Ladies, are you currently experiencing heavy, irregular or painful periods? Gentlemen, are you struggling with an inactive libido or having hot flashes throughout the night? If so, you may be dealing with a hormonal imbalance and your sugar intake could be the main culprit contributing to this cause.
Keeping your hormones in check can be a complex task because there are many factors that can contribute to your fluctuating hormone levels. Hormonal imbalance can be a result of lifestyle factors like stress, lack of exercise, poor sleep, or an unhealthy diet composed of processed foods and sugar.
While all these factors should be taken into consideration, sugar intake is the most crucial as there is a correlation between blood sugar and hormonal balance.
How Sugar Can Cause Hormonal Imbalance
All the hormones within our body work together to help us stay healthy, happy and focused. In addition to hormones, chemicals called neurotransmitters send messages throughout the body to every organ, cell and tissue, which helps you do everything from moving your legs to feeling excited or angry.
When your hormones and neurotransmitters are out of balance, everything in your body is out of balance as well.
One of the most common causes of hormonal imbalance is too much insulin or sugar. Many people associate sugar with gaining weight, but sugar can do more than just increase the number on the scale. A diet that predominately includes refined carbs and excessive sugar can lead to a hormonal imbalance.
When we eat too much sugar, white rice and flour, our insulin levels spike. When this happens, our cells become more resistant, so our body starts to pump out more insulin, which makes our bodies become even more resistant and results in a never-ending cycle of insulin resistance.
Insulin helps control blood sugar and helps transfer and store glucose into energy. When we become insulin resistant, we become less energized and start to experience mood swings.
Insulin resistance can also lead to conditions like:
- Heart disease
- Obesity
- Cancer
- Dementia
- Inflammation
- Hair loss
- Blood clotting
- Weight gain
While there are some medications out there that can help with insulin resistance, they often have side effects that can potentially make matters worse. With a comprehensive diet, workout regimen and stress management plan, you will be able to reset your metabolism and restore balance within your body.
Tips to Help Reset Your Metabolism and Restore Hormonal Balance
If you have insulin resistance, your main priority should be to reset your metabolism or insulin and sugar. In order to do this, you will need to get rid of the bad habits that are currently keeping your body out of balance and replace them with good habits that can help restore balance.
Bad food habits to avoid for reducing insulin resistance:
- Flour and foods rich in sugar
- Processed, packaged or junk foods
- Hydrogenated and trans fats
Good lifestyle habits for improving hormonal balance:
- Decrease sugar intake by balancing meals with healthy proteins, carbs and fats
- Eat foods rich in fiber
- Eat smaller and more frequent meals
- Add herbs like garlic, ginkgo biloba and fenugreek to your diet
- Exercise frequently to help your cells function more effectively, burn sugar faster and respond to insulin better
Stress reduction can improve blood sugar control. Along with implementing these tips, try your best not to stress out and relax after a long and trying day. Balancing your insulin level can have a tremendous effect on other hormones and neurotransmitters and also help you jump start your way to a healthier you.
