The 3 Most Common Hormones Out of Balance in Women… And How to Rebalance Them Naturally

Most of the typical health advice is geared towards men.

P90x?

Get shredded books?

All this hardcore Shaun T workout stuff?

But the truth is that weight loss for women is definitely different: in particular, because of one thing – hormones.

We’re going to talk about the three hormones most commonly out of balance, and how to re-balance them naturally.

The 3 Main Hormones Out of Balance in Women

How Women Can Rebalance Those Hormones With Real Food

One of the things that I love is how Dr. Sara Gottfried talks about the “charlie’s angels” triad of hormones.

She talks about a few hormones that are commonly out of balance in women: Cortisol, Thyroid, and Estrogen (the three we’re going to talk about here).

WHY they’re so important is obvious: if you find yourself without any steam or energy, crappy sleep and mood issues (among other things), hormones are often to blame.

And seeing as how most of my students and clients are women, especially women over 40, there are a lot of key strategies I use for hormonal rebalancing in a natural way.

The big problem: in women (actually, often in men too) estrogen tends to be too high, thyroid tends to be too low, and cortisol tends to be too high too.

Here’s how you can kickstart the healing process and get those back in line:

Here’s How to Rebalance the Hormones Naturally:

Dealing with High Estrogen: 

One of the problems with Estrogen (and why high Estrogen is so common) is that the higher the fat mass we have, generally the higher levels of estrogen – PCOS symptoms are also linked to higher estrogen (something I frequently hear about from women that want to feel better).

Having said that, one of the main things that will help LOWER the levels of Estrogen is just losing weight – having less fat mass means we’ll generally have lower Estrogen levels. Even men with higher body fat levels have increased Estrogen levels and eventually can suffer from man boobs and other “female” complications.

The next step here is to emphasize a higher protein, lower carb diet – which is a really good, overall prescription for improving body composition – in a majority of people this simple principle WILL make you look better.

Also, if your diet is too high in carbs it can increase levels of inflammation in the body and promote fat storage.

Yep, You Can Still Drink Red Wine (But Avoid This)

One of the things here is to eliminate alcohol (or decrease it) besides red wine because it increases Estrogens in men & women)

Also, another big thing that you might not have thought of are Xenoestrogens – weird, nasty compounds that mimic estrogen in your body when consumed.

A very common one is BPA – the chemical found in plastic water bottles that had a huge scandal over the past few years.

Can you guess where the next big source of Xenoestrogens is? Pesticides!

That’s one of the better reasons to try and eat organic if you can swing it!

Thyroid

Yep, you read that right.

There’s a strong link between how stressed you are, and how poorly your thyroid functions.

So doing that whole annoying “stress management thing” (aka heavily drinking – remember, only red wine haha), is something you may need to do more often because it has real, tangible effects on your body.

Cortisol

Having just established that having MORE stress worsens your thyroid… which is critical for metabolism… let’s focus on lowering cortisol in the body.

The easiest, most important thing?

SLEEP MORE. SLEEP BETTER.

I realize that most of us hate this – we constantly complain about not having enough time, always being stressed, and there never being enough hours in the day to do all the things we love. Sleep naturally can take the back burner.

Yes, that might mean squeezing in less stuff throughout the day, not over scheduling, and taking time to actually not work.

The second thing is to chill out with the stimulants, since they increase cortisol in the body and rev up the stress response.

That means swapping out the red bull for something else, and maybe using tea instead of that sixth coffee or the Trentini from Starbucks.

Finally? Enjoy life.

Taking it way too seriously, becoming a neurotic perfectionist like me, and trying to make every day an A+ is a recipe for a nervous breakdown.

Take time to drink the damn wine, eat the cupcake, and enjoy your short time here.

Your Tiny Habit For Today

Follow these three steps for hormonal rebalancing for women.

The key habits for lowering excess Estrogen:

• Remember that less body fat = lower levels of estrogen generally
• Have a higher protein, lower carb diet
• Eliminate alcohol besides red wine
• Avoid Xenoestrogens

The key habits for lowering Cortisol & boosting Thyroid: 

• Sleep more if it’s humanly possible
• Decrease reliance on stimulants
• Actually do your stress management stuff
• Supplement with adaptogenic herbs (we talked about a few metabolism boosting ones here).

Thoughts?

– Alex