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In this episode, I dive into the hot debate of calories in, calories out versus hormones when it comes to fat loss. I break down the science behind both, explain how they’re actually connected, and share practical tips to support both metabolic health and weight loss. Whether you're stuck in a plateau or just confused by the noise online, this episode helps bring clarity to a super nuanced topic.
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For next level fat loss strategies, hormone/gut health help, serious performance goals and unparalleled support, apply for Mountain Metabolic coaching. Learn more HERE.
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Calories VS Hormones - Which matters more for weight loss?
Hi, my name is Brady and I'm a longtime fitness professional and Midwest girl turned mountain living hiking addict. And combining my knowledge of fitness and passion for hiking, I've helped hundreds of women get lean and strong for the trails. Think of this as your one stop shop for both education and inspiration on all things female wellness, trail talk and adventure. Hiking, female metabolism, motherhood, nutrition, travel and fitness are all topics you'll hear discussed here. If you are outdoorsy and active, looking to level up your health, unlock your potential, and become inspired to live your most vibrant life, you're in the right place. You're listening to the fit for hiking podcast. Hello everybody, and welcome back to another episode of the fit for Hiking podcast. Today we're going to be discussing calories in, calories out, versus hormones. I feel like this is a really big discussion right now, kind of in just health spaces, fitness spaces, social media, because people tend to kind of land in one camp or the other when it comes to what is the most effective thing for fat loss? Are we looking at calories in, calories out, or are we looking at a more nuanced approach with functional health and looking at hormone imbalance? And there's a lot of people who kind of camp out and say, nope, it's just calories in, calories out. That's all that matters. If you look at your calories and create a calorie deficit, that is the only thing that's going to lead to fat loss. And then you have people kind of on the other side of things, on the more functional side who are saying, no, that's not really how it works. You have to look at your hormones. If your hormones are out of whack, then you will absolutely not have success losing weight. And it just is a little bit loud and confusing. So I wanted to take a deep dive into this kind of nuanced topic and see if I can shed some light and kind of work through some of the confusion. I have been going through a functional health coaching course that really does a beautiful job of merging these two camps of like the kind of meat head, you know, Jim Breaux, calories and calories out side of things, and then the functional health side of things because they really need to work. Together in order to create the results that we want to see, both from a physique standpoint and from a health and wellness standpoint, and truly thriving and finding our full potential. So that's why I want to shed some light on this. I've been learning so much about this, and I feel like this is a topic that needs to be discussed. So let's get into it. Calories in. Calories out is basically the idea that weight loss is achieved through your calories burned being greater than your calories consumed. Weight gain is when your calories consumed outweighs your calories burned. This is the fundamental principle of thermodynamics, and let's just say it now it is technically always true. Your body can't create or destroy energy. It can only store or use it. Okay, so it is true that calories in, calories out is the foundation for fat loss. And you know, you might have heard like starvation mode. Oh, if you don't eat enough, You'll actually, um, you know, gain weight. And unfortunately, that is just not the reality of it. If that was true, we wouldn't have people who starve to death. And I hate to have to say that as an example, but it's just the reality. If we don't have enough food, then our body does starve, so it's not going to be the other way around. You're not going to gain weight from being in a major calorie deficit. Um, what people are tending to kind of overlook is, is a phenomenon called metabolic adaptation, which is something I've talked about on this podcast before. And that is a very real thing where when you have under eaten enough for long periods of time, your body does adapt, so that when you do eat large amounts of food on the, you know, one off times where like you're going out to eat or you're in social gatherings, then yes, you're more likely to gain weight because your metabolism has adapted downward. But that is absolutely not the same thing as starvation mode. Okay, so starvation mode is not real. And the law of thermodynamics is. Fundamentally accurate, so we can all assume that calories and calories out. Does absolutely matter for fat loss. Okay, so that is a foundation. We have to be in a calorie deficit in order to lose weight. So now let's look at the hormone argument. So really what this is is that the hormones are influencing weight loss. So things like our hunger and our cravings are affected by hormones ghrelin and leptin. Things like fat storage and metabolism are affected by hormones such as insulin, cortisol, estrogen, testosterone and thyroid hormones. So, for example, high insulin levels, often from processed carbs and sugar, can promote fat storage and prevent fat breakdown. So that's an example of when what you're eating really does make a big difference. It's not just how much you're eating cortisol. The stress hormone, can increase appetite and fat storage, especially around the belly. Okay. So again another example of when a hormone does actually affect how we store fat. And then leptin resistance can mess with your hunger signals and metabolism. So these are all different hormonal issues that can very much affect our hunger our ability to store fat or to lose fat while and then can also promote promote fat storage. So all of these things do really matter and it's important to bring them together. So here's a really helpful analogy I want you to think of calories in calories out as your budget. Okay. Hormones are your spending habits, your stress levels, your bank fees, things like that. So technically, you can save money by spending less than you earn, right? That's the calories in, calories out. But it's a lot harder if your hormones are pushing you to, quote unquote, overspend aka eat more and move less. So hormones are going to affect your ability to stay in a calorie deficit well and can even affect your basal metabolic rate, making it harder to abide by a calorie deficit effectively. Because you're struggling with your hunger, you're struggling with your stress. So things like that. Okay, hopefully that analogy really resonates and that it still matters how you're spending your calories if you are ending up in a deficit. But it's not always as simple as just calories in, calories out from a habit standpoint. And and the things that are going to affect our brains and how we approach our food and our movement. So here's how our key hormones are going to affect our total daily energy expenditure. Because like I just mentioned, hormone imbalances can definitely affect your overall metabolism and your total daily energy expenditure. So if your TDE is what we'll call it, your total daily energy expenditure, if your TDE is lower, it's going to be harder to lose weight, right? If you're not expending that much energy but you're still eating the same amount, then your body's going to be more likely to end up in a either maintenance calories or a surplus. So if you're trying to lose weight, that's going to make it very difficult. So we don't want our TDE to be low. We want it to stay high. We want to be able to support our TDE well, and here are the things that make up that number. So your basal metabolic rate. So the energy used at rest. So this is just the calories that you burn to stay alive. Like the things that keep your organs going. The things that keep your blood pumping. Um, if you were lying in a hotel or in a hospital bed, in a coma and just functioning on a very basic level, you would still need a certain amount of calories, okay, just to keep you alive. So that's your basal metabolic rate. Next is the thermic effect of food. So this is the energy used to just digest your food. and then activity. Thermogenesis. So energy used in our movement our exercise and then non exercise activity referred to as meat. All of these things are going to affect your total daily energy expenditure. So when we see these things go down so maybe you're not really burning as many calories through exercise because your energy is low and you're not moving as much, or you are struggling with a healthy metabolism, so your basal metabolic rate is lower due to adaptations that have occurred because you've been under eating for a long time. All that's going to affect your total daily energy expenditure. So here's how our hormones impact TDI. Number one the thyroid hormones T3 and T4. Their role is to regulate your basal metabolic rate. So what happens when there's an imbalance? Hypothyroidism can create a reduced TDP, which often leads to weight gain. Hypothyroidism is when your basal metabolic rate goes up, which increases your TDE, which leads to weight loss. Number two leptin and ghrelin. Leptin signals satiety or fullness, and it regulates your energy balance. Ghrelin signals hunger. So when there's an imbalance. Such as leptin resistance, which is common in people who are dealing with obesity. The brain just doesn't respond to satiety cues anymore, so it leads to overeating. There's also something called chronically high ghrelin. So you just have an increased appetite, which means you're eating more. Um, and so you're going to have indirect TDI TDI increases through the increased food intake. Okay. So those are just some imbalances that can occur from the hormones leptin and ghrelin. Number three taking a look at insulin which its role is to regulate blood sugar and fat storage. So the imbalance effect here is when there's insulin resistance, which you might have heard of, you're going to have more energy stored as fat, possibly less of meat happening throughout the day. So your non exercise activity because you're going to just be more fatigued. And then that's going to reduce your TV. And then our next one number four is cortisol. Its role is stress hormone. It affects metabolism and fat storage. It's imbalance effect is chronically high. Cortisol can lead to muscle breakdown. So you have a lower basal metabolic rate. Because the more muscle you have on your body, the higher your metabolism functions just at rest. And then increased fat storage, especially around the abdominal region. It can also reduce your meat and exercise recovery, which is going to then lead to lower activity levels because you're just not recovering the way that you need to be. And number five sex hormones. So these are estrogen progesterone and testosterone um estrogen and progesterone for women um lead to when there's imbalances. Things like um. You know, when we're having postpartum PCOS, menopause are some of the key ones, which we'll talk about here in a minute. When we're experiencing imbalances because of things like that, it can reduce our basal metabolic rate, alter fat distribution, and impact our hunger cues. And then testosterone, which is in both men and women, when we have low testosterone, it's going to reduce our overall muscle mass, which will lead to a lower basal metabolic rate. Okay. So I know there's a lot of hormone talk and science. So let's talk about the summer here. Hormone imbalances can lower or raise your TDE. Changing your basal metabolic rates, your appetite regulation and your activity levels. Most commonly, imbalances do reduce the TDE, especially through lower basal metabolic rate and decreased physical activity due to fatigue or mood changes. Okay, so here are some of the big things that we can experience that you might have heard of that can cause hormone shifts. So postpartum this is one that I'm currently experiencing right now. Um, some of the shifts that you'll experience are a sharp drop in estrogen and progesterone. Um, oftentimes our thyroid function is disrupted during this time. And changes in prolactin for milk production and cortisol. How it affects the thyroid is going to be slower. Your meat is going to be less due to just your basic sleep deprivation, fatigue, depression, anxiety, and then your appetite is going to go up because of breastfeeding hormones such as prolactin and ghrelin. You also will experience some muscle mass loss, which is going to further lower basal metabolic rate. So postpartum women do often experience a lower TDP despite higher hunger, which is not fun for us, right? Um, so it's important to be strategic with your movement and strength training to help offset this and reduce some of that muscle mass loss. Um, another common one is PCOS polycystic ovary ovary syndrome. Um, the hormonal features are high androgens or testosterone in women, insulin resistance, and often low or irregular progesterone and estrogen imbalances. So how these things end up affecting your TDE, your basal metabolic rate is going to be lower due to less lean muscle and disrupted thyroid function, which is very common in PCOS. Oftentimes you see those two going hand in hand. Um, your need is lower from fatigue and mood disturbances. Appetite is up. Cravings are a really big deal in PCOS due to the insulin spikes, and your thermic effect of food is possibly, um, thrown off as well from metabolic inefficiency. So the takeaway here is that many women with PCOS do have a reduced TDE and a body that favors fat storage. Um, so managing insulin and building muscle are really, really essential in this case. And then the final one would be perimenopause and menopause. We're going to experience some big changes with perimenopause and menopause. So some of those are estrogen and progesterone dropping. Possible rise in cortisol and thyroid function may shift subtly. There's also a lot of gut issues potentially when we experience perimenopause. Um, so how it can affect your basal metabolic rate is going down due to muscle loss and hormonal slowdown. Your need is going down because your energy is just down the drain. There's some joint pain, mood swings associated and fat redistribution to abdomen affecting motivation and metabolic health. Appetite regulation can also be disrupted. Okay, so what is the best approach here. Because obviously what we've gone over is that calories in, calories out. Law of thermodynamics is the foundation for fat loss. We have to create a calorie deficit. But clearly there's so much that can go on hormonally that can affect our ability to create a calorie deficit out of our total daily energy expenditure and our basal metabolic rates. Right. There's a lot going on. It's not super black and white all the time. So what's the best approach? We really need to look to combine both. So eating in a calorie deficit but also prioritizing the things that are going to support healthy hormones, such as eating whole foods, sleeping well, mitigating your stress strength training, avoiding highly inflammatory processed foods, keeping balanced blood sugar by how you look at your meals and your macronutrient ratios. Not just having tons of naked carbs or just basically carbs and sugar with no proteins and fats and avoiding crash diets. Not just doing these things that try to cause you to lose weight as fast as humanly possible, because that will affect your basal metabolic rate. So practical application. When weight loss stalls, I think we tend to just gravitate towards one camp or the other. Some women are like, oh, I just have bad hormones. My hormones are thrown off. I can never lose weight now because of my hormones. And then some women are just all about cutting calories crazy low and just dieting for that purpose. So how do we apply all of this together in order to achieve weight loss when things stall or you hit plateaus? One is really examine your basic patterns on a daily basis. Okay, so before just assuming that your metabolism is broken and your hormones are completely screwed. Look at your patterns and be totally honest. And this is where sometimes having a third party person like a coach can be really essential, because sometimes we're not so good at being honest with ourselves about what we're doing on a daily basis. So look at your food consumption, inflammatory foods versus whole foods. How often are you eating out? How often are you going for convenience items? How often are you cooking at home? Um, and then also alcohol consumption. Are you consuming tons of drinks every single week? Maybe you're like, well, I really only drink on the weekends, but you have like 12 drinks on the weekends, or I only have one drink every day. But you're having, you know, a drink seven days a week. Also accurately tracking, because as we've discovered, the law of thermodynamics cannot really be refuted. We have to be in a calorie deficit. So even if you're crushing it with eating really low inflammatory diet, maybe you're following more of a mediterranean style. You're eat really healthy. You don't eat out a ton. You don't eat or drink a lot of alcohol. Um, but if your portion sizes are still too high and you're a very small person, you might not be able to eat as much as you're eating and be expected to lose weight. We have to be realistic with our body size, our basal metabolic rate, our total daily energy expenditure, and then what an actual deficit looks like because of those things, and then staying with it, tracking accurately, which is not always easy. So really taking an honest look at your food quantity and food quality, both are so important when we're looking at weight loss and hormone health. Um, next is looking at your protein fiber and micronutrient ratio. So this will really affect. What your body looks like, your body composition. If we're getting enough protein to support our workouts and lean mass and then your fiber, fiber and micronutrients are going to affect your gut health, your digestion, um, just overall hormone health and how you feel, right? It's not all about how we look. If we don't feel good, then what's the point? So really making sure that you're looking at what is your diet actually made up of and not just like, oh, if it fits your macros, I'm just going to eat like cupcakes and cereal and protein bars and call it a day. Because yes, you might be able to stay in a calorie deficit that way. But how are you feeling? How is your gut health? How's your hormone health? Right. It all factors in together, um, your total daily energy expenditure. How much are you on your feet? How much are you sitting? You know, are you trying to actively get steps in and fidget and move around throughout the day? Or are you largely just sedentary? That makes a really big difference. Um, your exercise consistency. Are you someone who works out five days a week and then you take a month off because life gets busy, and then you jump in and do that again for two weeks and then take another break. Or are you consistently working out ideally three plus times a week? Um, with minimal breaks. Right? Like, yes, you're going to have some weeks out of the year where you're not able to work out sickness, vacation, holidays, things like that. But the majority of the weeks you want to still be striving to do weight bearing activities to support your muscle mass. That's going to help keep your basal metabolic rate higher, support a healthy body composition. And if you want to have like a toned appearance, you got to have some muscle mass, right? So you got to be putting some work into the gym. Sleep quality. We can't neglect our sleep and expect to be happy with our health. And also, sleep is definitely going to be affecting a lot of our hunger and satiety cues. Stress management as we know, cortisol really does affect fat storage and body composition inflammation. So we have to pay attention to our stress and actively try to minimize it, counteract it with things that restore you and get your nervous system out of a fight or flight state. If you're a high stress person and you are just trying to like, grind your way through fat loss, doing all of the things, um, you actually might be kind of hindering your efforts. And I was totally there. And I have episodes all about this because sometimes more is not always better, and you can actually cause more damage by just trying to kind of white knuckle your way through fat loss when you're trying to do way too much and you're already extremely stressed with a heightened nervous system state. So definitely something to look at if you would qualify yourself as like a very type A high stress, high anxiety person. And then your lifestyle. So things like toxins in your household, food, the products that you're using on your skin and body. It's important to look at some of those things too. Okay. So examine your patterns around all of that before you just assume that you have a hormone imbalance. If you are on point with all of those things, even like 75% of the time, then it might be time to look more deeply into hormone imbalance. And you can do that through, um, doing some testing, symptom tracking, and or working with a coach who understands what to actually do with that information. Right. Because yes, you can get hormone testing done. You can look at a symptom tracker that tells you, okay, you might have some imbalances here or there, but then what do we do with that information? Right. How do you adjust your lifestyle to actually improve what's going on and what's causing the imbalance? We don't want to just slap a Band-Aid on it and throw some birth control at you. It's important to change what's causing the imbalance in the first place. So that can be following some hormone balancing protocols, proper supplementation, diet changes, exercise considerations, etc. and these things just aren't one size fits all. So I'm not going to sit on here and list off like, oh, if you have this issue then it's definitely because of this. It's just different for everybody. And so there aren't, you know, any black and white solutions here. It's important to look into what's going on with your body. What are the tests saying, what are your symptoms showing, and then what are the underlying causes for those things. And then what do we need to do as far as protocols. Um, so all of that to say if you are like, okay, yes, I acknowledge that I'm probably more in the camp of like, I just need to focus on my basic habits because I haven't really been keeping track of anything. I haven't been eating my fruits and veggies, I haven't been prioritizing my steps or really exercising that consistently. If I'm being honest, then you know, okay, it's time to start there. If you're listening to this and you're like, okay, I actually am crushing it with all of those basic things and I'm still gaining fat and it doesn't make any sense, then I definitely encourage you to send us a message on our Instagram. It's fit underscore for hiking fit, underscore for hiking. That's our Instagram account messages hormones. And I will get on a call with you and we can chat about what it would look like for you to work with our functional practitioner, Alicia who this is what she does. This is her specialty, and she can help you by really taking a deeper dive into what might be going on hormonally for you. All right, you guys, I hope that this has been helpful. I know that this is kind of a more like, nitty gritty type of episode, really getting into the details here, but I feel like it's important when we're looking at a topic that's as nuanced as this. So I hope that you found it helpful. If you did, please share it. Um, spread the word. That's really, really helpful. Also, we just celebrated our 100th episode last week, so thank you so much for everybody who listens on a weekly basis. Um, who supported this show. It means the world to me. And I love doing this. This is just so much fun for me. Um, I'd love to connect with you. If you enjoy the show, please send me a message. I would love to hear from you. You can also find my personal account, which is ponytail underscore on a trail. Um, I'd love to connect with you there or at our fit underscore for Hiking Instagram page. Thank you so much for listening today, and I will chat with you in the next episode. Thanks for tuning in to this episode of the fit for hiking podcast. As always, I hope it leaves you feeling inspired and informed on how to take your health and adventure into your own hands. For more content like this, be sure to follow along with my daily posts at Ponytail Underscore. On a trail that's ponytail underscore on a trail. You can also stay up to date on my new episodes being released at Fit Underscore for hiking, and find more free resources at Pony Tail on a trail.com. Happy and healthy trails.