You Are What You Eat
How many times have we heard it – we are what we eat. Usually following that is a quip about fast food or anxiety, or another retort that makes us chuckle. Humorous though it might be, this repartee contains more than a kernel of truth. So much scientific evidence points to the strong relationship between what we eat and our health.
What Hormones Do
Diet affects our overall wellness and, especially, our hormonal health. Hormones do so much more than control gender-related processes in our bodies. Hormones affect numerous aspects of our health. Hormones are messengers sent from various organs, glands, and parts of our brain to ensure our body’s healthy functioning. Hormones are responsible for the regulation of:
- Body temperature
- Blood pressure
- Sleep/wake cycle
- Growth
- Blood sugar
- Metabolic processes
- Mood, including anxiety and depression
- Electrolyte balance
Clearly achieving one’s best health will only occur when our hormones are well-balanced.
Diet And Hormones
We’re all under such pressure to produce, earn, and live a social media worthy lifestyle that it can be tempting to make quick, easy meals, especially when prepared foods, or foods that require minimal preparation, are so readily available. However, processed foods are consistently associated with increased weight, which leads to additional health risks, including insulin resistance, potential thyroid imbalance, and even some cancers.
Insulin and thyroid are among the hormones produced by the body that can affect weight gain/weight loss, although they’re not the only hormones impacted by diet. Adrenal and reproductive hormones are also affected by diets and dietary imbalances.
Optimizing Hormone Function Through Diet
We’re regularly bombarded by information about the effectiveness of various diets, weight loss plans, or weight management tools. But, when it gets right down to it, dietary recommendations for optimizing hormones are straightforward. Some of the recommendations are:
- Incorporating healthy fats into your diet because they help support hormonal balance and reduce inflammation
- Eating a high protein diet to support amino acids in stabilizing growth, insulin, and thyroid hormones
- Eating a diet rich in fiber to help balance estrogen and metabolic hormones
- Drinking water to help regulate, produce, and release various hormones
- Limiting both caffeine and alcohol which create stress for adrenal hormones
Specific Dietary Recommendations
Suggested foods to help maintain hormone health are those that are primarily unprocessed and/or fresh foods. For example, a high protein diet might include:
- Eggs
- Lean poultry
- Cottage Cheese
A high protein diet can also include crossover foods from other recommended diets. For example, beans and legumes are recommended in both high protein and fiber-rich diets while fish and nuts are suggested foods containing both high protein and healthy fats.
Plenty of fresh vegetables and some fresh fruit should be included in every diet that helps balance hormones, as well, because they include antioxidants and phytonutrients that support overall hormone health.
The Online NP Can Help
Stephanie Kowatch, of The Online NP, is available to help you discover any hormonal imbalances you might have and to suggest ways to balance them most effectively. She is an FNP (Family Nurse Practitioner) who provides consultation and treatment via a telemedical healthcare model. She’s licensed in over 40 states and is available to help you achieve your best health.
Disclaimer: The information contained here was not written by a medical doctor and is intended for informational purposes only. This is not a substitute for medical advice.