Hormone Balance and Appetite, Metabolism and Blood Sugar Regulation
When I say hormone balance, you, like most people , probably start thinking about menopause, PMS, loss of libido and other female issues. Yet there is so much more, and often these “female hormone” imbalances are caused by imbalances in what I call the “survival hormones”.
I never really thought of myself as a hormone specialist because I don’t concentrate on female issues. Sure I see my fair share of menopausal women and help them balance their hormones.
I specialize in helping people restore their energy, overcome fatigue and thyroid imbalance get their blood sugars in balance. And, because of my own personal success with cleansing and detoxification, I am really successful with using detoxification with all my patients and clients.
Then one day, it hit me. I do specialize in balancing hormones.
Only it’s not limited to the sex hormones.
Making Friends with your Survival Hormones
When I’m working with someone who is fat, foggy and fatigued and has symptoms of female hormone imbalance, I often start with what I have come to term the”survival” hormones. They are the hormones that are vital to our day to day functions and have daily rhythms. Not to say I don’t deal with the sex hormones, which tend to have a monthly cycle. Those are vital too. And they are intimately related to the day to day hormones.
I’ve observed that there’s a huge misconception when it comes to hormones – what they are and what they do. And there’s especially a lot of confusion about how to bring them into balance.
SO I have planned a series of articles to educate you about your hormones and empower you to nurture them and love them into balance.
In each article you’ll get a “Hormone 101″ look at the hormone of the week – its function, what can go wrong, how to test it and a few tips on how to bring it into balance.
The how to bring it into balance part is a lot more complex than I can can cover fully in a short blog post, so I’ll point you in the direction of where you can find out more – a book, a recording, an in-depth article or a coaching program.
Hormones in this series
- insulin – blood sugar balance
- adrenaline – quick burst of energy in fight/flight situations
- cortisol- sustained support of fight/flight situations
- DHEA- growth and repair, immune system support and recovery from illness
- pregnenalone – precursor for all other steroid hormones
- thyroid – metabolic rate
- leptin – appetite and fat burning
- ghrellin – appetite
- growth hormone – stimulates fat burning and lean muscle growth, repair
- melatonin – promotes deep sleep
- progesterone – promotes growth of uterine lining in reparation for pregnancy, inhibits tumor growth
- testosterone – promotes male features – muscle strength, facial and body hair
- estrogen – promotes female features, supports ovulation and regulation of female cycle
These are just one liners on the function of each hormone. They are oversimplifications and generalizations. just to give you a idea of how they work together.
My goal is not to turn you an endocrinologist but to put you in charge of your own body so you understand how your day to day choices effect how you feel and how your hormones dance with each other.
A few highlights on what this series will cover:
- How when you’re stressed, your adrenals secrete the hormone cortisol goes up and DHEA goes down, leading to increased insulin production and fat accumulation around your waist
- how very low calorie diets inhibit the enzyme that converts the thyroid hormone T4 to the active form, T3, thus decreasing your metabolism and causing you to gain weight rather than lose it.
- As men age, the hormone testosterone decreases and more of their testosterone gets converted to estrogen, which naturally slows fat burning ,
- How estrogen slows fat burning and increases fat storage as a part of facilitating fat storage in preparation for fertility, birth and lactation.
- how high levels of insulin, released when you eat sugar and many high carbohydrate foods, suppresses growth hormone and leads to increased fat storage.
- How eating close to bedtime suppresses your natural growth hormone surge at night, leading to increased fat storage.
There are lots more gems to be shared, including information about leptin and ghrellin, gluten intolerance and autoimmune diseases and their effect on your hormones
Please Post a Comment Below and let me know what hormones you’d most like to learn about.
Love, Health and Joy,
Dr. Ritamarie
Tags: achieving your ideal weight, DrRitamarie, gluten intolerance, growth hormone, hormone balance, hormone cortisol, immune system, insulin production, leptin, testosterone levels, thyroid hormone, ways to lose weight, weight management
Posted in Adrenal Fatigue, Gluten Free Diet, Hormone Imbalance, Insulin Resistance
Happy New Year 2012: Tips and Resources for Vibrant Health
Happy New Year 2012
If you’re like many, today is the day to create New Year’s Resolutions.
The sad truth is the majority of people who make New Year’s Resolutions abandon them and fall back into old habits by the first of February.
Why do so many people fail to make lasting habit changes, even though they are so determined to succeed?
What I’ve noticed is that when you set a New Year’s Resolution, usually a habit that needs to be changed, you do so before taking the time to get connected to the mindset and feelings it takes to put the new habits into action.
You attempt to change a habit without first changing the underlying thoughts and emotions that created the habits that need to change. In my experience with thousands of patients and students over the years is that long lasting change happens when you make changes in the following order:
Head, Heart, Habits
12 Steps to a Healthy and Happy 2012
When you approach your health in an organized fashion and take steps in logical order, you are setting yourself up for success.. Below are the steps I have found to be most useful and are the ones I take my VIP private clients through. The order may be slightly different based on individual circumstances but the overall flow is similar.
Go ahead and get started. Your health will blossom and flourish when you do.
- Get in touch with your core values and visions: Start by getting in touch with what’s really important to you. Knowing what you value above all else helps you make choices that support your health and life goals. Make a list of your core values – those things that are most important to you. Imagine that it’s the end of 2012 and your life is exactly the way you envision. Nothing has gotten in your way, you’ve done everything you needed to create the body and life of your dreams. Write a description of your life in vivid detail.Take the time to stay focused on your vision and values. Every day, make choices that will bring you closer and closer to your vision. http://www.vibranthealthmindset.com
- Move your body every day, even if it’s only for 10 minutes to start.
- Rest and sleep need to be at the top of your priority list. It’s essential important for hormone balance, blood sugar balance and optimal fat burning. Check out my blog posts on sleep:
- Keep hydrated. Half your body weight (pounds) in fluid ounces is recommended.
- Eat and Drink Green Food – Lots of it – every day. http://www.drritamarie.com/BlendedGreens
- Balance your fat intake so that you have the correct ratio of omega 3 and 6 fats and avoid the dangerous heated, processed and oxidized fats.
- Put fun into your daily routine and learn to transform stressful moments to health enhancing opportunities. Join me on Thursday Jan 5 at 10AM Central time on My Radio Show as I explore play with a very special guest. http://www.drritamarie.com/radio/2011/12/play-living-life-to-the-fullest/
- Balance your blood sugar: http://www.B4BeGoneSystem.com
- Identify and remove hidden food allergies. Join me for a free teleseminar on January 3
http://www.drritamarie.com/go/TurningFoodAllergiesInsideOut - Optimize your digestion – read up on Leaky gut and digestion HERE
- Clean up your environment – replace cleaning and self care products with natural, non toxic equivalents.
- Balance Your Hormones http://www.VibrantHormones.com
Bonus Tip: Fine tune your body with structural and energetic balancing. Get regular chiropractic adjustments, acupuncture, and/or energy work keep yourself in balance.
Free Yourself in 2012 from the effects of Hidden Gluten Sensitivity and other Food Allergies
If you’ve been having any persistent health challenges at all, serious or mild, or are struggling with weight that just doesn’t want to come off, you might have hidden food allergies that are keeping you sick. Gluten, dairy and eggs are high on the list of most common allergens, and they are all ingredients in the conventional versions of holiday treats. Some researchers and authors estimate that 30 – 50% of the population may be sensitive to gluten, and most don’t know it.
That’s because gluten sensitivity symptoms are often vague and chronic, and so don’t seem to flare up when gluten is consumed.
Part of the inability to detect a change in symptom presentation when eating gluten is that the average American eats gluten all day long every day! If you add it up, you might be surprised to find that many people eat more than 50% of their calories as gluten containing foods.
If you’re ready to learn how food allergies may be hurting you and what you can do about it, sign up for my free teleclass on Tuesday, January 3rd: Turning Food Allergies Inside Out: Revealing the Culprits, Causes and Cures
http://www.drritamarie.com/go/TurnFoodAllergiesInsideOut
2012: A free kit to help you kick gluten in the gluteus!
My gluten-free survival kit has just been updated to include a fabulous new e-book called Eliminate the Gluten and Accelerate your Health. It’s filled with recipes, articles and lists of foods that contain hidden gluten. The kit contains an audio, recipes, an article on the link between autism and ADD and gluten, and a presentation about the thyroid gland.
You can access it here:
http://www.drritamarie.com/glutenfree
Please pass the link to anyone you know who might be suffering from gluten sensitivity.
I look forward to connecting on Jan. 3rd to demystify food allergies and guide you to assessing the likelihood of hidden food allergies compromising your health.
http://www.drritamarie.com/go/TurnFoodAllergiesInsideOut
Lov, Health and Joy to you in 2012,
Dr. Ritamarie
Tags: blood sugar balance core values, Dr. Ritamarie Losalzo, food allergies, Gluten Free Diet, happy new year, hormone balance, life goals, year 2012
Posted in Gluten Free Diet, Vibrant Health, Vitamins and Minerals
Weight Loss, Hormone Balance and Your Immune System
Weight loss is a goal for so many people I consult with. I actually encourage my clients to stop referring to losing weight and move towards thinking about letting go of weight or dropping weight or releasing weight. When I lose something, I usually intend to find it. When you talk about losing weight, your subconscious gets the message that you’ve been parted from something dear to you and makes every effort to help you find it again. So your language can actually be working against you when you talk about weight loss.
I recorded an interview with Tom Nicoli of Premier Summits for his upcoming event called called “Dozens of Easy, Proven Ways to Lose Weight… and Keep It Off”.
Tom and I havd a lively and informative chat about how your immune system and hormones can be preventing you from achieving your ideal weight, even if you’re eating light and exercising.
A few highlights from our conversation:
- When you’re stressed, your adrenals secrete the hormone cortisol goes up and DHEA goes down, leading to increased insulin production and fat accumulation around your waist
- Very low calorie diets inhibit the enzyme that converts the thyroid hormone T4 to the active form, T3, thus decreasing your metabolism and causing you to gain weight rather than lose it.
- As men age, the hormone testosterone decreases and more of their testosterone gets converted to estrogen, which naturally slows fat burning , as a part of facilitating fat storage in preparation for fertility, birth and lactation.
- High levels of insulin, released when you eat sugar and many high carbohydrate foods, can actually suppress growth hormone and lead to increased fat storage.
- Eating close to bedtime suppresses your natural growth hormone surge at night, leading to increased fat storage.
There were lots more gems shared, including information about leptin and ghrellin, gluten intolerance and autoimmune diseases and their effect on your weight.
The interview will air on February 11.
If you sign-up for the FREE Premier Summit event, ” Dozens of Easy, Proven Ways to Lose Weight… and Keep It Off” , you’ll get access to my interview and 19 others related to weight management.
Tags: achieving your ideal weight, autoimmune diseases, DrRitamarie, gluten intolerance, growth hormone, hormone balance, hormone cortisol, immune system, insulin production, leptin, Premier Summit, testosterone levels, thyroid hormone, tom nicoli, ways to lose weight, weight management
Posted in Adrenal Fatigue, Autoimmune, Gluten Free Diet
Eating for Hormone Health: New Hope for Hormone Imbalance
I’m excited to be doing a talk in New Jersey this week on Eating for Hormone Health.
Karen Ranzi, author of “Creating Healthy Children” is hosting me.
Here are the details.
If you live in the area, come on by.
Eating for Hormone Balance
The Secrets to Staying Young and Vibrant At Any Age
With Dr. Ritamarie Loscalzo, MS, DC, CCN, DACBN
How to Nourish Your Hormones and Keep Yourself Strong, Safe and Healthy Your Whole Life Through.
In this Inspirational talk, You’ll learn:
- Who all the members of your hormone family are and how you can keep them balanced and humming
- The role of your digestion,emotions and your environment in keeping your hormones balanced and safe.
- How balancing your hormone starting as early as in your 20’s leads to improved vitality and strength in your later decades — the untold secret to seeing more life ahead of you than behind you.
- The 5 foods you MUST eat and the 5 foods You MUST avoid for hormone health
- How stress effects your hormones —and techniques for protecting yourself from the dangers of being in fight-flight mode daily
- How nutrients effect hormone balance, and why synthetic nutrients can be dangerous
- The importance of sleep in protecting you from hormone-related cancers.
- How hormones are disrupted by the environment and essential secrets in protecting yourself.
In her fun and exuberant style, Dr. Ritamarie shares her passion for vibrant health and her secrets for creating for herself more strength and stamina in her 50’s than she experienced in her 20’s. There’ll be ample time for questions and answers.
For over 2 decades, Dr. Ritamarie Loscalzo has been a student and practitioner of natural health and whole fresh food diets as a path to wellness. Her success in recovering from chronic fatigue and lifestyle induced health challenges prompted
As a doctor of chiropractic certified in acupuncture, clinical nutrition and herbal medicine, Dr. Ritamarie empowers powerful transformation and vibrant health in busy people worldwide. Through her coaching programs, nutrition consultations and books, Dr. Ritamarie touches countless lives with her message of self-healing. Visit her website www.FreshnFunLiving.com for lots of resources, recipes and valuable information.
Thursday August 5, 2010 7:00 – 9:00 p.m.
Ramsey, New Jersey (201) 934-6778
Investment in your health: $20 in advance, $25 at the door
To register contact Karen at karen@superhealthychildren.com
Tags: biology, cell signaling, Dr. Ritamarie, Dr. Ritamarie Loscalzo, eat, eating, endocrinology, exuberant, Gluten Free Diet, health, hormone, hormone balance, Hormone Imbalance, hormones, karen ranzi, Living Foods, medicine, nature, new hope, nutrition, physiology, ritamarie loscalzo, secret, self care, signal transduction, vegan foods, vibrant, Vibrant Health, whole foods
Posted in Articles, Hormone Imbalance
