The key to healthy hormones long-term is to build a resilient body, which can handle stress. Stress isn’t all bad and can even often be beneficial for us. The issue most people have is that their body’s do not have the resources to respond to stress appropriately after years of being depletes. Stress depletes nutrients, and when we aren’t replacing those nutrients, our body has to compensate. This compensation typically shows up as the symptoms that we are often researching answers to solve. We look at our symptoms as the root issue, but in reality they are communication from our bodies that something is wrong.
So what does mainstream health advice have to do with reducing your resiliency to stress? The majority of diet advice actually creates more stress and compensation in your body. While you may feel better at first, in the long run, it often leads to symptoms. Let’s go through some of the most common advice and how it impacts your body long term.
Low Carb/Keto
Let’s start with some of the most common diet advice–reduce your carb intake. I can’t even begin to tell you the number of times I’ve heard someone say something about feeling guilty for eating carbs or that they cheated on their diet because they had bread. Carbs are associated with being bad and unhealthy when in reality, demonizing carbs doesn’t support our health. Carbs break down to glucose, which is our body’s preferred fuel source. Glucose fuels our metabolism, brain and allows our body to convert thyroid hormone amongst many other important functions that it fuels.
We demonize carbs, yet they help keep things running efficiently in our bodies. If we look at whole food carbs, we see that they are actually nourishing for our bodies. Foods like fruit, potatoes, squash, plantains, yuca–are great sources of minerals like potassium and even B vitamins. They also feed beneficial gut bacteria to help us keep a balance of good and bad bacteria in the gut and support our immune systems. When we eliminate carbs, our bodies have to run on an alternative fuel source. We break down protein and fats and convert them into glucose. This leads to blood sugar imbalances and depletes minerals that fuel our metabolism and help us respond to stress.
Can low carb help people lose weight? Absolutely–we have way too many studies that show this, but it’s not the only way to lose weight, and most people gain that weight right back and then some. A lot of this is related to cravings that appear due to inadequate carbohydrate and energy intake. Our bodies are smart, and they will tell us what they need. Unfortunately, mainstream health information often makes us lose that trust and look to outside sources for what we should be eating.
Intermittent Fasting
Another popular mainstream recommendation in the name of health is intermittent fasting. You are told to eat in a restricted window instead of eating throughout the day as your body gets hungry and needs fuel. This means ignoring your body’s natural hunger cues and eating all of your calories in a smaller window of time. Intermittent fasting is praised for its long-term health benefits, but having a healthy metabolism from eating regularly and prioritizing nutrient-dense foods also supports our long-term health. When it comes to hormone health, intermittent fasting is especially problematic because it impacts our blood sugar, increases stress hormones, and slows our metabolism.
While it’s easy to get swept up in all of the benefits of intermittent fasting, I have seen so many women go backwards on their healing journey by implementing this. It teaches them to ignore their hunger and fullness cues and to run off stress hormones. It’s the opposite of what we want to establish while healing our hormones.
Vegan Diets
The push towards completely plant-based eating has been coming on strong in our society for a while. We are told that meat and dairy will ruin our hormones because they contain hormones. The truth is, all animal and plant foods have hormones. Animal foods like meat and dairy contain trace amounts of hormones, while plants contain phytoestrogens, which can bind to estrogen receptors in the body. Whether you eat plants or animals, you will be exposed to hormones. When we completely avoid animal foods, we eliminate essential sources of vitamins, minerals, and essential proteins. Vitamin A, for example, is only found in the active form in animal foods like beef liver, egg yolks, and dairy. Vitamin A is essential for healthy hormones and especially thyroid function. We need protein in order to fuel thyroid health, make digestive juices, support our liver, and so much more.
Before you dive headfirst into a vegan diet or feel like meat is bad for your hormones, recognize all of the essential micro and macronutrients that animal foods provide. Avoiding extremes is one of the best things you can do for your health.
Drink A Gallon Of Water A Day
We used to be told to drink eight 8oz glasses of water a day or 64oz. Then it increased to half your body weight in ounces, so if you weigh 150lb, that would be 75oz daily. Now it’s often recommended to strive for one gallon of water a day or 153oz. The joke I’ve often seen in memes on Instagram is that you will be so busy peeing that you won’t have any time to deal with anyone else’s BS. But what if drinking that much water isn’t as healthy as we have been told?
Drinking an excessive amount of water can lead to increased urination. This increase in urination impacts the balance of sodium and potassium in the body. It also impacts how we balance water absorption and elimination and important hormones like aldosterone. This can disrupt our body’s natural aldosterone pattern and lead to us waking up at night to pee. So how much water do we need? Our bodies have this great mechanism to avoid dehydration, which we can see in real-time when we get thirsty during the same. I’m often asked how much water someone should drink, and it truly comes down to following your body’s thirst signals.
If you have fallen victim to any or all of these pieces of mainstream nutrition advice, you’re not alone. I think the thing they all have in common is that they take us further and further away from our body’s intuitive needs. Many vegans crave steak after a while and low carb lovers eventually “cheat” and eat bread. It’s not you being a failure; it’s your body asking for what it needs. It’s time to listen.
Here is a great podcast episode to check out from the are you menstrual? podcast where I discuss how to build a nourishing nutrition foundation.
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