Women of a certain age or just simply the female gender can face challenges and barriers when it comes to losing weight.These weight fluctuations may sneak up gradually over time or abruptly. After an average two-to-three-day weekend of food and fun, you can easily find yourself five pounds heavier during that Monday morning weigh in. You suddenly realize that you are no longer able to get into those pairs of favorite jeans; nevertheless, anything in your closet.

If you’re putting on weight easily and having a hard time taking it off, you should know that hormonal imbalances affect weight loss and weight gain. These imbalances could be part of the problem, or the entire problem. In fact, some hormonal imbalances can make it downright impossible to lose weight.

What you may not realize is that many underlying health issues can impede weight loss attempts. These same issues can actually be the cause of initial weight gain, in addition to poor diet and lack of exercise.

Insulin resistance can lead to Syndrome X, also referred to as Metabolic Syndrome. This occurs when a person has high blood pressure, elevated glucose levels, abnormal cholesterol, and excess abdominal fat.

These issues are a recipe for disease and will almost certainly contribute to a life of poor health and early death if not addressed at their root cause. The easiest way to reverse Insulin Resistance is to exercise and change your diet. Not only does exercise help you to burn calories so you can lose weight, but it also causes muscles to be more insulin SENSITIVE and open the cell doors to receive glucose. When this happens our cells can then use glucose for energy and not store it as fat, as mentioned earlier.

You don’t need fad diets or calorie-restricted diets to reverse insulin resistance. Instead, cut out processed and high-sugar foods and increase physical activity. These two things alone will go a long way toward better health.

Our providers at Bass Comprehensive Wellness Care check insulin levels as part of our weight loss program. We understand the role that Insulin Resistance can have on both weight and overall health. Most traditional practices usually only check glucose (blood sugar levels) and hemoglobin A1C, which tells you whether you have diabetes. However, blood sugar levels nor hemoglobin A1C may not be elevated with Insulin Resistance, it’s important to test the amount of insulin in the body. That’s why we test blood sugar levels, A1C, and insulin.

Currently, one in five women in the United States have an underactive thyroid gland. This condition is called hypothyroidism. Symptoms include weight gain, fatigue, hair loss, depression, anxiety, high blood pressure, and more.

What’s particularly concerning is that over half of the hypothyroid population remains undiagnosed.

Often, women are eating right, exercising, and doing all the right things for their health. However, if the thyroid is low functioning, it causes the entire metabolism to be slow. And this can make weight gain likely, often in short periods of time.

Hypothyroidism also makes it much harder to lose weight, even with proper diet and exercise.

THYROID TESTING

Conventional medical doctors test TSH (thyroid stimulating hormone) during routine lab work. However, other thyroid problems exist which will not show up on this test. Thyroid hormones must also be tested to have a better picture of thyroid function.

T4 is the hormone made by the thyroid gland and secreted throughout the body. However, T4 needs to be converted into T3 hormone in order for the cells to function properly and produce energy. T3 is the active form of the thyroid hormone, which is responsible for one’s entire metabolic function.

Not everyone can convert T4 into T3; it’s actually quite a common problem. When this is the case, weight loss is inevitble.

Our providers with Bass Comprehensive Wellness Care will run a full thyroid panel test to determine exactly where the problem is originating so that it can be treated correctly.

Once the root cause of the problem is identified and treatment protocol begins, patients begin to feel better within just a few weeks — and their metabolism starts to function as it should again.

Cortisol is produced by the adrenal glands and is referred to as the stress or “fight or flight” hormone.

If faced with danger or imminent death, cortisol levels and adrenaline would rise. This caused all energy to be diverted to the heart, lungs, and muscles in order to fight for survival or flee for one’s life.

When the “fight or flight” mechanism kicks in, blood flow to the digestive system slows down, and your body starts storing fat.

The problem is that in the modern world, our brains have this same stress response when we worry or fear that something will happen.

You may work at a stressful job that requires time demands and multi-tasking. A relative may be ill, or your child might have problems in school. Physical illness, chronic poor health, or trauma also put stress on the body.

The adrenal glands don’t have any way of differentiating between being chased by a Tiger or having a stressful job; they perceive both as danger, which can keep the body in an almost constant state of “fight or flight.”

This is normal in the short run, but if it goes on for long periods of time, prolonged stress and high levels of cortisol can cause high blood pressure, elevated glucose levels, increased belly fat, and even muscle loss.

If we don’t know how to manage our stress levels, the adrenal glands produce less and less cortisol. And this leads to another condition called adrenal fatigue, which causes a chronically sluggish metabolism.

Adrenal fatigue affects not only the entire endocrine system but also makes it harder to cope with everyday life events and makes us much less resilient and more prone to disease.

Did I mention, high levels of cortisol can lead to weight gain. The inability to regulate cortisol levels can lead to ongoing unresolved weight issues.

We often associate the testosterone hormone with men, but women need testosterone as well — just in smaller quantities.

Several factors can contribute to low testosterone, such as obesity and alcoholism, but the most common cause is age. Levels begin to wane for women in their late twenties to early thirties, and by the time we’re fifty, levels are about half of what they once were at their peak.

Testosterone has many functions. It is responsible for building and maintaining muscle mass and skin tone. When levels are low, fat starts to dominate over muscle mass, and skin begins to sag.

It has been said that testosterone gives us the “pep in our step” and helps to keep us vital.

Another big role of testosterone is to help activate insulin. So low testosterone levels can contribute to insulin resistance issues. And as we’ve already discussed, insulin resistance causes increased belly fat.

Estrogen imbalance can occur at any age. If the ratio of estrogen to progesterone (more estrogen, not enough progesterone) is off, a condition called Estrogen Dominance occurs. It is also possible to have deficient estrogen levels and still have Estrogen Dominance if progesterone levels are very low.

This is common, especially as women enter their forties and begin their transition into menopause (also referred to as perimenopause). Progesterone is usually the first hormone to decline, which creates an imbalance between the two hormones.

One symptom of Estrogen Dominance is WEIGHT GAIN, especially around the abdominal area. Remember, too, that belly fat causes insulin levels to rise and can be a cause of Insulin Resistance.

As we reach the menopausal years and ovarian production of estrogen declines, the body looks for other sources of estrogen. One storage source for estrogen is in the fat cells.

Our bodies react to this by converting more of the calories that we eat into fat to have more estrogen to draw upon. Declining estrogen levels, just like testosterone, also cause muscle mass to decline, resulting in more body fat.

To learn more about Women Hormones Click Here.

Factors such as:

• Leaky GUT a disruption in the intestinal barrier which causes toxins to leak
  through a get into your blood
• Candida an overgrowth of yeast in the small and large intestines
• Metabolic Gut Dysfunction an imbalance in the gut microbiota
• Malabsorption inability to absorb nutrients through the small
  intestine

can all contribute to weight gain

Certain things can increase our chances of disrupting our GUT health which includes

• eating a diet high in sugar and/or refined carbs
• alcohol abuse
• diabetes
• use of antibiotics (particularly if prolonged or repeated)
• a weakened immune system

Lack of sleep or poor quality sleep both contribute to weight gain. The National Institutes of Health provide many studies showing the connection between the two.

One study suggests that “short-duration sleepers” are 88% more likely to be obese compared to people who get the proper amount of rest.

Chronic lack of sleep doesn’t just affect obesity levels; it adversely affects every biological system in the body and can lead to disease and early death.

It’s also been proven that someone who has been awake for 16 hours or more and gets behind the wheel is just as impaired as someone driving under the influence of alcohol.

Let’s take a step back and remember that nothing replaces good nutrition along with exercise. Our clinic focuses on health and wellness, and we want you to lose weight in a healthy, sustainable way.

According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), 73.6% of adults over age 20 are overweight. 41.9% of those people are considered obese.

These are staggering numbers. In fact, the CDC now lists obesity as a national epidemic.

• Coronary artery disease
• Stroke
• Type 2 diabetes
• High blood pressure
• High cholesterol (includes triglycerides which contribute to plaque in
  the arteries)
• Fatty liver disease
• Certain cancers
• Osteoarthritis
• Sleep apnea
• Endocrine disorders, including Insulin Resistance
• Alzheimer’s and/or dementia
• Mood disorders
• Back and joint pain

Since BCWC focuses on prevention, a good diet and exercise program is the GOLD STANDARD for maintaining good physical health as well as mental health.