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Hormones and female fat loss

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Hormones play a very important role in female fat loss. You need to understand their roles in your fat loss and that will help you to understand what you need to do to lose more fat. You'll be able to find out why you are not losing fat even though you are trying very hard.

Estrogen and progesterone

These two hormones are the primary female sex hormones which control a woman's cycle. Estrogen is necessary for regulating the mood. It does that by improving serotonin levels in the brain. It can also influence other metabolic hormones like cortisol and insulin. Progesterone brings in the sense of equilibrium. It is also a natural diuretic. It can affect thyroid hormone.

If there is an imbalance between estrogen and progesterone, that can result in mood swings and irregular periods. That can cause fat gain because it will start a series of changes to the hormones involved in metabolic rate. If you have more estrogen compared to progesterone, that is a condition known as estrogen dominance and when that happens it can increase the levels of cortisol, which can increase appetite and can make some unfavourable changes in the hunger hormones leptin and ghrelin. It can also cause a decrease in physical activity and as a result of that along with too much calories going in, it can easily add more fat to the body.

Insulin

Insulin is a story is home and which will first store glucose in the form of glycogen. When the glycogen stores of full, the extra calories will be deposited as fat. Because of unhealthy diet and lack of physical activity, insulin sensitivity may decrease. Then insulin levels will keep on rising and more and more insulin will be needed for disposing glucose in cells. When you have higher insulin levels in your body, it will result in fat gain and dysregulation of hunger hormones.

Cortisol

Cortisol is a hormone which is released from the adrenal glands. The hormone is really is in response to both physical and psychological stress. It helps in burning the stored fat. It can be very beneficial for your body because it helps in triggering fat burning.

When stress becomes chronic, cortisol levels will go up very high and that will result in muscle loss along with fat gain in the abdominal area. Cortisol can trigger high carbohydrate food consumption and as a result of that you may consume more calories than you should. If there is a combination of high cortisol levels in your body along with high insulin, which will result from high carbohydrate intake, it can result in your body storing more fat. This is very common in case of women as they age.

Leptin and ghrelin

Leptin and ghrelin can regulate your appetite and thereby help you by reducing hunger. Leptin is released from fat tissue for regulating body fat. If you have more fat in your body, more leptin will be released and that will lower your appetite. If you are lean, it will reduce leptin levels in your body and that will increase your hunger.

 Ghrelin has two types of effect on appetite. First, it directly stimulates hunger and second it activates the reward centre of the brain. You will experience physical hunger and along with that you will also have a psychological drive which will force you to consume more food.

References

1. Cinderella Solution
2. Losing weight guide
3. Healthy Weight