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August 18, 2016

A different topic this month – Hormones the reality!

I don’t need confirmation to know that many woman who may be reading this – nodding their heads at the same time – will completely understand what I am going on about…. Hormones!! Pesky things that they are.

It actually doesn’t matter what age you are, because your hormones play a massive part in how your body functions on a daily basis; how it metabolizes, how it holds and stores fat and how your mental wellbeing is subsequently affected. Think of PMS, PMT, fluctuating mood swings, sugar cravings, water retention, ovarian cysts, weight gain, or weight loss, etc…. the list goes on!

They decide where you are going to lose weight from, put weight on, or just plain have you going up and down like a yoyo on a week-by-week or month-by-month basis; and when you reach the early or actual menopausal stages, they can completely take over, or have such an impact on your body that it’s as though someone has snatched the real you and left an imposter in your place. Ring any bells??

The “pesky” hormones I’m talking about – estrogen and progesterone – are part of the body’s network of glands called the Endocrine system. These glands produce more than fifty different known hormones, which maintain and regulate basic bodily functions. The Endocrine system is actually second only to the nervous system as the controlling system of the body. Clever system and clever bodies!!

Stress is also a major contributing factor in how these two hormones affect, not only weight gain and being able to lose weight, but also our mental wellbeing, because stress can “rob” hormones and affect hormonal balance.

That’s not to say that what we put in our mouths doesn’t also have a huge impact on our waistlines as well as our other hormones!

…For my part, I had always been able to lose weight when I had gone too far towards my “over comfortable” level, and have been lucky enough not to have too many PMT episodes over the years thank goodness. That was until about year and a half ago, when I literally got “hijacked by my hormones”. I know my age played a big part, as did the years of intermittent stress, but I soooo wasn’t prepared for what happened.

It was as though the “hormone” body snatchers had been overnight and left someone else who looked like me in my place. With this “new” body came bizarre emotional turmoil, night sweats and hot flushes during the day (both which I got under control with the herb sage). But what threw me totally, was what happened to my waist and bust line… These “body snatchers” had been kind enough, whilst I was asleep, to pump up both, increasing them by quite a lot – over and beyond my “comfortable” level, consequently turning my body into something I didn’t quite recognise as my own!!

Suffice to say that many months on, with my stress levels addressed (working with myself in the same way I invite my clients to work with themsleves), my emotions and hormones now well under control, I am very much back to being “me”.   Working with a doctor who specialises in Bio-identical hormone replacement therapy has been life changing, although there is still the “little” problem of my waistline and bust, which are still a work in progress….. but as the old saying goes, Rome wasn’t built in a day.

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