Hormonal Balance: How to Lose Weight by Understanding Your Hormones and Metabolism
438
Hormonal Balance: How to Lose Weight by Understanding Your Hormones and Metabolism
438eBookThird Edition, Third edition (Third Edition, Third edition)
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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781936693429 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Bull Publishing Company |
| Publication date: | 08/01/2012 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 438 |
| File size: | 6 MB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Hormonal Balance
How to Lose Weight by Understanding Your Hormones and Metabolism
By Scott Isaacs
Bull Publishing Company
Copyright © 2012 Bull Publishing CompanyAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-936693-42-9
CHAPTER 1
Balance Your Hormones to Lose Weight
You are probably reading this book because you are frustrated about your weight. You have read every book, tried every diet, and you are aware of the health benefits of weight loss. You have probably lost weight on a diet but gained it back, or you struggle to keep it off. You are discouraged and don't know what to do next.
It is not your fault.
Weight problems do not develop because of lack of motivation, overeating, or not enough exercise. Weight problems occur because your hormones have evolved over thousands of years to force your body to gain weight. Your hormones keep you fat so you can survive when food is scarce. In the developed world, food is not scarce. Your hormones don't know that. This book will help you understand, eat, and live in harmony with your hormones so you can lose weight and keep it off permanently.
Obesity is one of the greatest health challenges our species has ever faced. According to the World Health Organization, there are more than one billion overweight and 300 million obese adults in the world. There are more than 120 million overweight adults in the United States. Seventy percent of Americans have an unhealthy body weight. This number has almost doubled in the past fifty years and is expected to increase further. Obesity costs an estimated $300 billion in medical bills and lost productivity each year. One in five children and one in three young adults under the age of twenty-four are obese. Worldwide, 92 million children are at risk from becoming overweight in the next decade. Obese children are seven times more likely to be severely obese by their early thirties. Children and teens typically have accelerated weight gain as they enter adulthood and are especially susceptible to the profound health risks of excess weight.
The obesity epidemic is out of control.
Our comfortable couches, our reliance on fast food, our speedy cars and road systems and spread-out cities that mean we never have to touch a foot to the ground — they help make us fat. We spend billions of dollars on diet books; we throw $100 bills at bottles of diet pills; we scarf up diet supplements, diet magazines, and turbo-quick diet weight loss plans; we sign up for subscriptions at health clubs that we never use, book appointments with doctors whom we ignore, and make half-hearted attempts at starting exercise programs that we don't continue.
And still we are fat and getting fatter every day.
Why is this? Why can we not lose the weight? Why can we not be the thin, svelte, sexy, beautiful human beings we picture ourselves to be? The human body is a terrifically complex machine. Each piece of the machine has an impact on every other piece of the machine, and the machine is continually analyzing input from inside and outside and adjusting itself accordingly. If one part of the machine goes "off," other parts can follow.
Becoming overweight can be a result of the human machine getting off track. And one purpose of this book is to help you understand why it gets off track and how it gets off track — reasons that are greatly influenced by our hormones. And, finally, it tells you how to maintain your body so that it doesn't get off track at all and your weight is under safe and healthy control.
Hormonal Balance reveals important information about hormones that influence the body and the brain, explaining why we feel hungry and why we crave food.
Make This Diet Your Last Diet
In a study of more than 180,000 dieters, it was concluded that 83 percent of people who start a diet pick one that is virtually guaranteed to fail. Ninety-eight percent of people who lose weight on a diet gain it all back within five years. Some gain more than that.
You can be among the other 2 percent.
Obesity is not a problem of willpower. It's a lot more complicated than that. Fortunately, the past few years have brought a change in the way doctors and scientists view obesity. Previously, most thought of obesity, except in the rarest of patients, as a question of willpower. Obese people ate too much. They didn't exercise. They didn't have a balanced diet or a regular workout program. They could lose the weight if only they'd have some guts and determination. Today, nine out of ten doctors now believe that losing weight is as emotionally and physically difficult as quitting smoking.
In a study of nearly 1.5 million people published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2011, it was concluded that being overweight or obese dramatically increases the risk of dying early. Obesity has passed cigarette smoking as the number one preventable killer because it's connected with a host of medical problems ranging from heart disease and high blood pressure to diabetes, arthritis, gall bladder problems, Alzheimer's disease, and even cancer. Due to our growing waistlines, experts predict that by 2050, one in three Americans will have diabetes. Despite this, 74 percent of doctors believe that overweight people are in denial about their weight.
Americans are experiencing more weight-related ailments than ever before.
The New England Journal of Medicine reported in 2010 that even a small amount of weight gain increases the risk for dying. Every pound you gain increases your risk of dying. Overweight people have a 13 percent increased risk of dying early, and the risk increases to 44 percent once a person becomes obese. The study reported that those with higher body weight are at even higher risk for dying.
Pharmaceutical companies get rich making the vast array of medications needed to treat the medical problems caused from being overweight. I'm not putting down medical science; these medications have extended our lives and prevented certain death for many people. But it's a sign of the times that instead of treating the root causes of our problems, we treat many individual diseases with drugs. In fact, these diseases — which are known as "diseases of civilization" — were almost unheard of generations ago among our lesser-weight ancestors. And doctors have discovered that even a miniscule amount of weight loss — say, 5 or 10 pounds — can reduce our risk for many of these diseases.
The key to permanent weight loss? Hormonal balance. Hormonal balance can help you lose the weight you need to prevent, alleviate, or even cure many of the ailments caused from being overweight.
Your Hormones Control Your Weight
Your hormones regulate your appetite, cravings, metabolism, and body weight. Many overweight people have an intuitive sense that something's wrong in their bodies. My patients often have symptoms that can be attributed to a number of hormone problems. In fact, it is not unusual for me to diagnose multiple hormonal abnormalities in the same person. That's because hormones don't go out of whack in a vacuum. When one hormone is out of balance, it can lead to other hormone problems like a chain reaction.
Hormones not only regulate weight, but also mood and emotion and the desire for food (or lack of desire for food). The ability to process food is intimately related to hormone levels in the body. This complex interplay of hormones ultimately determines your appetite and body weight. This has nothing to do with willpower.
Listen to Dr. Bjorntorp of the University of Goteburg, Sweden:
With visceral fat accumulation multiple endocrine perturbations are found, including elevated cortisol and androgens in women, as well as low growth hormone and, in men, testosterone secretion. These hormonal changes exert profound effects on ... metabolism and [fat] distribution. Cortisol and insulin promote [fat] accumulation ... while testosterone and growth hormone and ... estrogens exert opposite effects.
What does this mean? Hormones have powerful interactions with your fat cells and have a major influence on your weight. And insulin, cortisol, growth hormone, and testosterone are only a few of many hormones involved.
Hormones are as fundamental as life itself. All living creatures have hormones. They are powerful molecules that control your metabolism. Hormones regulate how much fat you have and where you have it; they control your appetite; they affect your energy level; they influence your mood, your emotions, even your desire to exercise. Hormones determine the size and strength of your muscles. And hormones help determine your body weight.
Hormonal Disorders Can Be Hard to Diagnose
Doctors learn about hormonal disorders in medical school. But the medical school curriculum teaches that hormonal disorders are usually rare. Not only is this not true, but it does a disservice to endocrinologists, who study hormones and hormonal disorders, and patients, who are told that the problem lies elsewhere. Medical schools do teach about hormonal disorders in their extreme cases but may not teach about less severe cases of the same disorders. The flaws of medical education don't stop there. In med school, the blood test is emphasized as the be-all and end-all. Symptoms may be brushed aside if blood tests are "normal." But blood tests can be wrong. Many people with hormonal problems can have normal blood test results.
In real life, hormonal disorders can occur in many ranges and are due to many things. Some hormonal disorders are caused by tumors (sometimes cancer, sometimes not) of glands — the glands pump out tons and tons of a particular hormone. Other hormonal disorders are caused by complete failure of a gland. Other problems can occur when hormones aren't made properly or don't function the right way.
Medical schools don't teach much about the hormonal disorders caused by a mild overproduction or a mild deficiency of a hormone. They also don't teach much about receptor problems or other ways that a hormone could go haywire. The result: over the years, many doctors forget to look for any type of hormonal disorder. Why should they? They've practically been trained to ignore them. But that can have costly effects for patients in more ways than one. Many overweight patients seek advice from their physicians. They are usually told their hormones are normal. "It's not your hormones," doctors say. "Just eat less and exercise more." Meanwhile, the doctor may think to herself, "This poor obese patient. I know that the odds are less than 2 percent that they will ever lose weight, so why even bother to try?" This attitude has become so prevalent that doctors now openly debate the utility of trying to have their patients lose weight at all.
Sometimes doctors miss severe hormone problems because physicians are not in the frame of mind of looking for them. I have seen many of these missed cases. For example, the average patient with Cushing's syndrome (a disorder resulting in excess cortisol production and weight gain) sees multiple doctors and waits about ten years before getting an accurate diagnosis. Doctors may ignore subtle complaints and attribute your problems being overweight, getting older, or feeling depressed. They forget to consider that perhaps your symptoms may be clues to the cause of your weight gain, not the result of it.
Many hormonal disorders will make you gain weight, and all the dieting in the world will not help until the hormonal disorder is corrected. Maybe a simple blood test won't find it, but other testing methods can — and hormonal testing techniques continue to improve. We can detect hormones in blood, urine, and even saliva. But even there, a well-trained doctor will know what else to ask for, because tests can only go so far: they should be given at certain points of the day, test certain parts of the body, and have other requirements that many doctors aren't aware of.
This book explains symptoms of various hormonal disorders. Your symptoms will help you determine whether you may have a hormonal disorder. This book demystifies hormone tests and helps you to interpret the results of tests. It is not meant to be a substitute for your physician. It is to be used as a guide to help answer questions and is intended to bring about your awareness of symptoms so that you can make your physician aware of them.
The Genetics of Weight Gain
There have been great strides made in determining the genetics of obesity. To date, many genes have been attributed to the control of body weight. More than 500 genes have been associated with obesity, with 30–40 genetic sites identified as having a very strong link. These genes influence the complex biology of body weight by controlling appetite, metabolism, and body fat distribution. Genetic researchers emphasize that weight gain generally occurs when people burn fewer calories than they consume. Genes, personal choices, and a society that encourages high-calorie foods and discourages exercise all play a role in body weight. But, genetic differences may explain why some people gain weight despite healthy lifestyles while others stay lean without exercising much or paying much attention to what they eat. Researchers believe that we can learn a lot from people who are genetically resistant to gaining weight.
Because of our genes, our hormonal systems are almost identical to those of our ancient ancestors. Very little has changed over the generations. Unfortunately for us, our environment has changed even though our hormones have not. No longer do we need to forage for nuts and berries; no longer do we need to kill our dinner or go without. We have food that's quick, easy, and high in calories, and cars to get us to the restaurant or grocery store.
"Becoming obese," says obesity expert Dr. James Hill of the University of Colorado, "is a normal response to the American environment." It's an environment created by the industrial revolution. Before the industrial revolution and all its advances in agriculture, transportation, and processing, granulated sugar was an extravagance. Ice cream was a delicacy. Anything requiring refrigeration existed only for the wealthy (or those in very cold climates). It all changed almost overnight, given the context of human history: suddenly, high-calorie, high-fat, high-refined sugar foods were inexpensive and readily available.
And we like those foods. We want more; we want more for our money. Think of "supersizing." A double cheeseburger for 99 cents! A 48-ounce Coke for only a dime more than a 32-ounce Coke!
Seems like a bargain, right? But does "more" mean "better"? We are paying a price for all that cheap food. Sugars and fats bombard our delicate hormone systems. Our genes can't keep up with the changes.
Many nutrition experts today recommend that we eat the way our ancestors did thousands of years ago. Dean Ornish, creator of the diet that bears his name, has said that thousands of years ago "it was survival of the fattest."
But things have changed. Back then the problem was finding enough food to avoid starvation. And different cultures had different diets. The Inuits of northern Canada had (and have) a high-protein, high-fat diet, the better to insulate their bodies during the long, hard winter (the body burns more calories to generate body heat). The ancient tribes of Africa, Mexico, and India adhered to a whole-grain, high-carbohydrate diet. The bottom line is the same: the healthiest diets of the world promote hormonal balance and lean bodies.
But today, we look for a "one-size-fits-all" solution. That's why so many diet books contradict each other. Different authors select the diet of a particular ancient culture to match the diet they're writing about. This anthropological basis for dieting falls short in that it does not take hormones into consideration at all. Obesity today is caused because the food of our civilization disrupts the delicate hormonal balance we are genetically programmed to have.
But today, we look for a "one-size-fits-all" solution. That's why so many diet books contradict each other. Different authors select the diet of a particular ancient culture to match the diet they're writing about. This anthropological basis for dieting falls short in that it does not take hormones into consideration at all. Obesity today is caused because the food of our civilization disrupts the delicate hormonal balance we are genetically programmed to have.
"Genetics loads the gun. Environment pulls the trigger," says obesity guru George Bray. Well, we can't change our genetics (not yet, anyway). But we can change our hormones. And you can change your hormones without eating like a caveman. This book shows you how.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Hormonal Balance by Scott Isaacs. Copyright © 2012 Bull Publishing Company. Excerpted by permission of Bull Publishing Company.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
Acknowledgments,Foreword by Neil Shulman, M.D.,
Introduction,
Part I LOSING WEIGHT NOW,
Chapter 1 Balance Your Hormones to Lose Weight,
Chapter 2 How Metabolism Affects Your Weight,
Chapter 3 Understand How Food Affects Your Hormones,
Chapter 4 The Hormonal Health Diet,
Part II BALANCING YOUR HORMONES,
Chapter 5 Outsmart Hunger Hormones to Control Appetite and Cravings,
Chapter 6 Alleviate Insulin Resistance,
Chapter 7 Boost Metabolism with Thyroid Hormone,
Chapter 8 Women's Hormones I: Thrive in Your Reproductive Years,
Chapter 9 Women's Hormones II: Survive Perimenopause and Menopause,
Chapter 10 Men's Hormones: Enhance and Restore Testosterone,
Chapter 11 Calm Your Adrenal Gland to Lower Cortisol,
Chapter 12 Get Pituitary Support with Growth Hormone,
Practical Strategies for Intelligent Weight Loss,
Hormone Disorders: A Guide to Symptoms,
7-Day Meal Plan,
Recipes,
Shopping List,
Health Information Websites,
Bibliography,
Index,
About the Author,