Are you getting a good signal?

Are you getting a good signal?

Balancing hormones naturally for optimal health

 

What does it really mean to be ‘healthy’?

‘Healthy’ means getting our bodies to function ‘naturally’, as nature intended, with no signs of being ill or over-weight. If you have medical conditions then your body is not functioning naturally, and if you are over-weight, you are malnourished.

So what’s the best way to get healthier and leaner? Well it all starts with the liver and reducing the burden. The liver needs to be clean and working optimally before hormones will work properly, so a clean diet free from toxins is essential.

When you eat toxic, highly processed and hard to digest food, it places not only a massive stress on the digestive system but overloads the liver, which has to deal with and detoxify everything before it will allow it into your blood stream.

The liver cleans the blood, as well as having many other functions. If you have an overloaded liver then it will affect all of these processes. Circulatory problems such as gas, IBS, bloating and diverticulitis (where waste gets into the bloodstream via splits in the colon wall), are all signs that nutrients are not being absorbed properly.

When your liver is over burdened it makes you ‘bigger’ and in turn heavier as it has to dilute and house these toxins to make them less harmful to you. This is why after a weekend of indulgence you can be several pounds heavier come Monday morning!

One of the first things you can do to help flush out these toxins is drink water! Yes, an easy solution I know but how many people actually drink any, let alone enough water each day. Every single process in your body, including hormone production is affected by hydration. Your blood is thicker and more syrupy when you are dehydrated and slows all processes down. It’s like trying to run in glue.

One of the first places your body takes water from when you are dehydrated is the upper part of your colon. This means you are more likely to be constipated or find it harder to eliminate. If you are not regular, ie go every single day, then eating all the time is not recommended as it will just back up and your body will be under too much stress. Food is treated as an invader, a stressor, until it has met the liver. If you eat 6 times then that’s 6 times your body will be under digestive stress. Eat no more than 2-3 times a day.

Drinking plenty of water also decreases the risk of kidney stones, cystitis and in turn low back pain. Water thins your bodies liquids, makes them less syrupy and therefore contain less bacteria.

Our hormones are created from the nutrients we get from food. If you are eating poor quality and nutrient deficient food then our bodies systems become compromised and can lead to problems such as thyroid issues.

Our glands, found in seven sites in the body including the neck, groin and under arms, become overburdened and undernourished and don’t work efficiently. Glands release hormones into the bloodstream and receptors need to be available to catch them and take them to where they are needed. If you are eating nutrient poor food or food that doesn’t suit you then this process doesn’t happen 100%

Think about an aerial and your tv. When the weather is good the signal gets to your tv 100% and the picture and quality is great. When the weather is poor the picture starts breaking up and quality is compromised. 

If all our circulatory pathways are compromised our hormones cannot act properly. Our bodies will not be working ‘naturally’ as nature intended. So even if you eat something good like broccoli, all the goodness won’t get there as with messed up hormones, you cannot absorb the nutrients in their entirety. You basically are what you digest.

Our body’s functions can be affected by the following:

-       Inflammation

-       Poor red blood cell production

-       Blood pressure issues

-       Toxicity

-       Dehydration

When inflammation is present in the body then cortisol, our ‘get up and go’ stress hormone is elevated which means fat burning is reduced or switched off completely.

Cortisol isn’t all bad though. It is naturally present in the body in the first part of the day, which is when we need it. Then it should start decreasing from mid afternoon onwards when our growth and repair hormones take over.

However, this is not the case for many of us as we carry on rushing about from the morning at 100 miles per hour picking up the kids etc and working late into the night on our computers. 

So again, if our cortisol levels are high then fat burning hormones don’t get a look in. Have you ever wondered why that even when you throw ‘going to the gym’ into the hectic evening mix that you STILL don’t get results? You need to empty your stress bucket!

Too much cortisol can lead to decreased memory, focus, clarity and increased moodiness. It can also lead to fatigue, depression, low sex drive, increased abdominal fat, impaired immune system and loss of lean tissue. When you don’t sleep well cortisol increases and your repair hormones decrease. Is it any wonder why the nation gets sick so much?

So, here are the top four things you need to do to get your hormones balanced and reduce disease:

1.    Clean up the liver through a good, clean diet

2.    See point 1

3.    Reduce stress

4.    Drink water – 1 litre for every 50lbs body weight

If you clean up your diet overall, everything will start to function ‘naturally’ and will often remove the need for medication, or at least reduce the doses.

If you would like to know more about eating clean you can download our 28 day nutrition for health plan completely free from www.OptimisationPlan.com