How To Fix Your Hormones Through Your Diet

What do bad moods, PMS and putting on weight around your belly all have in common?

They’re all symptoms of hormone imbalance, which lead to a dysfunctional metabolism, along with weight, skin and mood issues.

Here are the top 5 hormone imbalances I see and ways to begin to build your own self-health system to start to feel more energised, lose weight if you’re stuck in a plateau, and feel like yourself again – through the power of your diet.

Prefer to listen to this? Listen to the ‘How To Fix Your Hormones Through Your Diet’ Episode on the Healthy Living Podcast here.

When your hormones are in balance, you will feel calm, strong, powerful and energised. Your hormones are responsible for your moods, your cycle, your skin, energy balance and your weight.

And here’s the thing: your hormones are extremely nuanced, especially when you’re eating the wrong foods, not getting enough sleep, or if you’re exposed to environmental toxins – whether that’s all the additional chemicals in the midst of COVD-19, or something in your home or workplace that’s impacting them.

When it comes to re-balancing your hormones, it’s a two-way job between your diet- so the food you eat and your lifestyle. These are the foundational factors of rebalancing your hormones.

So let’s break down the top five hormones I see as a Nutrition Practitioner and how you can best support them using your own diet and lifestyle practices.

1. High Insulin

Insulin regulates how much glucose or blood sugar gets into your cells. But when we give into sugar cravings, or eat lots of high sugar or refined or ultra processed carbs, that’s when our hormones go out of whack.

What happens is our insulin will spike up when we eat the sugar, again and again, until eventually our cells stop responding and we become “insulin resistant”, and issues like metabolic syndrome, pre-diabetes or Type II diabetes and fatty liver start developing.

This can also happen when your body is inflamed by eating foods that might have toxins in them – pesticides, chemicals, preservatives or if you have underlying food sensitives that are inflaming your gut. Inflammation can also happen if your chronically stressed, anxious or not getting enough quality sleep.

Here’s the bottom line: If your cells aren’t responding to insulin, they stop responding to sugar, then they don’t function correctly, and your blood sugar continues to go high, which leads to a whole bounty of hormonal issues and chronic diseases.

How do I know if I have too much insulin?

If you have insulin issues, you might notice:

You feel anxious, or irritated between meals.
You feel hungry straight after a meal or need something sweet.
You have will experience cravings for sweets, especially in the afternoon.

How do I lower my insulin?

You can try lowering your insulin by:

Adding healthy fats into your diet; avocado, macadamia nuts, good quality olive oil to optimise blood sugar.
Adding cinnamon in your diet.which also regulates blood sugar and aid in your body’s recovery especially if you’re exercising.
Adding turmeric in your diet. Curcumin, found in turmeric, has been shown to reduce inflammation and utilise excess insulin in your body.
Adding fibre into you diet – with fibre rich veggies like artichoke, beetroot, raspberries, mushrooms and broccoli.
Eating good quality protein with your meals. Protein is an essential building block for your body and helps regulate your blood sugar, cravings and feeling full.
Getting your carb intake right. You need to get the right kind of carbohydrates at the right time, in order to control your blood sugar, and to balance them with protein and fat. If all you eat is carbs at a meal, all you will get is hunger and cravings

2. High Cortisol

Stress is something that releases cortisol. It makes you crave carbs and sugar and you tend to eat crap.

When you’re stressed, two hormones get released, adrenaline and cortisol. This triggers the ‘fight or flight’ response, which stops your body from burning fat.

Literally stops it.

In fact, your body will start storing fat to protect itself. It thinks tough times are ahead, we better get ready. And you’ll store it on your belly.

High cortisol will make your body start storing fat to protect itself. It thinks tough times are ahead, we better get ready. And you’ll store it on your belly. Click To Tweet

How to tell if I have high cortisol?

When your cortisol is chronically high:

You’ll tend to have belly fat and all your weight will be stored primarily around your middle.
You’ll have cravings for high salt or sugary foods.
You’ll also feel like you get provoked easily, or feel angrier that usual.
You’ll feel moody, depressed and sometimes you’ll find you have lost your mojo.
You’ll have brain fog and forgetfulness
You’ll experience difficulties with your memory

High blood pressure and high blood can also indicate an underlying imbalance with your cortisol.

How can I lower my cortisol?

Eat intuitively and chew your food.This allows your body to enter the rest and digest state, rather than be in the “fight or flight” state. Avoid eating on the run, scoffing down your meals or mindlessly eating in front of the couch. Chewing your food at least 20 times with each bite will release the right enzymes for your gut to digest the food you eat more effectively.
Learn to say no and set boundaries. Being clear on your priorities will make it easier to be clear on what you will or won’t be willing to do, be or agree to, both at home and in the workplace.
Manage your screen time. In this new ‘normal’ with COVID-19, it can feel like you’re glued to one screen or another, scrolling through social media. Setting a limit for yourself, unplugging and getting into nature, doing something creative with your hands or simply having a face-to-face conversation can lower your cortisol.
Use fewer stimulants like copious coffee, or sugar to get you through the day, or alcohols and sleeping pills to wind down at night
Time your macronutrients appropriately to encourage the release of cortisol in the morning, rather than at night which can lead to difficulty sleeping, 3am insomnia or waking up at 4.30am and not being able to get back to sleep.

3. Too Much Oestrogen (or Oestrogen Dominance)

In this day and age, we’re exposed to a lot of environmental toxins that mimic our body’s oestrogen. Things like BPA plastics, cosmetics, shower products, furniture, pesticides and phthalates disrupt our endrocrine system and cause oestrogen imbalances.

How to tell if I have high oestrogen?

When your oestrogen is too high, you will notice:

More migraines or other headaches
Fatigue
Trouble concentrating
An increased waist circumference
Mood swings
Insulin resistance
Anxiety
Cravings
Bloating, puffiness
Retaining water weight

How can I lower my oestrogen?

Eat more cruciferous veggies – broccoli, kale, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, which help you process oestrogen through your liver.
Eat more fiber. Fiber feeds your good gut bacteria and helps shift excess oestrogen out of your body. Fiber rich foods can be sprinkling some chia or seeds on your salads, or eating more fibre rich veggies like artichoke, silver beet and spinach.

4. High Testosterone

Testosterone is a hormone that we associate only males having, but we also make testosterone, in our ovaries and adrenal glands. When our testosterone levels are balanced we feel, calm, strong and confident.

How to tell if I have high testosterone?

When testosterone is too high, you can begin to have issues with:

Excess hair on your chin, chest, and tummy.
A tendency to can losing hair on your head
You’ll also tend to be anxious
A Lack of motivation
Infertility issues

What to do if your testosterone is too high:

Eat zinc. Studies show most of us are zinc deficient so eating foods that are rich in zinc like oysters, nuts, wild caught seafood or beans can help with balancing out testosterone levels.
Balance your blood sugar by eating quality proteins and healthy fats.

5. Thyroid Imbalance

Along with insulin and cortisol, your thyroid hormone is one of the major hormones that controls your metabolism, mood and weight.

Low thyroid hormone, or hypothyroidism, is common in the women I work with, and can cause issues with your weight, moods and fatigue.

How to tell if I have a thyroid imbalance?

When thyroid hormones are too high, you can begin to have issues with:

An ability to losing weight
Dry skin
Trouble sleeping
Trouble concentrating
Join or muscle pain.
Depression
Infertility
Anxiety
Hair loss
Missed or irregular periods

What to do if you need to support thyroid hormones:

Eat foods that will support your thyroid, iodine and omega 3’s; selenium, vitamins A and D, zinc rich foods.
Include foods like Brazil nuts and wild caught seafood, seaweed and sea vegetables.These contains selenium, omega 3 fats, vitamin D and iodine and can help support your thyroid.
Eliminate gluten, which studies support, has a strong link to an autoimmune disease of the thyroid that slows down your metabolism.
Eliminate food allergies and sensitivities that can stop thyroid functioning
Eliminate environmental toxins that can interfere with your thyroid
Resolve stress by creating essential self-care practices
Exercise, which stimulates thyroid gland secretion

Everyone starts in a different place hormonally and knowing how to use food and manage stress to balance your hormones is the foundational part of developing your own self-health system.

When you get it right, you’ll be able to optimize your metabolism, get rid of your symptoms and feel on top of your game.

And having the right support, accountability and information is essential to to help you identify and be consistent with the healthy habits that you need to start balancing your hormones and and restore a healthy metabolism.

If that’s something you want, I have a 14 Day Challenge coming up that focuses on helping you do just that.

Over 14 days, you will learn how to start firing up your metabolism, supercharging energy and getting rid of cravings whilst having the support and accountability you need to succeed.

Join my 14 Day Metabolic Connection Challenge here.

And if you’ve got any questions, comments or tried any of these dietary self-health protocols and seen a difference in your symptoms please comment below,

All my love,

Anna xo