The Great Fat Debate – Why it should never be about counting calories

Over the last few weeks catching up with family and friends I overheard discussions about how people’s weight had been changing over the past year and it made me realise how many people still think that weight and health is based predominantly on calorie intake.

With many people due to embark on trying to get fit and lose weight in the New Year I thought it might be helpful to explain how weight is not just down to purely calorie counting.

Having navigated puberty, pregnancies and hormonal issues myself, I am only too familiar with how our hormones greatly impact our weight. They influence what we want to eat, how much we eat, when we feel full, what our body does with the calories we eat, and much more. They can pack a hard punch. When in balance our hormones can make losing weight relatively easy, when imbalanced however, it can take a ridiculous amount of willpower to not put on weight never mind maintaining or losing weight.

Can hormones really make a difference? Well think of it this way, why do you think women eat high-carb and sweet foods leading up to their period?

Understanding your hormones may be the answer to not only your weight issues but also your overall health and preventing disease further down the line.

Hormones can be a confusing minefield though, so I thought it would be beneficial to break down 5 key hormones which have been scientifically proven to effect weight, and give some suggestions on how to get them in balance and helping you lose weight for the long term.

5 Key Hormones which affect weight

Cortisol

Cortisol is our stress hormone, the problem is that our stress response is activated regularly in today’s society.  Every time we open an email, have an incident in the car, watch the news, etc.  we can go into fight or flight mode. High cortisol leads to a whole host of issues including causing your body to store fat, crave sugar, make you feel depressed, and have bad sleep to name a few. It also contributes to insulin resistance, so excess cortisol makes it not only hard to lose weight but has major health implications.

Insulin

This hormone’s job is to control the amount of sugar (glucose) in the blood. It is made in the pancreas and it drives glucose into tissues (like fat cells, muscle and liver cells) where it can be turned into glycogen to accumulate energy. This helps muscles and liver become more glycogen rich, it also helps fat cells contain more fat. When your body is sensitive to insulin it’s a good thing, however when it is resistant the insulin no longer works like it should, cells can’t take in the excess glucose and your liver changes the glucose in to fat and makes you more addicted to sugar and fatter. We need to target the cause of the insulin resistance and reduce insulin levels. Insulin resistance is also the precursor to cancer, heart disease, neurodegenerative disease and type II diabetes, so it’s not just your waist line that will benefit from reducing insulin levels.

Oestrogen

The “female” hormone that gave you breasts and hips, it is needed for a female’s menstrual cycle, pregnancy, bone strength, is an anti-inflammatory and much more. However, if you have too much oestrogen compared with progesterone (commonly termed “oestrogen dominance”) this can lead to weight and fluid gain. It can become an issue in your mid-30s to 40s as you enter peri-menopause, when your progesterone starts to drop, causing oestrogen dominance. This can lead to you to storing more fat, especially around your stomach. You get also get oestrogen dominance with PCOS, endometriosis, the oral contraceptive pill and having a higher BMI to name but a few reasons.

Thyroid

This is metabolism’s master key, it decides how fast you burn calories. An issue with the thyroid, such as hypothyroidism, is fairly common and causes weight gain, fluid gain, depression, constipation, hair loss and fatigue. Staggeringly 60-70% of people have undiagnosed thyroid problems. When a woman reaches her mid thirties the thyroid can begin to function irregularly.  Hypothyroidism is also one of the main imbalances women are at risk for postpartum. After giving birth, about 7 percent of women develop what’s called postpartum thyroiditis, when the immune system attacks the thyroid, causing mood swings, lethargy, thinning hair, and difficulty with weight loss. 

Leptin

Is the “satiety” hormone. When you start losing weight or key neurons become leptin resistant, leptin signalling goes down, and the brain thinks you’re starving and so increases your appetite and reduces your energy expenditure. Conversely, if you have too much stored fat, your fat cells produce excess leptin, causing the body to be overwhelmed and your body becomes resistant to Leptin, so it never receives the signals saying I’m full.

How to fix your imbalance

It’s always beneficial to have your hormones tested to understand your individual picture. Each hormonal imbalance will have specific ways of treating it, and having a baseline ensures that the changes you’re making are working. However there are lifestyle and nutritional changes that should benefit all of the above irrespective of the specific hormonal issue, and none of them involve calorie counting.

Sleep

Firstly, make sure you are getting enough sleep! Adults need at least 7 hours of sleep a night. Less sleep causes imbalance in your hormones and can greatly affect your short term and long term health. Try to avoid caffeine 10-12 hours before bed, keep to a regular time for going to bed, and try and switch off any bright lights after 10pm.

Food

Focus on the food, not the calories. Cutting out refined carbohydrates, sugar, and ultra processed foods will make a huge difference to your hormones and health. It’s frightening to think that the emulsifiers in nearly all ultra processed foods are nothing less than a detergent, destroying the gut microbiome and setting you up for inflammation, hormonal imbalance and disease. The NOVA classification of food can really help when you’re navigating how processed a particular food is.

Exercise

Well this is the golden ticket to weight loss and health. It’s the number one way to live leaner and for longer. Nearly any movement is good, walking, running, strength training, swimming. You name it, moving is going to help, however maybe hold off preparing for an ultra marathon. Long endurance running has actually shown to increase your cortisol levels, where as strength, high intensity interval training and stability exercises don’t. So if you have high cortisol maybe mix up your running with some HIIT workouts and yoga.

Stress Management

Reducing your perceived stress can have a huge effect on your hormones and on your waist line. Everyone has their own techniques that work for them, and some work better than others depending on how you feel that day. Meditation has been scientifically proven to help, as well as breathing techniques and yoga nidra. There are some great apps like headspace, calm, and heartmath which can all help when it comes to lowering those cortisol levels.

Vitamins and Minerals

Finally make sure you’re at the optimum level of essential vitamins and minerals, these can have a huge impact on your weight and health. When it comes to hormones it’s important to look at Zinc, Magnesium, Vitamin D and Omega 3’s.

It can be incredibly frustrating not being able to lose the weight you want to, in the way that you use to when you were in your twenties. Please don’t despair, the reason is simple. Your body and hormones have changed, and all that you need to do now is change the way you approach losing weight, giving your hormones and body the reset it needs to become balanced once again.