What is estrogen dominance? What are the signs of estrogen dominance? We will be answering both of those questions and much detail as well as one of the top questions I get asked here on the blog which is” how can I fix my hormonal weight gain?”
Losing weight can be hard. Losing weight when you have a hormonal imbalance or hormonal weight gain feels nearly impossible!
Estrogen Dominance causes weight gain typically around the thighs, hips, belly, and butt.
Studies have shown that men and women between the ages of 35 and 55 gain on average one to two lbs around their abdomen each year without any changes to their diet and exercise habits.
These also happened to be the same years when women start to see pedestrian levels begin to decline and testosterone production begins to drop and men.
What some refer to as the muffin top, or dad bod is referring to the weight gain around the midsection at the valley, but, size and hips are just one of the signs ask hormonal level imbalances.
When fat cells produce more estrogen it seems our body through a cycle of increasing estrogen dominance.
Estrogen and progesterone are two hormones that are on opposite ends of the teeter-totter. If one goes up the other comes down. This causes quite a hormonal whiplash for our bodies to try to adjust to.
What are the signs of Estrogen Dominance?
One of the first telltale signs of oestrogen dominance weight gain is weight gain around the midsection. The spare tire. The dad bod (belly).
Estrogen Dominance weight gain starts appearing around the hips, thighs, butt, and belly. Estrogen dominance weight gain thighs, or hips and thighs, are one of the most common areas of complaint among women.
The second most common hormonal weight gain complaints are what is now called Hormonal Belly.
You know it is bad if it gets its own name (insert head slap).
The bad news is the weight gain in this area prompts fat cells to produce even more estrogen.
Estrogen dominance in the body leads to
- hypothyroidism is an autoimmune disease where the body slows down the metabolism (it is estimated that 13 million people in the US have hypothyroidism, or 1 out of 100 Americans over the age of 12 and 80% of people with thyroid disorders are unknown/untreated).
- abdominal tissue begins to retain water and bloating becomes more frequent
- Unnatural increases in insulin are released as a result we feel more hunger and food cravings (especially for junk food, high sugar foods, and refined carbs). A high blood insulin level causes low blood sugar for hypoglycemia.
Estrogen dominance can have many negative effects on a woman’s body.
Any symptoms or side effects such as PMS, headaches or frequent migraines, decrease sex drive, chronic bloating, fatigue, anxiety, depression, breast tenderness, hormonal weight gain, mood swings, and heavy and painful periods/menstrual cycles.
Quick Side Not Disclaimer: I am not a medical doctor, I am an everyday person like you who was frustrated and did not want to be on medication my whole life without ever actually fixing the problem. In my posts, I share how I used food as medicine, clean nontoxic living, and modern scientific tools and research to heal my autoimmune system and be free of all medication in hopes that you can find your own healing journey too.
Estrogen Dominance Test
You have a couple of options if you are experiencing many of the signs and symptoms of Estrogen Dominance. There are at-home Estrogen Dominance Test Kits (here is an option you can check out by Verisana for under $70).
With the Estrogen Dominance Test they use 1 saliva sample to meassure:
1.) Progesterone
2.) Estradiol
3.) Estrogen/ progesterone ratio
One of the most common hormonal imbalances can often lead to significant health problems in women. It can be identified using the hormone saliva test.
Or if you want to see a doctor in person try googling “functional medicine doctor near me“.
Functional medicine doctors take a holistic approach to medicine. Traditional doctors in the US look at problems as isolated issues.
For example, Hypothyroidism, which is what I had (yes past tense for more on how I healed my body and hormones naturally search hormones in the search bar above that is what 90% of this blog is about -sharing my journey so you can find healing too!).
Traditional medicine doctors will identify the problem and prescribe medication. That’s it.
Dr. Mark Hyman my favorite functional medicine doctor, who also healed his autoimmune system naturally, says it like this, “traditional medicine doctors diagnose and audios”.
Meaning they find the problem, prescribe medication, and send you on your way.
This is only band-aiding the real problem.
Not getting to the root of it and fixing it.
But if you have a doctor you know, love, and trust who does take a more holistic healing approach you can request a full hormone panel and be sure the estrogen is being tested within that panel.
Natural Remedies for Hormonal Imbalance in Females
Whether you have Estrogen Dominance or any other form of hormonal imbalance the approach to healing hormones is the same.
- Eliminating Foods causing the problem
- Removing Toxins in our everyday products
- Monitoring Sleep / Improving Sleep
- Daily exercise (I am talking a 10-minute workout at home and 10,000+ steps nothing crazy here)
Eliminating Foods causing the problem
For a deep dive on this topic check out the Hormonal Imbalance Diet.
In short, foods that harm our hormones are highly inflammatory foods, which also happen to be the most addictive foods!
Sugar. Gluten. Dairy. Refined Carbs.
Generally speaking, I recommend the Clean Keto Custom Keto Meal Planner to all my readers and coaching students.
The reason for this is Clean Keto, Keto that removes dairy and highly processed foods even if they are “low carb”, and is the easiest eating style to jump-start the body into burning ketones while eliminating many of the highly inflammatory foods causing our hormones to be out of wack.
Also, check out Hormonal Harmony Supplements, the multivitamin for your hormones.
Many people have found weight loss from just taking the supplement alone.
However, it is important to understand if foods or toxins are causing your hormones to be out of balance then even if this supplement helps with the weight loss, it has not fixed the root problem.
Taking a holistic approach to having a happy hormonal balance is key to lasting results!
Removing Toxins in our everyday products
Again I have a very in-depth post with a free printable you can find here How to Find Hidden Toxins in Everyday Products.
There are SO MANY ingredients in our everyday products from fluoride in toothpaste to fragrances in EVERYTHING…. our lotions, shampoos, deodorants, laundry detergents, perfumes, and air fresheners.
The toxins from the free printable in the post linked above are what are called known endocrine disrupters.
Our endocrine system is our hormone factory.
So many of our make-up, skincare, personal hygiene, and home products are loaded with endocrine disrupters.
It took me years to find and eliminate all of them from my daily life, which is why I started this blog to help you speed up your healing journey!
Monitoring Sleep / Improving Sleep
Did you know our bodies can go 40 days without food but after only 3 days of no sleep it can cause irreversible brain damage?
When people are looking to heal their bodies or heal hormonal imbalances sleep is often the most overlooked area.
Ongoing lack of sleep or poor sleep quality has been closely associated with hypertension, heart attacks and strokes, obesity, diabetes, depression and anxiety, decrease brain function, memory loss, weakened immune system, lower fertility rates, and psychiatric disorders.
Red light therapy can help the body to regulate melatonin and improve sleep.
A couple of tips we have picked up along the way that will also vastly improve your sleep quality are
- Wearing Blue Light Blocking glasses at night one to two hours before bed (and avoid turning on the lights as the blue light from the bulbs simply touching your skin reduces melatonin – aka it wakes you back up)
- Motion sentencing soft amber or red lights at night
- The Optimum sleeping temperature is 68° (20° celsius), we use the OOLER sleep pad by Chilli Sleep to help get the temperature to 68° as we do not need our AC cooling our entire house to this temperature.
- Wear socks at night. This regulates your body temperature, yes even in hot summers I know it sounds Counterintuitive but if you’re tracking your sleep you will see that it works.
- Track your sleep – I linked our two favorite sleep tracking devices below.
- Keep your bedtime and wake-up time within 30 minutes of the same set time every night (if your bedtime is 9:30 it must be 9:00-10:00 every night weekends and days off included, the same goes for wake-up times…. Yes even on the weekends).
Here are some of the items we use around our house to optimize our sleep:
Daily exercise
Again, we are talking about a 10-minute workout at home and 10,000+ steps nothing crazy here.
In this post The BEST Weight Loss Exercises at Home Workouts & Hormonal Imbalance Weight Loss Meal Plan you will find a FREE at-home 30-day weight loss workout plan laid out for you where all the workouts are 10-minutes a day.
These are workouts I personally love and do daily!
I went from the photo on the left age in my late 20s with a hormonal imbalance- hypothyroidism.
In the photo that is on the right, I am age 39, and my autoimmune system is fully healed!
The hormonal cystic acne that developed with my thyroid issues is GONE!
The frizzy, brittle, dry hair that was not growing and even at times falling out at an alarming rate (hair loss is a common side effect of hormonal imbalance) is GONE!
The photo above that is 100% all my hair, thick healthy, shiny, and down to my waist!
I could go on and on here but I think you get the point.
You can see how much younger and healthier I look now at almost 40 than I did a decade ago!
When we heal our hormones all of the outside issues such as weight gain, acne, and poor energy levels go away on their own.
Conclusion
Hormonal health and weight loss go hand in hand. Knowing what foods are healthy for your hormones and which are causing harm to your hormones is key in being able to heal and reset them.
Your hormones have to return to their healthy ‘factory settings’ before hormonal weight gain will come off for good and stay off.
Clean eating allows our body to focus on what it needs, not trying to digest foods that are unrecognizable to our bodies as food with so many dyes, chemicals, additives, and so on.
Comment below with any questions you may have, and before you go be sure to search “hormones” in the search above.
I have SO MANY posts on how I healed my hormones naturally using food and medicine and clean nontoxic living so that you can too!
xoxo,
K’Lee
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[…] You can think of these two hormones on a seesaw if one goes up the other goes down. Our aim is to keep the seesaw in perfect balance. Save this post to read next if you are seeing signs of progesterone deficiencies: Estrogen Dominance and Estrogen Dominance Weight Gain […]