/4 of your plate carbohydrate, and 1-2 tablespoons of a healthy fat like olive oil or butter
Do not eat carbs by themselves - this is a recipe for the blood sugar roller coaster and will likely not keep you feeling satisfied for more than an hour
Prioritize complex, whole food carbohydrates such as potatoes with the skin, quinoa, rice, beans/legumes, and sweet potatoes. Limit white flour and other highly processed carbs and sugars.
Do not go more than 4 hours without eating if you are prone to low blood sugars (except overnight where I’d suggest no more than a 12-14 hour fast)
Step 2: Develop resilience to stress
At the time of writing this post, it’s December 2020 and we’ve been in a pandemic for 9+ months. I’m fairly certain that most of us have felt the added stress this year. How do you feel you handled it? Did you notice changes in your sleep or did your cycle ever get a little wonky?
Stress has a BIG impact on our hormones because stress affects the brain and the brain is ultimately in charge of our hormone production. Stress can also greatly influence the health of our gut, and you cannot achieve hormone balance with poor gut health (I will talk about this in Step 3).
Ultimately, we all have stress in one way or another so it’s not so much the amount of stress that comes into our lives that matters, but how we respond to it.
As your stress bucket gets filled, do you have tried and true strategies to help you empty that bucket? This could look like spending time in nature, doing a meditation, practicing yoga, prayer, going for a walk, or incorporating deep belly breathing. Any thing that helps you relax and lower those stress hormones will be beneficial.
It’s important to utilize strategies that help you feel better right away (i.e. going for a walk in the fresh air) as well as those that are more of a long-game approach, like therapy or counseling.
Our emotional and mental health is every bit as important as our physical health. I would even go so far as to say that you will not achieve physical health if you are neglecting your emotional & mental health 😘
Step 3: Optimize your liver & gut health
Your liver is responsible for processing toxins & medications, blood sugar balance, converting thyroid hormone to it’s active form, detoxification of hormones and making bile that aids in digestion. It pretty much does it all, 24/7.
The liver works in 2 phases, and each phase is highly dependent on nutrients— especially amino acids (from protein), B vitamins, magnesium, zinc, vitamin C and other antioxidants. A deficiency in any of these nutrients could potentially cause your liver to be sluggish.
Some other things that can bog down the liver include:
Xenoestrogens. These are hormone-disrupting chemicals that dock onto estrogen receptors and contribute to estrogen dominance. Plastics, unfiltered water, personal care products that contain SLS, parabens, phthalates & artificial fragrance have all been shown to cause hormone disruption. These chemicals are also stored in our fat tissue and can be a reason you might have a hard time losing weight.
Environmental toxins (indoor & outdoor air pollution, for example)
Alcohol
A lack of quality protein in the diet
Highly processed foods
Excess sugar, especially high fructose corn syrup
On the other hand, your liver LOVES:
cruciferous veggies
beets & leafy greens
animal protein
antioxidants (i.e. green tea, berries, turmeric)
milk thistle
filtered water
clean products
minimal alcohol
good quality sleep — this is prime time for liver detox and healthy hormone production
Supporting your liver with the good stuff while minimizing the ‘not-so-good’ stuff is the best way to optimize it’s function. Remember, this is about progress not perfection. We will never be able to completely eliminate the things that are hard on the liver, but it’s good to control what we can and focus more on what we can ADD in to our daily life to help support it.
Optimizing digestion:
Did you know that digestion actually starts in the brain? If you are frequently eating in a stressed out state, your digestion is probably not optimal. This is because stressors divert resources away from digesting your food.
Taking a few deep breaths before your meal, sitting down to eat, and avoiding distractions at meal times can make all the difference. This allows your body to get in a ‘rest and digest’ state. You will have better stomach acid and digestive enzyme production when you are more relaxed. In turn, this will help to not only digest your food, but enhance nutrient absorption.
Bitter greens such as arugula or dandelion, 1-2 tbsp of diluted apple cider vinegar, or a few sprays of digestive bitters can also prime your digestive system and get the juices flowing.
Optimizing your gut microbiome:
The microbiome is home to trillions of bacteria, fungi, and viruses. It plays an enormous role in our health, as these microorganisms aid in digestion, synthesize nutrients, enhance insulin sensitivity, and support the immune system. When we have overgrowth of certain organisms or there are pathogens present, our gut health can be compromised. This can lead to inflammation, leaky gut, food sensitivities, constipation, and poor digestion & nutrient absorption. I will often use the GI-MAP stool test with my clients to help assess digestive function and identify low levels of beneficial bacteria or the presence of overgrowth or pathogens in the gut.
The best way to support your microbiome is to eat an anti-inflammatory, colorful diet that includes a variety of plant foods. This could include fruits, vegetables, beans, legumes, grains, herbs and spices. Each of these have beneficial compounds that your friendly gut bacteria can thrive off of.
Remember above how I said that detox in the liver happens in 2 phases? Well the 3rd and final phase of detoxification happens in the gut — aka pooping. This is how our body gets rid of toxins and excess hormones. If you are not having at least 1 soft, formed stool each day then these compounds stay stuck in the body and recirculate.
Additionally, there are certain gut bacteria who do not play nice with estrogen. If you have high levels of an enzyme called beta-glucuronidase, then these bacteria will unpackage estrogen that has been detoxed in the liver and send it back into circulation, often in a more potent form. We can measure levels of beta-glucuronidase on a comprehensive stool test.
A few foods that are particularly helpful for liver and gut health are: cruciferous veggies, broccoli sprouts, fatty fish, egg yolk, citrus peel, sauerkraut and other ferments, unpeeled carrots, flaxseed, cherries, cranberries, turmeric and green tea.
Step 4: Ensure optimal nutrient intake
Dieting has become such a normal thing in our culture. The weight loss industry is worth billions of dollars and magazine covers constantly bombard us with messages on how to get a better body. Trendy new diets with promises of quick weight loss are popping up all of the time. Somewhere along the way women started to think that a 1200 calorie, low carb or low fat diet is what’s appropriate.
How does our nutritional intake affect our hormone health? In every way! Fat and cholesterol are needed to make hormones. Carbohydrates are essential for thyroid health and metabolism. Adequate protein is needed for growth and repair, to make thyroid hormone, to build muscle, and to maintain the gut lining. Inadequate food intake and low calorie diets will raise cortisol levels and can shut down sex hormone production because the body doesn’t feel safe enough to ovulate.
Fat, carbs, and protein are the 3 MACRONUTRIENTS. Food is energy and if you are not eating enough you are actually slowing down your metabolism, increasing your stress hormones, messing up your digestion, and decreasing your fertility.
So it’s worth asking, are you eating enough food?
This calculator is a great tool to use to see how much you really need to be eating each day. Keep in mind it is still an estimation and what you need each day will vary (i.e. you may be hungrier on days you workout vs. days you’re sitting more). It’s always best to listen to what your body is telling you rather than be rigid with numbers on a calculator.
I’m not a huge fan of tracking every morsel you eat every day, but I do suggest tracking your intake for a few days and see where you fall. (I really like the app Cronometer for this!). Don’t only look at total calories, but also protein, fat, and carb intake for each meal and the total of these macros for the day.
If you’re not eating enough food, then there is also a good chance you’re missing out on vital MICRONUTRIENTS — the vitamins and minerals that are needed for metabolism, liver detoxification, immune function, and so much more. Cronometer will also calculate the micronutrients so be sure to take notice of what might be lacking.
Food is nutrients and nutrients are important, y’all. Don’t miss this step when you’re working on your hormones or it will be really hard to see progress.
There you have it!
4 foundational steps to hormone balance:
Balance blood sugars.
Manage your stress in healthy ways.
Optimize your liver and gut health.
Ensure optimal nutrient intake.
Hormone imbalances are SYMPTOMS and they do not get out of whack for no reason. When you work on these 4 areas you are working towards the root cause of those symptoms.
Want more tips? Download my free guide “Hormone Healing Foundations” to learn more.
If you want more help navigating your hormone health, be sure to apply for a FREE 30 minute introductory call. We will chat about your symptoms & goals and put together a plan for healing.
Kate Netz, RDN, LD
Functional Dietitian
All information in this post is for educational purposes only and does not replace medical advice or diagnosis.
