4 tools for boosting your metabolism hormones!

Did you know that your fat cells make a hormone that’s linked to losing weight and keeping it off?

Leptin is a super important hormone for feeling satisfied after a meal and telling your brain to either kick on the fat-burning thermostat in your body or turn it down. Interestingly, leptin also plays an important role in inflammation, immune system function, and fertility.

Now, as with all hormones, more isn’t necessarily better.

In today’s newsletter, I’m going to briefly tell you what you need to know about leptin so that you can have greater success with feeling satisfied from your meals and balancing your weight AND 4 tools to support your metabolism hormone leptin.

Before that, I want to invite any Bay Area locals to join me this Thursday, Jan 26th and/or Saturday February 3rd to attend Stress & Your Gut, a free wellness talk on how to release extra weight, improve energy and improve digestion. Please see the Upcoming Events column on the right for details.

Leptin and leptin resistance

Leptin needs to be at the right level for you to experience satisfaction from meals, balanced appetite, and balanced weight. You don’t want it to be too high or too low. Ironically, having too high a leptin level is a more common problem for people struggling with weight and appetite. You see, when the body has too much fat, the fat cells release a lot of leptin and that information goes to the brain…but when there is metabolic damage, your brain may not get the signal! When your brain doesn’t “see” that you have plenty of leptin and therefore plenty of fat already, it reacts by telling you that you’re starving and to keep eating. The brain also tells you to conserve energy so you may feel tired and lethargic as well as burning fewer calories at rest. Not a good combo!

Some causes of leptin resistance

• Lack of sleep
• High stress
• High simple carb intake
• Overeating
• Exercising too much
• High insulin (another hormone related to fat storage and metabolism)

4 tools for supporting your metabolic hormone leptin

1) Eat quality fat, protein, and carbs~get your carbs from veggies and limit or remove grains; Gluten in particular is well known for weakening the gut lining after its eaten which can lead to inflammation in the hypothalamus in your brain and reduce leptin sensitivity. 

2) Get to bed by 10pm and get 7-8 hrs of good quality sleep each night.

3) Exercise…but don’t overdo it. Mix it up and listen to your body. You should feel good when you’re done.

4) Eat every 3-4 hrs (rather than snacking often) to give your hormones a break.

Until next time, I’m wishing you Unstoppable Health!

~Rebecca