Under-eaters can’t lose weight. Over-exercisers aren’t having better luck. Their metabolisms have adapted like Alaskan children plopped onto a tropical island. Except instead of being a good thing, the metabolic adaptation has put them on the brink of metabolic disaster: a destructive hormonal disorder involving the nervous, endocrine, and immune systems. Their hormone imbalances not only fuel their fat-loss resistance, they can cause fatigue, irregular menstrual cycles, low sex drive, and more.

How can misfiring hormones have such a massive effect on metabolism? Like dominoes, when one hormone loses its balance, others soon follow. And any attempt to lose fat without the proper balance of these capable chemical messengers will be in vain.

Hormones Do It All

Hormones wear a lot of hats. They shape the bodies of men and women. They ease stress, help you sleep, regulate your blood pressure and heart rate, help you digest food, control your sex drive, fight infections, control blood sugar, and help you burn and store fat. Sure, the weight-loss struggle involves a balance of calories and exercise, but when you’re facing metabolic damage, hormone imbalance is the bigger culprit. Those dominoes are falling, and you have to take action to set them up again. Here are just a few of the hormone shifts involved in the destruction.

Adrenal Fatigue and Low Cortisol Levels

Humans are hardwired for stress and survival. When you encounter stress, your adrenal glands start to fatigue and produce cortisol (the stress hormone). This hormonal release is a “fight or flight” response designed to prepare you for impending physical challenges. When the stress of your diet gets to be too much and metabolic damage begins, your body starts to produce extra cortisol. When cortisol levels are elevated for quite some time, the adrenals can fatigue causing the cortisol to fall to low levels. This can lead to chronic fatigue, exhaustion, and a disease of the endocrine system called Addison’s disease. Too much cortisol, and you may develop weight gain, depressed immune function, accelerated aging, and stomach ulcers.

Low Leptin/Leptin Resistance

Leptin is the body-fat-locating hormone, charged with the crucial task of keeping you from starving by monitoring how much fat you have stored. When your fat stores are satisfactory, leptin sends a text message to your brain: “Fat’s all good ☺,” and your metabolism and appetite remain at bay. But when your fat stores are insufficient (in the case of the under-eater and over-exerciser), less leptin is produced, sending the brain a “MAYDAY!” text to turn down metabolism, preserve fat, and increase your appetite. When the famine breaks, leptin levels rise, calories go straight to the fat stores, and your metabolism and appetite normalize. But unfortunately, most dieters end up regaining all their lost weight in the process because they simply can’t outsmart leptin.

When the subconscious mind is oblivious to the fact that there’s enough fat to get through a famine, the brain becomes leptin resistant, creating what’s known as “blind fat.” Your brain thinks it’s dealing with a super-thin body, and commands it to slow down metabolism and boost hunger. While ignorance is bliss, in this case, your blinded, leptin-resistant brain causes you to overeat, consume excess carbs, and experience blood sugar spikes, high triglycerides, and chronic stress. Bad brain!

Low Thyroid Levels

Aside from the fact that leptin resistance makes it more difficult to lose weight, it also causes issues with your thyroid gland. As calories are cut and leptin starts to take a dive, the thyroid wants to join the ride. Drops in T4 and T3 (the body’s major fat-burning hormone) can directly (or indirectly) result in a slower metabolism and may cause fatigue, low energy levels, and low sex drive. One study on low-calorie diets showed that when calories stay the same, but carbohydrates are replaced with fat, concentrations of T3 drop significantly. That means that even if you don’t drop your calories too low, cutting carbohydrates too much can affect your metabolism in the same way.

Low Testosterone

Testosterone is the primary male androgenic hormone that’s boosts strength and muscle mass, but it also greatly affects energy production and metabolism. As this hormone slows down protein breakdown and speeds up protein metabolism, your metabolism stays in check. When your fat intake is too low, the fatty acids required to create cholesterol vanish – and thus, cholesterol can’t be converted into testosterone. The stress caused by avoiding all those deliciously fattening foods not only lowers testosterone levels in men and women alike, it also lowers metabolic rates and muscle mass. This can be seen in an ongoing study of wild olive baboons in Kenya, where acute stress has been associated with suppressed testosterone concentrations.

Imbalanced Progesterone to Estrogen Ratio

With long-term stress of any kind, and especially with dieting, progesterone also takes a hit. Estrogen quickly becomes the dominant hormone, creating a fat-loss battle – and most often the hips and thighs are the losers. In time, estrogen can plummet as well, leading to belly fat, breakouts, irregular (or disappearing) menstrual cycles, and PMS.

Immune System Overdrive

While the nervous and endocrine systems are also impacted by metabolic damage, the immune system experiences perhaps the biggest impact. It goes into attack mode, battling your body’s organs, ingested foods, and other everyday chemicals. The increase in intestinal permeability (i.e., Leaky Gut, which we’ll delve into in a future blog post), can lead to gastrointestinal problems, food sensitives, autoimmune diseases.

Don’t Stress … Test

You may be experiencing hormone imbalances and not even know it. Undiagnosed metabolic damage is rampant today because conventional medical providers are simply not testing for them. At Twin Cities Metabolism, we provide the exact tests you need to identify the causes of your stubborn weight loss issues. That includes:

• Blood Tests: to evaluate metabolism, including inflammation, comprehensive thyroid tests (more than just TSH, and T4), liver function, protein levels, blood sugar control, iron levels, and much more.
• Hormone Testing and Adrenal Saliva Tests: to measures the body’s actual active hormones rather than inactive hormones bound to protein which can be found in blood.  
• Stool Tests: to look for infections, fungus and yeast, parasites, intestinal inflammation and how your body is digesting and absorbing nutrients.  
• Urine Tests: to determine if Leaky Gut Syndrome is present.

Once you have concrete test results, you can begin the path to healing your metabolism. By learning about your metabolic issues, following a customized process, and monitoring results, you can take charge of your health once and for all.