Which is more important for weight loss, calories or hormones? The reality is that they are both important, but today I'm going to be focusing more on hormones. That's because hormones are some of the most powerful compounds in human health, and they can exert a powerful effect on your weight. And if you've been struggling with your weight, then you'll want to pay close attention because it's very likely that your hormones are at least partly responsible for that struggle.
But back to the issue of calories versus hormones for just a second. How do you know which one you should be focusing on more? A good way to think about it is like this. In general, the more overweight that you are, the more important your hormones become if you're trying to lose weight.
This is especially true if you have more than 25 pounds of weight to lose. If you are somebody who is closer to your ideal body weight, within about 10 to 15 or so pounds, then calories will be more important to you. This is because obesity all by itself causes a massive disruption to your hormones, and it takes a lot of disruption to get to these higher levels of weight gain.
So if you are somebody who has more than 25 pounds to lose, then this information is for you. The good news is there are bio-identical hormone replacement options for patients who need or have low levels of these hormones and who want to lose weight. And these hormone replacement options can seriously help augment your existing weight loss therapies and help you lose weight fast.
As a quick disclaimer, before we get started, you should know that you should never take hormones unless you consulted your doctor and you have a documented deficiency. This is because hormones that we're going to be talking about in just a second, are very powerful. And if you take them without a deficiency, you may cause more harm than good.
Best Hormones For Weight Loss
With all of this out of the way, let's talk about the best hormones for helping with weight loss starting right now.
1. Testosterone
Number one on the list is testosterone, by the way, as we go, I'll let you know if the hormones that we're talking about are more relevant to men or women, or if both genders can use them.
Testosterone happens to be one of those hormones that is relevant and important to both men and women who are trying to lose weight. Here's why.
Testosterone plays an important role in regulating lean muscle mass. Obviously it does more than just this, but this is probably the most important benefit if you are trying to lose weight. You can think of your lean muscle mass as the organ of both longevity and metabolism. A decline in lean muscle mass, known as sarcopenia, should be avoided at all costs.
And you should do everything within your power to protect the amount of muscle mass that you have. If you allow your testosterone level to stay low, that will impair your body's ability to build lean muscle mass and your metabolism will suffer as a consequence. This is a big problem for people who are already overweight because obesity has a tendency to cause a decline in testosterone.
Remember when I said that the more weight that you gain, the more imbalanced your hormones would become? This is a perfect example of that. The more weight that you gain, the lower your testosterone levels will be, and the easier it will be for you to gain more weight. This connection is well known, which is why bodybuilders frequently use testosterone to help build muscle mass and why there are thousands of TRT clinics out there.
But you don't have to take bodybuilder levels of testosterone to see benefits on both your health and your weight. Small amounts of bioidentical testosterone can help you improve your lean muscle mass and lose weight and provide additional benefits to your mood, libido, and energy levels. For men, the use of testosterone is a no-brainer, but it can be a little more complicated for women.
In men, obesity almost always results in lower than normal testosterone levels, but this isn't always the case for women. Sometimes weight gain can trigger an increase in androgens and cause a PCOS-like syndrome in women. So if you are a woman who is overweight and you're thinking about using testosterone, make sure you check your levels first.
And when it comes to testing, you'll want to make sure that you look beyond the standard reference range provided by your lab company. The standard reference range is very broad and doesn't take into account suboptimal levels or low normal levels. If you find that your testosterone levels are in the bottom 25% of the reference range provided, then using TRT is generally a very safe and effective treatment.
2. Progesterone
Number two on the list is progesterone. This is one that is more relevant to women as opposed to men. Progesterone is a sex hormone that acts as an antagonist to the effects of estrogen and it's very often the case that women tend to have an excess of estrogen activity compared to progesterone activity.
This is because progesterone starts to decline more rapidly compared to its initial level at around age 35. So what ends up happening is that even though both estrogen and progesterone slowly decline until menopause is reached, the decline in progesterone happens both earlier and more rapidly compared to estrogen.
On top of this issue, the more weight that you have on your body, the more likely that you are to create more estrogen through the process of aromatization. Your fat cells contain an enzyme called aromatase, which takes androgens and turns them into estrogenic compounds. The more fat that you have, the more active this enzyme will be, and the more estrogen you will create.
This may not sound like a problem until you realize what exactly estrogen is doing inside of your body. Estrogen is best thought of as a hormone which helps build things up. During the menstrual cycle, estrogen acts to increase the thickness of the uterine wall, but it also has the potential to increase the size of fat cells and the size of breast tissue.
In normal amounts, this isn't a problem, but if its effects are not countered by progesterone, it can lead to excess weight gain and other issues down the line. For this reason, progesterone use can help balance the ratio between estrogen and progesterone and may help women lose weight.
It does this by counteracting the anabolic effect of estrogen and by helping the body eliminate excess fluid and water retention. Progesterone should not be used in men, but if you are a woman who is over the age of 35 and who is experiencing either the symptoms of low progesterone or the symptoms of high estrogen, then it may be worth considering.
3. Thyroid hormone
Number three on the list is thyroid hormone, everyone has a thyroid gland, so this information is relevant to both men and women. And it's probably my favorite hormone to talk about. Just like the other hormones that we have talked about, the more overweight that you are, the more likely you are to experience thyroid problems, and the more likely you are to gain even more weight.
Sometimes people get made fun of if they suggest that their thyroid is the cause of their weight gain, but the reality is that this is more true than you might realize. Out of all the hormones that we've mentioned thus far, thyroid hormone is by far the most important when it comes to regulating your weight and regulating your metabolism. Estimates suggest that up to 40 to 60 percent of your basal metabolic rate is regulated by your thyroid hormones.
Even though this is true, direct thyroid dysfunction is usually only responsible for about 10 to 15 pounds of weight gain, but indirectly it can be the cause of a whole lot more. That's because in addition to having a direct impact on your metabolism, it also has an indirect impact on other systems and hormones like testosterone and like progesterone that can lead to excess weight gain. So if your thyroid is out of balance, it can lead to a chain reaction of hormone imbalances which can lead to much more than just 10 to 15 pounds of weight gain.
The good news is that you can fix the problem, there are many types of thyroid hormones out there, but the two that are most relevant and important to regulating your metabolism include T3 and T2. Both of these thyroid hormones are bioidentical and only one requires a prescription, and that's T3.
T2 can be purchased as an over-the-counter supplement and there's emerging evidence that T2 may be able to be used as an isolated weight loss supplement. This research is still evolving, so if you are somebody who wants to use T2 for weight loss, you should be aware that it's still in the experimental phase.
If you want to find out if your thyroid is dysfunctional, then make sure you test more than just your TSH. You will need to check both your free T3 and free T4 levels as well. Unfortunately, these tests are not often ordered by your doctor, so you may have to specifically request them.
4. Dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA)
Number four on the list is DHEA, and this is beneficial for both men and women. DHEA stands for dehydroepiandrosterone, and it is a hormone secreted by your adrenal glands. Of all the hormones that I've mentioned so far, DHEA is the easiest to get and the least likely to cause major problems if you take it.
That's because DHEA is both a precursor hormone and a hormone with direct androgenic action. You can think of it like a very weak version of testosterone. Your body uses DHEA as a building block to create more powerful hormones like testosterone and like estrogen, and that's exactly why people tend to use it.
They use it to try and increase or indirectly impact these more powerful hormones. This is both a good and a bad thing. Bad because you can't really force your body to create more of the thing that you want, so if you were to take it, you're really just crossing your fingers and hoping for the best. And good because even though you can't force your body to make what you want, it's relatively weak and not very likely to cause problems.
In general, because of its weak nature, it's probably not likely to cause a significant amount of weight loss if you were to take it all by itself. But there has been at least one double-blind placebo-controlled trial which showed that taking DHEA for six months resulted in a decrease in visceral abdominal fat and subcutaneous fat.
So there's definitely some benefit that can be obtained by using DHEA directly, most likely through its impact on blood sugar and insulin resistance. Like T2 thyroid hormone, DHEA can be obtained as an over-the-counter supplement that does not require a prescription. Estrogen, testosterone, and some forms of progesterone do require a prescription to get.
Conclusion
No matter what you choose to take or do, remember this. While hormones can help you feel better and help you lose weight, they should never be used on their own. For the best results, they should always be combined with diet, exercise, and intermittent fasting.
But if you like the idea of augmenting these therapies, then you might find our previous post very interesting. It discusses some of the best non-hormonal weight loss supplements available, and you can check it out there.
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