How to Eat Cleaner - Day 23 of 31 - Weight Loss, Health & Hormones.

How to Eat Cleaner - Day 23 of 31 - Weight Loss, Health & Hormones.

Hello everyone. I'm so excited that you decided to join me in our 31 days to cleaner or healthier eating. Each one of these videos will have 1 simple concept for you to chew on. It's your choice what you do with it. Try it for a day, a week, a month or implement for your entire life. My hope is it helps you open your mind to learning more about fueling your body more healthily.

Part of cleaning up what we eat is getting educated and alot of these videos focus on awareness.

Today we talk about weight loss hormones, this is another topic that could be pages and pages.  Here is just a brief overview, please research for yourself if you want to dig deeper.

Insulin
Insulin is important in recovering from exercise, muscle building, and maintaining good blood sugar levels. But, when we eat too much carbohydrates, insulin gets out of balance. This can causes problems with the breakdown and burning of stored fat. The more carbohydrates you eat, the more insulin is released. So, it's important to eat foods with a low glycemic load and be sure to eat balanced meals with high quality carbohydrates, protein and fat.

Leptin
Leptin is a type of hormone released solely from fat cells. Leptin helps your body to eat less and burn more calories. So, you would wonder, if I'm overweight wouldn't I have more leptin. Yes, you do. And too much gets released leading to a condition called leptin resistance. When this happens, your brain becomes numb to leptin's signal. So, you want to eat more and your metabolism slows down. Ways to help keep leptin levels normal are lose weight, get good quality sleep, eat lots of antioxidant rich berries and vegetables.

Ghrelin
Ghrelin is a hunger hormone. It is produced in your stomach and signals to the brain that you are hungry. When you skip meals, wait too long between meals or eat a too low calorie diet, ghrelin is released. Eating snacks or meals every 2-5 hours, eating high quality proteins help you feel full longer, and intense exercise also helps keep ghrelin at bay.

Adiponectin
The more lean and fit your body is the more adiponectin your fat cells will release. Adiponetin increases your muscle's ability to use carbohydrates for energy, boosts your metabolism, increase the rate in which your body breaks down fat, and curbs your appetite. You can increase your adiponectin levels by moving during the day and eating monounsaturated fats that can be found in olives and avocados.

Glucagon
Glucagon helps break down stored carbohydrates and fats and then releases them so your body can use them for energy. The best way to utilize glucagon is to eat protein-rich, low-carbohydrate meals and keep your carbohydrates high quality.

CCK
CCK or Cholecystokinin, this hormone is released from the cells in your intestines when you eat protein or fat. It helps you feel satisfied and slows the rate of digestion. So, you feel fuller longer. It has been suggested that starting each meal with a small protein appetizer helps with this process. An example would be a handful of nuts or some string cheese. Also, being sure your meal is balanced with protein, fat and carbohydrates.

Epinephrine
Epinephrine stimulated the body to burn fat and utilize fat as energy in the body. It can also aid in appetite suppression. The best way to turn on epinephrine is exercise, in particular interval training, going from hard to easier to hard again during the course of your workout.

Growth Hormone
Growth hormone like epinephrine stimulates the body to break down fat cells and use them as energy. Growth hormone can be increased by doing intense exercise like intervals or circuit training and getting good quality sleep.

Cortisol
Stress activates the release of cortisol and cortisol increases your appetite. Not only does it increase your appetite, but it stimulates you to want to eat low quality carbohydrates like sweets. These make your insulin levels spike and then drop and you feel hungry again. So, it's important to get good quality sleep and learn to manage stress. Taking a relaxation yoga class or taking time to just relax can help significantly.

High Estrogen
High estrogen related to high abdominal and hip fat. Abdominal fat in men increases testosterone being converted to estrogen. Premenopausal women tend to get higher levels of estrogen. If high estrogen is an issue, some dietary additions may help, add green tea, tumeric, flax, and chia to your diet.

Low Testosterone
Testosterone decreases as abdominal fat converts it to estrogen. Increased stress is also connected with high abdominal fat due to cortisol production. Low testosterone in men has been linked to depression, obesity, osteoporosis, and heart disease. Zinc supplements, weight training and eating enough protein may help raise testosterone levels.

OMG, it's like a college course book in here. Thanks for hanging in there.

Think about your habits. Are any of them throwing off your hormones? Are there some simple things you can change like getting enough sleep, eating more vegetables, being sure to eat protein and fat with every snack/meal?

Thanks for your time. This is Coach Lana and I would love for you to join me at http://facebook.com/coachlana so we can connect.