Bring Your Hormones Back Into Balance

Hormones are your body's chemical messengers. They travel in your bloodstream to tissues and organs. They work slowly, over time, and affect many different processes, including:

• Growth and development
• Metabolism - how your body gets energy from the food you eat
• Sexual function
• Reproduction
• Mood

Endocrine Glands make hormones. Hormones are powerful and it takes only a tiny amount to cause big changes in cells or your whole body.

The Shift Set Go Program that I offer affects and significantly improves the following hormones:

• Insulin
• Cortisol
• Thyroid
• Estrogen/Testosterone

Insulin - Regulates blood sugar

Cortisol - Adapts the body to stress by influencing blood sugar, blood pressure, inflammation, and immune function

Thyroid - This group of hormones impact every cell in the body, influencing metabolic rate, heart and digestion, brain development, and bone maintenance.

• Dysfunction/Imbalance: hypothyroidism, Hashimoto's, Grave's
• Common symptoms: fatigue, trouble sleeping, poor regulation of body temperature, digesting issues, mood/depression, hair loss
• Recent studies are showing that treating thyroid dysfunction can change body weight in patients, but not drastically. Medication will help normalize thyroid levels, but nutritional intervention is still necessary to achieve weight loss goals.
• Client experience: Clients with thyroid conditions may experience irregular weight loss. The struggle is often that thyroid treatments only return them to "normal" range (which is different for everyone). As the body changes daily, some days are great, and some days are not, leading to irregular weight loss.
• Recommendations: The more consistent you can be with timing your medication, meals, and food selection, the more progress you will make each week. Tracking with your food journal is key.

Sex Hormones: Estrogen & Testosterone - Estrogen's primary function is reproductive for both male and female, influences most other cells in the body as well. Testosterone is key for male productive health and linked to bone mass, fat distribution, muscle mass and strength, and general health in females.

• Dysfunction/Imbalance: PCOS, estrogen dominance, erectile dysfunction
• Common symptoms: Decreased mood, mood swings, hot flashes, cravings, weight gain, loss of muscle and strength, erectile dysfunction
• In general, PCOS and obesity are linked, but independent of each other and additive. No dietary change is shown to be more effective with women with PCOS, though PCOS is often linked to insulin resistance.
• Estrogen dominance tends to lead to insulin resistance and therefore weight gain
• Testosterone decreases with age, which impacts metabolism and can lead to insulin resistance as well.
• Client experience: Sex hormones tend to operate in cycles, so clients with dysfunction will have some good weeks and some less productive weeks on plan. This also varies with age, as hormone levels decrease with age.

Women Vs. Men - In the process of weight loss, women tend to experience more hormonal fluctuations, and guiding them through these can deepen their understanding of what their body needs for the future.

• Women often have phases of releasing stored estrogen as they burn fat. This can affect the use of birth controls and influence their experience in menopause, either improving symptoms or increasing them.
• Both men and women are impacted by decrease in hormone levels as they age, which commonly makes weight loss more challenging.

Learn more about the Shift Set Go Program and how it can help improve your hormones and get your body back into balance.