Weight Loss & Hormones with Kathy Fritz

hello hello my friends welcome to another episode in the Coach's Corner all month long we are talking hormones and I am super excited today to have another hormone expert on Kathy welcome to the Coach's Corner I will let you introduce yourself fabulous to be here hi all of the wellness with Gina fans that are out there listening I am Kathy as Gina said I'm a board certified health and hormone coach for women 40 plus I have a feeling that's you if you're listening um and I help people you know get rid of those pesky hormonal symptoms like weight gain insomnia low libido losing their hair growing hair acne you name it I talk about it uh so many things right as we age there are just so many things to consider and so many things that we never had to consider before a lot of times that um the women I talk to what they did isn't working anymore especially when it comes to weight loss and I know it's a lot of the reason that people seek out Health coaching is because they manage they want to manage their weight that they're in that tricky time of perimenopause heading into menopause they've got high cortisol from all the stress that they're going through and they're packing on the pounds not knowing why they're exercising they seem to be eating right can you tell us a little bit about insulin and how important that hormone is and what's really going on absolutely and you I mean you just said the words that women say to me all the time so obviously you're hearing them too so if if this is you if you're having this experience You Are Not Alone um okay so I wanted to break it down um try to make it as clear as possible so the hormone we're talking about is insulin and what we're talking about is insulin resistance and that's just fancy for having high insulin in your blood now why is this important well a few reasons it's a marker of metabolic dysfunction meaning like something's up with your metabolism something ain't going right and it's also a cause of something called of reduced metabolic flexibility so that's again just fancy science speak for when our cells can't switch from using glucose for energy to ketones for energy um and insulin resistance is also a driver of inflammation and you may have heard the phrase inflammation is the root cause of all disease um so those are that's kind of what's going on when we have an insulin problem and when we have that insulin resistance plus that inflammation plus that metabolic inflexibility that is what causes the weight gain that like section like right around your middle you can call it a muffin top spare tire gordita whatever you want to call it she's there um and truly one of the wacky things is that fat that's around our organs that comes from insulin resistance is actually its own active organ it's a hormonally active organ so that's so she truly is her own person in the same way that your stomach or your kidneys are their own uh beings so um the other thing about this is that the weight gain is the one that women come to us about right they don't like how they look they don't like how their clothes are fitting and yes we totally want to manage that but when we have again that triple threat of insulin resistance inflammation metabolic struggles there are other things that can happen like memory issues um facial hair coming hair falling out high cholesterol our risk for things like dementia osteoporosis and heart disease increase hot flashes can be worse uterine fibroids can grow and our uterine lining can also thicken um you know so that's you know where we see those really heavy periods um so that's kind of The Who and the what how's that so far yeah so we have to really back the train up here we can't just talk about weight losses calories in calories out or you're not eating the right things or you're not exercising enough oh no no no no when we're talking insulin and insulin resistance and metabolic flexibility holy smokes you know inflammaging I'm sure you've heard that term before all of that is it's the trifecta of the things that we do not want yeah so what is the solution now that we know what we don't want to happen or maybe we're already there right in this place of insulin resistance what can we do so I want to just mention one more thing before we get to the what and it's just that it gets worse than perimenopause and menopause so if you're noticing that just know that that is absolutely in line with um what the the norm is um because estrogen actually has an insulin sensitizing effect so as our estrogen is decreasing that insulin sensitivity is naturally decreasing so I like to mention that because that's a little out of our control right we really can't do that much about that piece um but there are lots of things that we can do so let's get to the good stuff all right the most important thing you can do to reverse insulin resistance is to move move your body and I'm not talking about doing a 90-minute exercise class or joining Orange Theory and being there five days a week that's not what I mean by move your body what I mean is we want to increase our low impact daily movement and that's just fancy for walking right if you just walk more every day that's going to make an impact because it's going to help ourselves take up more glucose which is then going to impact our cells asking for insulin they're going to ask for Less because the glucose is going to be in the cells so that's a good thing the other it's like a two-prong so the low impact movement and muscle building it does not have to be at a gym with free weights it doesn't have to be at a gym at all you can do just body weight or exercise bands resistance bands exercises at home while you're watching TV or while you're listening to a podcast and those two things are going to move the needle so significantly so that's like first line of defense absolutely I preach on the weight resistance you know resistance training that we need to be doing that everybody can walk right for the most part most people can get out there and walk and the other piece of that is that cortisol wants you to move so we need to be moving for a lot of us who are maybe in stressful work environment um because again if you're not moving then you're going to hold on right you're going to hold on not only to the stress and the emotional piece of that that the fat to fat too so you've got to take care of them the movement piece for sure absolutely that's so well said um so the second thing that I talk about is protein and if for all the vegans listening I apologize I'm gonna say it the protein should be from an animal source and I'm not going to spend time explaining why right now but that is what all the research I have read has said um it protein is really effective at building muscle at being satiating so that you're eating less and as we head towards menopause our need for protein our protein requirement actually increases especially for a particular amino acid called leucine so that's really important and I say you've got to have protein at every meal and yes that means breakfast um I am plant-based and I know it's difficult to get protein but it's something that you should be tracking you know and I am guilty as you know guilty is for Trucking I don't like to track but when it comes to protein and I know this that it is so much better for me if I'm eating the protein at breakfast lunch and dinner so get it in when you can get it in and track it and I'm so glad that you know being plant-based works for you and you're getting the results you want so I guess I should add that caveat that everybody is different everybody's different yeah so you gotta find what works for you right and um if being plant-based you are still feeling good and getting your results then you're doing something right girl um so another tool and that is very trendy right now is called intermittent fasting so a couple things about that it the benefits are trains your mitochondria to burn ketones instead of glucose so that gets back to that metabolic flexibility thing I mentioned there are many approaches to intermittent fasting and that's beyond the scope of this little chat so it's important to find the one that works for you and intermittent fasting the point is to move us in and out of ketosis not to keep us in ketosis all day long um and there are contradict indications it's not for everyone so it's a tool it is not something every woman has to do right and it's what we're talking about with the interview or not familiar with that term thank you for that clarification um so moving right along we need to reduce our sugar and processed foods I'm sure nobody's surprised to hear that but what I want to take a minute to talk about is high dose versus low dose fructose so um high dose fructose is going to be too much fructose and it's going to be found in your processed foods and your desserts um you know high fructose corn syrup even agave and honey are really high on the fructose so we just have to if we use those we just need to be cautious about them fruit on the other hand is low-dose fructose and has all these other benefits including actually improving insulin sensitivity as well as getting nutrients fiber and polyphenols into our bodies so fruit is not to be feared [Music] nice forever women especially in this time of life nice yep fiber is essential now if you've done all of these things and nothing is helping you are not moving the needle on your insulin resistance hormone replacement therapy is something you can look into I am not an expert in it I can just give two little tips which is you never do estrogen alone always do it with progesterone and you would do the estrogen therapy because estrogen is insulin sensitizing and there is this weird Trend right now around like doing testosterone for women and I'm not a fan and it's going to make insulin resistance worse yeah okay well good to know about hormone replacement therapy you know it's funny because I feel like we just want the pill you know so many of us are like just give me the pill there is also this little niche going around um Trend about this it's a shot and I don't remember off the top of my head I had this I know what the O shot is is that the one you're talking about don't remember but they and it is helping to basically I think it makes you nauseous quite frankly so that you're not eating so that you you don't want you know to to eat it's like Ugh not feeling good of course you're going to lose weight that way right so yeah give me the pill but give me the pellets whatever I need to do to get this weight on weight on tell me not to eat like the chips and you know the brownies no no no no just give me the easy easy version unfortunately as we move into this phase of life we really do again need to back up the train and look at what what are some lifestyle changes that we can do first instead of going straight to hormone replacement therapy but I love the way that you said you know if you do X Y and Z and then that's not working then let's look at the hormone replacement therapy because when we're introducing something into the body it's assuming that everything else about you is healthy and is working and that whatever we put in the body it's gonna get to where it needs to go but if you've got other things going on like the inflammation you know it's not going to help you like you think it will right yeah that's very wise I mean what whatever the medication is it's gonna be better you know even if it's not hormone therapy if you're taking medication for something else it's gonna go better with a healthier body than it's entering so that's just I don't know if I've ever heard someone say that Gina but it's such a good point you just have to we can't always go for the easy stuff I feel like we've got to look at the lifestyle first to get your body ready and you know willing to accept whatever else needs to happen there yeah 100 um yeah I hope that that's helpful um I know we're almost out of time you want me to run through a couple more I have or should we wrap it up I think we'll wrap it up here because I want to hear more about how people can find you if they are looking for more information about hey I want to hear more help me to lose this weight thank you yes you can find me at kathyfritzcoaching.com that's Kathy with a K Fritz like my hormones are on the fritz coaching.com awesome and you have a freebie there right I sure do yes it's four surprising ways to reduce your waistline hot flashes and insomnia okay well I loved this conversation thank you so much for coming in to the Coach's Corner this week and I'm glad to be here yeah we will post all of that in the comments or you know in the description that way people can find you all right Kathy until next time thank you bye everybody