The Unknown Hormone that is keeping you from your Weight loss Journey!

So many people come to me day in and day out struggling to lose weight. They have tried all the fad diets, over exercising, starving only to lose 5lbs and gain 10lb more back! This roller coaster ride really takes a toll on your health, physically, emotionally and mental wellbeing as well impacting your over all self esteem. I know because I have been there with many of you struggling to lose weight. Well, I want to share a little about an unknown hormone that many are not aware of called Leptin.

Leptin is your “satiety” hormone, produced in your fat cells and has a direct communication with your brain. In a healthy person, this communication happens flawlessly and effortlessly so your brain gets the message it’s time to stop eating when you are full. Leptin’s job is to tell your brain whether or not you have enough fat stored up to fuel your body and burn calories at a normal rate. In other words, it lets you know that you’re properly satiated and can stop eating until you’re hungry again. For someone who’s leptin wires have been crossed, this communication is not happening. Instead, you tend to overeat, snack more, crave sugary foods and tend to gain weight easily and even have difficulty losing weight despite eating “healthy.” How Frustrating is that?!

This is why so many people struggle with weight loss, hit a weight loss plateau or even regain the weight they lost back! When this communication is off, you’re more likely to have inflammation, insulin resistance and become overweight. When your leptin Levels are abnormal, your body thinks you’re starving and holds on to your fat instead of burning it.

There are many reasons for this, but a few including hormonal disruption due to chronic stress, an imbalanced thyroid hormone, insulin resistance or blood sugar dysregulation and even unknown inflammation and digestive issues. All of these cause havoc in the body and unfortunately impact your metabolism and how leptin can communicate with your brain and fat cells.

For those who are curious to see if this could be the reason why their metabolism or weight loss journey has come to a stall, you want to find an Integrative & Functional medicine doctor to work with personally. They will start off by checking all your hormones for you in detail but specifically looking at your leptin levels to make sure they are in an appropriate range. Once they determine leptin is a problems a comprehensive plan can be put into place on how to reverse and improve your leptin number. Many things from balancing your adrenals, insulin, and thyroid hormones will be apart of the plan as well as improving over all inflammation and resetting your gut and metabolism by optimizing nutrition.

Sounds hard, not really! Once you identify that leptin is a problem, fixing the underlying cause will help you achieve your weight loss goals all while keeping the weight off for good!