Did you know?
Hormones are important substances that serve as chemical messengers in your body. They dictate nearly every bodily process, including metabolism, hunger, and fullness. Because of their association with appetite, some hormones play a significant role in body weight.
Hormonal dysregulation — when your body releases too little or too much of a hormone — can significantly impact body weight. Some hormones stimulate hunger. Other hormones signal satiety, ie. you’ve had enough to eat, and don’t want more.
Hunger and satiety signalling are complicated processes that involve many systems in your body. Hormones responsible for hunger include ghrelin, motilin. Hormones responsible satiety include insulin and leptin.
Hormone levels may be affected by many factors, including: food, sleep, activity levels, stress, fat percentage, muscle mass, medical diagnoses, age, etc.
Hormones also influence the number of calories your body burns on a daily basis. For this reason, fluctuations in hormone levels may lead to weight gain or loss, and dictate where fat is stored. For example, the Thyroid secretes hormones that are responsible for increasing metabolism ie. burning of calories and the production of ATP / energy.
When the Thyroid gland is overactive, it releases too much Thyroid hormone and puts the body into a hypermetabolic state, where it burns more calories. This is known as hyperthyroidism. Conversely, an underactive Thyroid, characterized by low levels of Thyroid hormone, leads to fewer calories burned. This is known as hypothyroidism.
This is why people with hyperthyroidism may lose weight, while those with hypothyroidism may gain weight. BUT remember nobody wants to lose weight we ONLY want to burn fat. So knowing which hormones burn and which hormones store fat, then making the life style changes to support the fat burning hormones is the ultimate way to your perfect weight.
