How do Charlie's Angels relate to your weight gain?

If you've stepped on the scale only to find the number creeping up and up, I understand your frustration. 

It's easy to want to throw your hands in the air and quit all the healthy things you're doing. But if there's ONE thing I can tell you, it's this: DON'T RELY ON YOUR SCALE!

If you've been trying everything but you're not losing weight, there are few areas to examine, hormones being one of them.

The monster hormone that causes weight gain, inflammation, and chronic disease is excess insulin. Too much sugar, carbs, constantly snacking and grazing, stress, and lack of sleep can impair your insulin (aka blood sugar), which results in packing on the pounds. 

But! And this is a big but...other hormones affect your weight and health as well. The big three disruptors are what my favorite hormone doc, Sara Gottfried MD, likes to call Charlie's Angels (Sabrina, Jill, and Kelly) and they are thyroid, cortisol, and estrogen.

Let's dive into these angels (errr, hormones) :) to see just what they do for you and why it's critical they're in the right amounts:

Thyroid aka Jill (Farrah Fawcett-Majors) is Sporty Angel, who is lithe and athletic. On the show, she plays tennis, rollerskates, and drives a blue striped race car! Her metabolism is working for her, like Thyroid. Thyroid drives your race car. Without enough thyroid juice you will have a sluggish metabolism, but it will also cause slower digestion, brain fog, fatigue, dry skin, low sex drive, and possibility infertility.

Cortisol aka Sabrina (Kate Jackson) has brassy charm and a quirky wit. Sabrina is the "Smart Angel." She's no-nonsense, smart and strategic-thinking -- not unlike Cortisol, the main hormone of your stress-response system. Just as Sabrina rescues the "Angel in Danger," Cortisol rescues you from tight spots, such as a car accident or racing after a toddler heading toward danger. 

Cortisol gets a bad rap, but we need it. Without it we would actually die! You can't eliminate stress completely, but you can reduce it with breath work, meditation, yoga, or deep relaxation. These activities activate pathways that promote weight loss and health. Plus, high amounts of stress will 'eat up' your vitamin C and B vitamins -- key nutrients needed for detoxification. 

Estrogen aka Kelly (Jaclyn Smith) is the Sensitive Angel: softer and voluptuous, queenly, but also street wise and tough, like Estrogen. Kelly could be powerful and in control one minute, and a seductress the next. Estrogen serves all these purposes. Having too much estrogen causes weight gain whether you're a man or a woman. Estrogen keeps you flush with serotonin, the feel-good neurotransmitter that makes your mood, sleep, and appetite right for you. It also gives you great orgasms, lubricated joints, and perky boobs (rather than pancakes). 
Too much sugar, refined carbs, and alcohol spikes estrogen. Keeping your gut healthy also cultivates healthy sex-hormone metabolism. 

Estrogen keeps the other angels, cortisol and thyroid, in balance.

Each Hormonal Charlie's Angel is important, essential, and useful on her own, but it's when all three of them are at the height of their individual powers and working together that the magic happens.

If you are saying to yourself, "Yep, that's me," then reach out and let's chat. 

I want to get these three bad-ass hormones working FOR you again. We'll start with an in-depth questionnaire and then move on to test your hormones to get even more details, and put together a plan of action.

Here's to getting these babies working for you again!