I want to be super clear right off the bat…
In this article I am not referring to hormones in relation to rare genetic conditions, gene mutations that impact hormone production, irreversible physiological damage or some rare freak accident that results in physical trauma to an area of the body or brain that produces a specific hormone…
We are talking about how what we choose to eat impacts an otherwise typical individual’s hormones and if for some reason you’re not quite convinced that what we eat influences our endocrine system (which is just a fancy phrase for the hormonal system) let’s dive into a super simple example…
Type-2 diabetes…this is a 100% lifestyle choice based disease meaning, it is developed via our habits, primarily our eating habits. Folks that develop insulin resistance and type-2 diabetes via their food choices no longer respond to insulin (which is a hormone) in the same way as they used to, for example…
If an insulin sensitive person (this is a healthy state) eats some cinnamon toast crunch cereal, they have a rise in blood sugar, they then release insulin from their pancreas and their blood sugar returns to normal ranges, however…
In an insulin resistant or type-2 diabetic (this is an unhealthy state) eats cereal, they have a rise in blood sugar, but their body has become desensitized to the insulin hormone and so their blood sugar remains elevated…which is no bueno!
We mentioned that insulin resistance and type-2 diabetes are developed via our eating habits and fortunately they can also be reversed via proper nutrition and so if an insulin resistant or type-2 diabetic eats healthfully, they can re-sensitize to insulin and regulate their blood sugar just fine!
This is prime example of how what we eat impacts our hormones. We can develop insulin resistance and then we can reverse it! The sad thing is that a lot of folks think that their hormones have a mind of their own as if they’re just going rogue or something and fortunately that’s not the case…
Our nutrition, movement and sleep behaviours are upstream of our hormones, not the other way around and so you can think about it like this…our hormones are like soldiers in an army and we are the generals that tell them what to do…this is incredibly empowering because it means that in order to quote unquote ‘balance’ our hormones like insulin, all we need to do is modify our choices!
One more quick example…our sex hormones like testosterone and estrogen are manufactured from the fat that we eat, particularly cholesterol meaning, a great way to essentially castrate someone is to eat an extremely low fat diet because the body doesn’t have the building blocks that it needs to make these crucial hormones.
It’s like having all the trades people ready and willing to build a house, but not having any concrete, wood and materials.
Okay let’s get more specific…
We’re going to cover macronutrients first and then get into calorie intakes…
The 3 macronutrients that make up the calories that we eat are protein, carbohydrates and fat.
Protein and fat are essential, meaning we have to eat them via our diet, however carbohydrates are non-essential meaning, we can eat them, but we don’t need them!
So in order to eat for hormonal health it’s important that we cover our protein and fat bases first and then look at carbohydrates because it only makes sense to check off the 2 essential boxes before we get to the non-essential box.
Protein…a solid general recommendation or starting place is to eat 1 gram of protein per pound of bodyweight or 1 gram of protein per pound of your ideal or goal bodyweight. If ya wanna eat more, you totally can!
Favour meat, poultry, fish, seafood and eggs. If you tolerate dairy, it’s a great option as well.
Fat…the research is fairly limited in terms of minimum fat intakes to absorb fat soluble vitamins and support sex hormones, however from what we do know the minimum intake seems to be between 40 and 60g per day depending on the individual, for example…
A really small person isn’t going to require as much fat as a really large person. The average is 50g per day…however, that’s on the low end and personally I think that’s better to air on the side of caution in regards to fat intake and eat more than that for a few reasons…
One, fat is essential and carbohydrates are not and so a safer bet would be to eat a little more fat and fewer carbs as opposed to less fat and more carbs because it’s just not necessary to fly that close to the sun!
Having said that, fat is very easy to get in our modern food environment, for example…
4 whole eggs and 2 tablespoons of olive oil is 50g of fat, just like that!
Most commonly the people that run into issues via not eating enough fat are folks like bodybuilders and physique competitors because they typically eat a high protein, high carb and low fat diet.
I actually used to eat a high protein, high carb and lower fat diet and the reason that I lowered my carb intake and increased my fat intake is just because it makes me feel better. You can lose fat and get just as lean on either approach, but most folks feel significantly better and are healthier via the high protein, a little lower carb and a little higher fat approach.
What about fat sources? You’re going to get a good amount of healthy fat from meat, poultry, fish, seafood, eggs and dairy (again if you tolerate it) depending on what types you choose, for example…
If you eat nothing but incredibly lean red meat and poultry, lean white fish, seafood, egg whites and no fat dairy you won’t get a lot of fat, but that doesn’t sound all that tasty! So, if you’re choosing regularish cuts of red meat, things like chicken thighs, mixing in some salmon here and there, eating whole eggs as well as dairy that has some fat in it…you’re almost certainly going to meet your body’s dietary fat quotas and then some.
Other sources of healthy fat are things like butter, ghee, tallow, cheese, avocado and avocado oil, coconut oil and coconut milk, olive oil as well as nuts and seeds if you tolerate them and do okay with reasonable amounts of oxalate in your diet.
On the other end of the spectrum, the fats that we want to avoid are things like vegetable oils and vegetable oil containing food products, which are essentially highly processed foods.
What about carbs…? Like we mentioned they are not essential, but most folks don’t want to follow a zero carb or ketogenic diet and so you can simply fill in the remainder of your caloric needs after you’ve sorted out your protein and fat from carbs, boom…simple as that!
What about carb sources?
Fruit, vegetables, things like rice, potatoes, oats, squash, sourdough or sprouted grain bread if you do well with it…I love me some sourdough. Beans and lentils are on the table too if you digest them well and they’re prepared properly…just about anything that is a single ingredient whole food and that goes for protein and fat as well!
If you want to balance your hormones minimize highly processed food as much as possible and get as many of your calories as you can from single ingredient whole food options with one BIG caveat…that you digest them well.
Just because something is a single ingredient whole food and deemed quote unquote ‘healthy’…doesn’t mean that it’s necessarily healthy for you…if it sends your stomach tossing and turning or it flares up your skin or leads to achy joints…avoid it, for example…
If you eat eggs and you feel nauseous and they throw off your digestion, don’t eat eggs. If you eat cheese and your skin breaks out, skip the cheese (as tragic as that is). If you eat broccoli and you get bloated and gassy, push the broccoli to the side next time. Honour your body and your digestion instead of trying to a force a square peg into a round hole just because something is deemed as a ‘healthy’ food.
What about calories…if you are underweight, you need to eat in a caloric surplus to balance your hormones meaning, eat more than you burn. If you are overweight, you need to eat in a caloric deficit to balance your hormones meaning, eat fewer calories than you burn and if you’re in a good spot body composition wise, you can eat at calorie maintenance.
Our bodies don’t want to be underweight or to lean…they also don’t want to be overweight or too fat and so if you want to balance your hormones, it’s crucial that you balance your body composition.
This circles back to the fact that our lifestyle choices impact our hormones and not the other way around because I’ve heard so many folks say that they think that they’re overweight because their hormones are out of balance and it’s actually the exact opposite…they’re hormones are out of balance because they’re carrying around too much body fat and eating improperly!
There is caveat worth mentioning here…there is a select subset of folks that have seemingly quote unquote ‘normal’ body composition that eat very poor quality diets, yet don’t overeat or undereat from a caloric standpoint and therefore…
They’re not underweight or overweight necessarily but, they’re still unhealthy due to their food choices and these folks can absolutely have hormonal dysregulation and so for these individuals, improving diet quality is the way to go!
We also need to address alcohol because it is such a hormonal disruptor! If you want to tank your sex hormones and just your health as a whole, lots of booze is an amazing way to do it!
Having said that, while there is no ‘healthy’ amount of alcohol consumption, a couple of bevies here and there probably isn’t gonna kill ya either, especially if you find that having a couple of social drinks really fills your bucket in terms of bonding with friends and family.
Would you technically be healthier if you hung out with the people that you love and had sparkling water instead? Absolutely…but maybe it’s a trade-off that you’re willing to make and you’re not overdoing it.
It's the same thing with mixing in occasional highly processed foods, it may just be worth it to ya!
What I will say is that booze and treats do add up fairly quickly and they compound, so the less that you consume the better!
I want to cover movement and sleep briefly as well because they too play a key role in hormonal regulation, for example…
Being sedentary as well as not getting enough sleep impact things like insulin sensitivity, testosterone and estrogen ratios, hunger hormones like leptin and ghrelin among many other things and so it’s important that we prioritize movement and sleep for their own sake…but also because living an active lifestyle and dialing in your sleep makes it far easier to stick to healthy eating!
Movement wise, I’d recommend getting 10,000 steps per day or 70,000 over the course of the week as a whole. If you want to workout, do a spin session, a yoga class or you name after you’ve hit your 10k steps that day…even better!
Sleep wise, most folks fall in the 7-9 hour range and ideally we want to be waking up without an alarm because if your alarm is waking you, by definition it means that you’re not getting enough sleep. If you’re thinking, ‘but…I have to go work,’ that’s totally cool you can still do that, I work too…you’ll just need to go bed earlier then in order to wake up for work without the need for that alarm.
No alarm!? I can hear the objections already…look…I’m just sharing how to balance your hormones, I’m not telling anyone what they should or shouldn’t prioritize or do…it’s entirely your call, this is just what’s required if hormonal balance is a priority.
So, when folks get in shape via eating a high quality single ingredient whole foods diet that prioritizes their digestion and they dial in their movement as well as their sleep…99% of the time their hormones are balanced because they’re doing all the right things and their body is just reflecting that
Folks with balanced hormones are…
Lean, they have great skin, healthy hair, teeth and nails, they’re not bloated, they have tons of energy, their mood is regulated, they’re mentally alert and sharp, their libido is kickin’…this is what balanced hormones looks like!
