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A few of the recent answers regarding the Calorie in vs. Calorie out debate have touched on the role of properly functioning hormones being a crucial piece to the weight-gain/loss/maintenance puzzle.

Based on the responses mentioned above, it seems to me that a good sign your hormones are functioning properly would be effortless weight maintenance, independent of calories. My question has a few pieces to it.

  1. Does effortless weight maintenance regarldless of calories signal that one's hormones are functioning properly?

  2. Are there other signals that prove your hormones are functioning properly?

  3. Are there specific labs one can request to get hard data on how one's hormones are functioning?

Bonus Section: I'm fully aware that I could be missing some crucial info here, and would welcome any information that would help me "put it all together"

Thanks a bunch :)

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Excellent question, Todd. I know I am "broken" but I'm not really sure what is broken or if there is any way to fix it! – sherpamelissa Apr 27 2011 at 17:49
Exactly. In the words of KGH "tolerated is not optimal" – Todd Apr 27 2011 at 18:32

5 Answers

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When my hormones are out of whack, I break out, feel bloated, have terrible periods and feel bitchy. When my hormones are in balance, I feel amazing. This is the only way for me to gauge where I'm at. 20 different doctors and specialists couldn't tell me what to do or what was wrong, even after running every test they had. Going Paleo was the only way for me to balance my hormones.

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I feel better since going Paleo as well. But that does not = optimally functioning hormones. I'm looking for specifics, rather than "the feeling". How are you SURE that your hormones are, in fact, balanced? – Todd Apr 27 2011 at 18:35
Plus one. With aging that will change! – The Quilt Apr 28 2011 at 0:33
how do you balance your hormones? Do you take synthetic hormones releasers? – Henry S Mar 23 2012 at 10:01
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I think this idea of effortless weight maintenance no matter how many calories you eat is a myth. The primary metabolic deranging force for nearly all people is fructose intake, so if you remove that from the equation, it's possible that obesity is highly unlikely. However, if you sneak a stick or two of butter into all of your meals, you will be fatter than if you don't. I've tested this, it works. It's not that you'll become obese from eating tons of calories in the form of fat, but you may very well become fatter than you'd choose to be. If you think about it, humans likely wouldn't have gotten this far had we no ability to store fat as fat; it's a highly efficient method of energy storage.

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I completely agree with you in that, to a certain degree, calories do matter. I have also eating excess fat and put on weight because of it, and taken excess fat out and lost weight. But it seems that a sign that hormones are functioning properly is that your satiety meter is in tact, therefore not allowing one to completely over or under eat (without really trying) which should = weight maintenance. – Todd Apr 27 2011 at 18:56
Yeah, I think constant fructose intake interferes with leptin/ghrelin/insulin enough that a person will overeat no matter what the composition of the rest of their diet is. Removing fructose will return a person to normal satiety levels, but once there particular foods will offer more or less satiety per unit of energy. For me, lean meat provides the greatest amount of satiety per unit of energy. – Travis Culp♦ Apr 27 2011 at 19:49
I can only eat a lot of fat if I'm doing a ton of cardio which takes too much time! You are probably estrogen dominant like most of the world. Ori Hofmekler has a great book as well (he wrote the Warrior Diet and apparently was a columnist (for health) at both Playboy and Penthouse haaaa Once he served in the Special Forces in Israel which found somewhat impressive I dunno why... – grace Apr 27 2011 at 19:57
I'm lucky that fat really fills me, I cannot consciously overeat it. I suspect there are many people out there who cannot consciously overeat at all. This is probably the optimal state and the rest of us are damaged in some, even if slight, way. – sarah-ann Apr 27 2011 at 20:41
We still had fat people before HFCs. Obesity is an inflammatory disease that destroys hormonal signal ing to cause metabolic damage and eventual genomic damage. You know that genomic damage as heart disease alzheimer's and cancer. – The Quilt Apr 28 2011 at 0:25
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personally i think hormone control is the cutting edge. it's difficult because its so complex and specific, not just a matter of "taking a multivitamin". its all about finding exactly what you need and when you need it to get where you want to be. timing & dosage. ex: a person can have lots of free test, but something wrong with the reception of it, as there are multiple mechanisms that can be dysfunctional. to start i would do full labs, both blood serum and 24 hour saliva on all the facets of thyroid, cortisol, and sex hormones and do the tests at the same time. i also think bio-identical hormones are a last resort for some people, and we can tweak hormones with nutriceuticals and herbs first, but for some they may need bio-ident due to severity/duration of their issue.

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Cortisol is very important but nothing comes close to leptin in importance and complete misunderstanding. My biggest issue with Taubes is his favoritism of insulin. I mention this in my upcoming podcast with Jimmy Moore on may 26th – The Quilt Apr 28 2011 at 0:30
how do you play with your hormones with drugs? – Henry S Mar 23 2012 at 10:02
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This is why those who struggle needs docs who understand the complexity of it. It's a lot of work. Most docs have not a clue. You ask and they hand you a booklet and rx for phenteramine.

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I'm getting that feeling. I have been to 4-5 different specialists in the last year and nobody can figure out what is wrong with me. I'm trying to compile a list of tests I want ran, questions I want answered, etc before I go back next Monday. I'm almost done with this group of MD's, but don't know where else to go, or what to do. – Todd Apr 27 2011 at 18:49
Todd, consult an integrative practitioner who knows about salivary hormone testing and 'paleo'... I've had the same inadequate responses with mainstream medicine (including my parents who are physicians). Good luck. – grace Apr 27 2011 at 19:51
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 FYI... Check out Natasha Turner ND in Canada -- she has a list of labs, norm ranges, diet (but ignore the gluten stuff) and hormone/fat maps. Her book is wonderful, 'The Hormone Diet' which I highly recommend for its ease in readability and comprehensiveness and humor. If you can produce your own endogenous hormones that is best -- sometimes some practitioners 'overdo' the biohrt route without giving the body a chance first. – grace Apr 27 2011 at 19:54
Awesome, thanks for the info, Grace. I will look into your reference :) – Todd Apr 27 2011 at 21:43
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this is a question of great interest to me. when my boyfriend and i went paleo January 2010, he lost 25 lbs effortlessly (6'4" down from 245 to 220 lbs), and i lost 3 (5'5" 160-ish) :-( i had hormonal testing a few months later (saliva, then blood a few months after that). saliva tests (which MDs scoff at) indicated high testosterone, which i realized later did not correspond AT ALL to body fat distribution ('pear' type distribution more indicative of high estrogen - body fat concentrated on hips, thighs and butt), nor do i have masculine body hair patterns, etc, and when my naturopath put me on some supplements for this it made me feel pretty effed - anxious, depressed etc.

Blood hormone tests all came back within the "normal" range which i don't find particularly meaningful as i'm interested in what is optimal, not statistically average.

anyways, it seems i can't really loose weight w/o going keto, and i realize that after a week or two doing keto i'm just completely exhausted. I don't think it's the optimal diet for me. i'd done atkins 10+ years ago for a couple months and maybe it totally screwed up my system. or maybe it was the summer of doughnuts and iced capuccinos from tim hortons (hello, HFCS!). not sure. anyways, my diet is generally pretty great, tho i could definitely exercise more. but i would love to learn more about how to rebalance my hormones because i think they are a bit out of whack (PMS, moodiness, fat distribution).

i'd love to hear more from people who have successfully and naturally balanced their hormones.

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I did it myself. 350 to 190 ripped up. My wife did, my kids do now and most of my family and friends. The interesting part? I had to fire three docs who were my buds before I found the right person who got it. And when I did I went on the biggest research bender you can imagine to figure out why I was not taught this in med school. Today it requires a lot of extra knowledge and training because MDs are not taught this in school. Go read breakthrough by suzanne sommers and see what she had to go thru to get the right docs. It's crazy. This got me to open my own eyes. – The Quilt Apr 27 2011 at 18:04
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 You don't have to settle for just ok – The Quilt Apr 27 2011 at 18:04
Not to push too hard on keto eating, but for many people it seems more than a couple of weeks are needed to "keto-adapt" (that wasn't true for me, so I got a pass there, I guess). As usual for LC nutritional issues, studies are sparse, but a guy named Stephen Phinney has done a decent amount of research on keteogenic diets and athletic performance, and in one of his papers he writes that adapting takes longer than a week; more likely 3-4 weeks. Paper here: nutritionandmetabolism.com/content/pdf/… – Rose Apr 27 2011 at 18:19
Thanks for your input Dr. K. Do you think it's a matter then of finding the right docs, or are there things we can do on our own? can you recommend some of the better resources you came across in your research bender? or tips on finding the right doc? i wish there was some listing or way to find really good doctors! – Kellie Apr 27 2011 at 18:20
i did keto last summer for 6+ weeks and after weeks of tiredness i realized i needed to try to fix what was going on w diet. carbed up and felt way better. i've experimented, and i know it's not how i feel my best in the long term. perhaps if my hormones were balanced it'd be a different story. – Kellie Apr 27 2011 at 18:22
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