Foundations of Hormone Health..
I hope you are enjoying late fall/early winter and getting time to slow down a bit before the chaos of the holidays ensues. I’m working with a lot more nutrition clients these days and many, like me in the past, struggle with healthy hormones - whether it is painful or heavy periods (usually a sign of excess estrogen) or adult acne(which often has it’s root in the gut) or perimenopause symptoms like weight gain, hot flashes, stiff joints or frozen shoulder (the symptoms of which are tied to adrenal health, balanced blood sugars and a regulated nervous system).
Usually I start of working with people on getting their entire health and reproductive health history and we look at dialing in the foundations for hormonal, and overall health: getting adequate sleep, balancing blood sugars with the right mix of proteins, fats and carbs, supporting the nervous system, liver and detoxification systems so we can clear hormones and not hold onto them, making sure they are eliminating their bowels daily, and, the most important, managing stress.
In functional medicine, sex hormonal imbalance is very rarely a root cause, but sex hormones are responding to something else in the body. The most common ones are blood sugar disregulation, gut dysbiosis (bacterial overgrowths of the bad guys) inflammation, poor adrenal health (pumping out too much stress hormones on the regular), poor thyroid function, or closed detoxification pathways (poor functioning of the liver or gut which “clear” hormones).
Foundations First. Balanced hormones has to start first with the foundations:
1. Eat enough calories.
Hormonal balance for women is rooted in safety. Grown adult women need a minimum of 2500 calories and usually upwards of 3000-3500 per day based on activity level, age, and health status. You may need to up your caloric intake generally if you want to have balanced hormones, make a baby, or have a smooth perimenopause.
Why is this? When the body is under prolonged stress, you are undereating or overexercising for your bodies needs, or not properly fueling, it sends signals to the brain that it is not safe and has to use emergencies reserves of nutrients to keep the body functioning. It also relies on stress hormones to keep the body out of an emergency state. If our body believes it is in an emergency, it puts the halt on producing adequate hormones. We need to eat enough calories generally to produce enough cholesterol. Cholesterol is the most basic building block of all hormones, including sex and stress hormones. Cholesterol of under 150 is unlikely to result in balanced hormones.
2. Eat enough fats
We also need health fats to build cholesterol - especially fats high in Omega 3 like fish, algae and flax seeds or heart healthy, anti-inflammatory fats like olive oil, avocado, or hormone balancing fats like flax, pumpkin, sesame and sunflower seeds. Fats should be at least 35% of your daily caloric intake. You can even go up to 55%. Fats also play a central role in the clearance of our sex hormones. Some hormonal imbalances are not always production issues but also clearance issues. All hormones must be created, used and cleared. The moving of hormones through our bodies takes place mainly in the liver (and the gut)and is a nutrient-dense process that relies heavily on fats. You may suffer from hormone imbalance because you can’t clear them from your body. Fats help with that!
3.Balance Your Blood Sugar. You cannot have healthy hormonal balance without regulating blood sugar levels. Period. In fact, imbalanced blood sugar is often a root causeof hormonal imbalance. After we eat a meal, especially a carbohydrate rich meal, we have a rise in blood sugar in our body in the form of glucose. This is normal and expected. It is the extreme highs leading to extreme lows that are the big problem. These come from long periods of fasting followed by meals heavy in carbs and lacking the balancing effect of proteinsand fats. Big spikes in blood sugar signal to the brain to release cortisol to balance insulin within the cells. Cortisol is a necessary hormone to get up and go and help us respond to stress, but many of us are using it so much in non-emergency circumstances that our adrenal glands become overworked and depleted. Overworked and depleted adrenals go hand in hand with hormonal imbalance.
We can also set ourselves up for a hard time balancing our blood sugar by being underslept, relying on caffeine in the morning before food, not eating breakfast, not being exposed to natural sunlight, exercising before eating, waiting too long between meals, and a host of other things that the body sees as a stressor.
A few food and lifestyle tips to balance your blood sugar levels:
· Avoid “naked carbs”that are not “dressed” with either protein or fat. Eating pasta? Add in a animal or plant based protein. Enjoying a sandwich? Add an avocado for fat and animal or plant protein. Eating a piece of fruit as a snack? Add a nut butter to pair the carb with a fat. Then your body will have less severe blood sugar spikes
· Start your day with a balanced breakfast that includes protein (likeeggs, Greek yogurt, or a plant-based option with protein powder), healthy fats (avocado, nuts, seeds AND fiber-rich carbs (berries, oats, or sweet potatoes) to blunt the blood sugar spike.
· Eat at regular times, and don’t skip meals. This not only helps stabilize ormones but also reduces cravings and keeps your energy steady throughout the day.
· Take a walk after you eat. 20 minutesis great. 5 minutes will do. This helps to blunt the blood sugar spike immediately following a meal.
· Sequence your meal well. You can eat your regular meal in different orders and it affects the blood sugar spike. The best order that allows you to maximize eating what you like AND support stable blood sugar is green and non-starchy veggies first, then proteins, then simpler carbs like bread, pasta, white potatoes or dessert.
· If you do intermittent fasting (which I don’t really recommend for menstruating females), start the day with breakfast and use the morning and day time as your eating interval. If you skip breakfast, this has profound negative effect on your Cortisol Awakening Response. Cortisol helps with energy regulation as is acounter to melatonin, so having a strong CAR is necessary for good sleep and stable energy. We need both of these for balanced hormones and balanced blood sugar. CAR works best if we eat within 45-60 minutes of waking up. The longer we delay our first meal, the easier it is for our daily cortisol rhythm to be off.
Got these dialed in but want a deeper dive into your hormones? I am one of the few practitioners in Germany who runs functional labs which look like this . I use them for clients who have symptoms like missed periods, painful or heavy periods, insomnia, adult acne, facial hair or low energy, sleepiness and constant stress and want to have a peak at their stress hormones. I live in Germany, where hormone testing is about a decade behind, so this testing can be way more helpful for giving a longer term hormone picture than what the gynocologist orders which is really more of a snapshot of what is happening at the exact moment of the test. Schedule a free 15 minute call.
I will be teaching some healthy hormone and other functional nutrition workshops in 2025. Follow me on IG to stay up to date!