your hormones aren't causing your weight gain, you are...

"Hormones don't have calories in them"

While partially true, this is also a pretty shortsighted approach to the hormonal effect on weight gain.

So why do hormones cause weight gain?

Specifically thyroid?

👉 They decrease your resting metabolism while simultaneously stimulating hormones that make you hungrier, crave inflammatory foods, and become less satiated.

Yup, that's literally it. Hormone imbalance don't cause your body to mysteriously hold onto body fat.

A lot of moms come into me "my hormones are all over the place and it's causing me to gain weight. I eat barely anything and still gain weight!"

Most the time what we discover is the hormones are indirectly making them gain weight by causing them to be hungrier, less satisfied after their meals, crave more inflammatory foods, and having a slower metabolism.

If you are in a calorie deficit of 300 calories, it doesn't matter what your metabolic rate is (assuming you are supplementing with essential vitamins and nutrients you will not be getting with less food).

For example, if I have one mom whose resting metabolism is 1700 calories, and another that is 1500 calories. Mom A is eating 1400 calories and mom B eating 1200 calories to lose body fat, they will lose at the same rate.

And they will be equally as hungry.

It's all relative.

However, the body holding onto body fat is the main kicker in hormonal imbalances.

So how can we optimize hormonal balance?

💤 7+ hours of sleep

🧘‍♀️ Keeping stress levels low (meditation and mindfullness)

🚶‍♀️ Daily low intensity physical activity

🏃‍♀️ Moderate to hard intensity training 2-4x/week

😱 Sex

🌞 Direct sunlight 20min per day

🥗 Eating anti-inflammatory metabolic foods

Assuming we're doing the above to help our hormone optimization, the rate of fat loss will come up much faster as well as your resting metabolic rate.

So mom B that was eating 1200 calories would be eating 1400 calories and losing body fat at that number.

My advice?

Eat the correct macronutrient (protein, carb, fat) intake for your body.

Understand the measurements need to be surgically precise and not solely using calories because you could easily be eating an extra 2-300 calories by not weighing foods on the food scale OR eating "low carb" or "carb conscious" since those foods hide calories by not counting their carbs from fiber as carbs...

...fiber is still a carb and still takes energy to break down.

Start with a 40/30/30 split (40% carbs, 30% protein, and 30% fat) balance. If you are losing 1-3lbs per week after 4 weeks of 100% precise adherence, keep the same balance. If not, start tweaking your carbs and fat.

BE AWARE: Do not do a low carb diet. This will crush your body's recovery thus killing your metabolism further.

This is the same reason I hate when PCOS "experts" recommend ketogenic diets.

If you're looking to get your hormones optimized, skyrocket your metabolism and energy, and get toned AF in the process, sign up for my 12 Week Metabolic Momma Method here: dcfitness.la/enrollment-form

-DC