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Where fitness and outdoors meet. In this space we chat all things hiking, exercise, wellness, adventure, motherhood, and metabolic health from a female perspective! Get ready to learn + be inspired to live your fullest, most adventurous life!
Hi, my name is Brady and I'm a long time fitness professional and Midwest girl turned mountain living hiking addict. In 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. What's up guys? Welcome back to the show. This is your host Brady. Today I'm really excited about our topic. We're going to be talking about ten habits for balanced hormones. So these are shifts that every woman can make. And the awesome thing is they don't require any crazy products. You have to buy supplementation lines, any weird gimmicky diets or anything like that. These are all within your means of just things that you can start being mindful of in your day to day life. And I think it's important to kind of also set the stage of like, what hormones are we actually talking about? Because sometimes you hear the words hormones thrown around and it's like, okay, but what does that mean? Right? A lot of people just kind of use it as a buzzword, but it's not really clear as to what are these hormones, what actually is being affected by what, and how can we actually improve and balance our hormones naturally without having to buy into all these different, like marketing tactics and things like that, just to get you to buy products basically. Unfortunately, there's a lot of that out there. So. Why do hormones matter in the first place? They affect so much from our energy to our weight maintenance. They can, you know, if not balanced, make it quite a bit harder to get the results that you want due to metabolic effects that can take place your mood, your cycles, your sleep, your fertility. There's just a lot that goes into this. So stick around. There's going to be a lot of great free resources that I'm offering with this podcast episode today, too. So make sure you listen up for those, um, if you want even more details on balancing your hormones naturally. And let's start off by defining what hormones we're going to be talking about. So when we talk about just vague hormone balance, this is what we're talking to. Talking about um, cortisol thyroid hormones testosterone estrogen and progesterone okay. So these are kind of the main hormones that are going to affect your stress responses. Your ability to burn calories, your metabolic rate, your sex hormones, your energy, all these different things. So think of your hormones, metabolism, blood sugar, gut and liver as like this big intertwined web. Everything. Effects the other part. Okay. So every single part that we're going to be talking about today has bearing on the others. That's why we can't just really say like we're just talking about hormones without also talking about your metabolism and your blood sugar and your gut and your liver health. So many of our day to day habits will affect multiple of these areas and can have a domino effect. That's why it's not so cut and dry as like, let's just fix this hormone, or let's just fix this or take this supplement, because all of this is very, very much intertwined. So that's really important to understand before we get into this. It's not just like this one piece of the puzzle. It's oftentimes multiple things that are affecting each other. So let's get into this ten Healthy Habits for Your Hormones. Number one, it sounds so simple, but it cannot be overlooked. Prioritizing sleep. Poor sleep is going to disrupt your cortisol, your insulin, your estrogen, estrogen and progesterone balance. It can also create higher levels of your hunger hormone ghrelin and lower your satiety hormone, leptin. So that is really frustrating. You're kind of fighting an uphill battle when you are on less sleep. So I'm just going to simplify this one, I think. Um, you know, we all can work on improving our sleep. And really, the best way that you can do that is to create an environment of success. If you can control these things as much as possible, this will make a difference. And one is just like making sure that you are getting to bed at a reasonable time. If you're not even getting into bed till midnight and you have to be up at seven. You're already kind of setting yourself up for less than ideal sleep cycle. So having a time frame around sleep, like maybe you say, I'm going to aim to be in bed by 1030 and then I'm in bed until 630 or 7, whatever that looks like for you. Ideally, you're getting at least eight hours of sleep. If you want the best possible sleep quality. You also want to focus on having a cold room. Establish bedtime routine so things that kind of get your brain into decompressed mode, where you're getting your body and brain ready to relax and to rest and to fall into a deep sleep. So things that aren't stimulating, right? If you're sitting in bed and you're watching TV and doing all these things that are keeping your brain going crazy, watching debates on politics or seeing people debating things on Facebook that just gets you riled up. That's not going to relax you and get into a restful state. Um, along those lines, limiting blue light use for a couple hours before bed. Ideally, you can do that by just straight up not not looking at screens for the last two hours before you go to bed, switching over or reading a book, um, or just visiting with your partner or whatever that looks like. Or you can also invest in some blue light blockers. These are glasses that are going to help minimize the amount of blue light that you're getting as you are looking at those devices. And then a hot bath or shower is also great for temperature regulation as you prepare to go to bed. Another thing that I always suggest to my clients, who just have a hard time turning their brain off before night, is to do something like a brain dump journal. If you're just like sitting there worrying about all the things you have going on tomorrow, get it out on pen and paper and then you can put it to rest, knowing that you're not going to forget about it in the morning. Okay. Number two is strength training and movement. This makes such a big difference for overall hormone health. Resistance training helps with insulin sensitivity and estrogen balance. So contrasting when we only focus on cardio and kind of like higher intensity types of things that can actually have more of a negative effect on your hormone, specifically increasing cortisol and maybe even bringing down estrogen too much when you are overtraining in that capacity. I'm not talking about like 1 or 2 cardio sessions a week. I'm saying like, you are doing that as your main source of exercise. Every time you work out, you're only doing cardio. It's always very intense. Um, not necessarily the best approach. This is why, ideally, you're doing a combination of strength training for all of the benefits. Definitely some hormone benefits too, and metabolic big time, but also then just sprinkling in small amounts of cardio where you're not overdoing it to have a negative hormonal response. And we talk about strength training on the show all the time. So if you are maybe just popping in and this is the first episode you're hearing, go back and through all of our show episodes and we have a ton on how to get started with strength training, benefits of strength training, how to tone your muscles, all that good stuff. Okay, number three is actually eating whole foods. So limiting kind of inflammatory foods in your diet. So I know that this probably sounds like duh. But it's actually really hard to implement getting proteins, healthy fats, and fiber in every single meal in a balanced manner. This is going to help you balance your blood sugar much, much better than if you're just eating a bunch of like, carbs, processed sugars, things like that without ample protein and fiber alongside it. And it's really sometimes harder to actually implement this stuff than we think. So if you could just start doing this consistently, you will notice massive benefits in how you're feeling, your health, your energy, your blood sugar balance which will affect your energy, not having those energy crashes and your body composition. Okay, so if you're someone who kind of like, here's this stuff and you're like, yeah, okay, I know, but you're not actually doing it, I really encourage you to actually start trying this stuff. These basic things like prioritizing sleep, getting strength training and multiple times a week and. Practicing building a balanced plate of whole foods and not just the, you know, highly inflammatory, processed stuff that alone, those three things like we could stop there and that will change your life and your hormone health. Okay. So the basics cannot be overlooked. I know oftentimes we want these like quick fix types of things. But honestly these big heavy hitters are going to make the biggest difference. Um, as far as your body comp, your hormone health, your metabolic health. So don't neglect those in in searching for some sort of like, flashy, more exciting cleanse or diet or something like that. I know those types of things sound more fun. Um, but they're not going to give you the results that these three main things will. So going to inflammatory foods, what does that really mean? Inflammatory foods are things like refined sugar, processed oils fried foods, excessive alcohol, just eating out a ton. Um, where you can't really control what's going into the food at all and how much oil and fats and things like that that they're cooking with. This is going to increase systemic inflammation where you're just kind of a baseline always inflamed. Um, and that's not going to do you any favors from a hormonal, metabolic or just physical standpoint, how you look, how you feel. Um, so inflammation equals stress on the body which equals cortisol rising. Chronically high cortisol is going to disrupt your thyroid function. It can suppress reproductive hormones, and it can even lead to issues such as estrogen dominance or depleted progesterone. Okay, so there's just a cascade of effects and it can affect people differently. Um, but high cortisol chronically leads to high inflammation. Chronically. These things are going to have a cascading effect on your other hormones. And I experienced it firsthand. I lost my cycle for years and had the estrogen of an 80 year old woman at age 23 because I was overstressed. I was doing way too much cardio and eating crappy stuff, but also dieting, but not focusing on my food quality at all. I just wasn't treating my body the way that I needed to to manage stress, and it manifested in many of these ways. Um, also, the importance of micronutrients should not be overlooked. Um, oftentimes we just kind of think of like, oh, I gotta get protein and make sure I stay in my calorie range. Yes, totally. Those definitely matter if you're looking at body recomposition, but you also do want to look at your micronutrient intake. So the vitamins and minerals that you're getting, the phytonutrients you're getting those from your fruits and veggies. And so those are really, really valuable. You want to be eating like as much of a diverse range of fruits and veggies, colors, all of that. You're going to get different nutrients with different colors. That's why it's important to as I say, eat the rainbow. So as much as you can, trying to get several servings of fruits and veggies every single day. In addition to being mindful of your protein intake and overall daily calorie intake, just setting a goal for yourself like this makes such a difference to just say, okay, I'm not going to bed til I've had at least two servings of veggies and one serving of fruit, or whatever that looks like for you. If you really struggle with veggies, maybe you kind of harp on that one a little bit more for a while until it becomes routine. It becomes habit. You figure out how to get those veggies in in a way that feels good for you. And you're not just like forcing it down and hating every second, okay? Number four is balanced blood sugar. So stable blood sugar equals stable hormones. Insulin resistance is something that can really trigger higher androgen levels like testosterone. So it's important to try to keep your blood sugar as level as possible. This can be linked to irregular cycles acne. And sometimes it can even lead to PCOS which you've probably heard of. So blood sugar instability can also lower things like progesterone, leading to PMS, anxiety and fertility struggles. So how do we balance our blood sugar? We need to again be eating a balanced plate, trying not to skip protein at breakfast, especially avoiding massive sugar spikes and sugar spikes don't just happen from sugar, they can also happen from simple carbohydrates. So say you just have a bunch of like bread or pastries or a sugary coffee drink or juice, even things like that that don't have the fiber or protein content accompanying it. That's going to be what spikes up your blood sugar. And then you're kind of having these like, spikes and dips all day. Um, so that's going to lead to also energy crashes. But over time it can lead to insulin resistance and then eventually prediabetes and diabetes. And we just don't want to get to that point right. This is totally avoidable with your lifestyle choices. So how you build your plate really matters. Even the order of your food can help. So for instance, if you're eating a meal, trying to have your veggie source like a salad or a side, if you have a veggie side before you're just mowing down on whatever carbs are there. So trying to go for the fiber and protein first, and then enjoying your dessert or carbohydrate source on the back end of that meal, that's going to help minimize your insulin spike big time. Okay, so paying attention to how you build your plate order of your food and not just snacking on naked sugars or naked carbs if at all possible to avoid. Okay. Number five. Stress management. We talked about stress a little bit, but this is such a big one. So um, let's talk about kind of the process of what happens when we are dealing with high stress. So it starts with cortisol the stress hormone. When your body feels stressed, whether from work, lack of sleep or too much exercise, potentially it pumps out cortisol in short bursts. That's helpful. That's what our body's supposed to do. But chronically high cortisol can throw off kind of your whole whole hormonal orchestra, so to say. So how does this affect other hormones? Thyroid hormones get suppressed. Cortisol is going to slow the conversion of thyroid hormones T4 to T3. That's going to be what drives your metabolic function. So the result of this is that your metabolism slows, energy drops. You might feel cold, tired, or struggle with weight changes. Your sex hormones are going to take a backseat. So your body is going to prioritize survival, not reproduction. So when that happens, our sex hormones drop. And that can happen as a result of stress of chronically high stress. It's kind of crazy. It's like our bodies are wired. God created us to be aware of stressors and threats. So imagine it would be like back in the day if you were constantly being chased by a tiger or something like that. Your body's not going to prioritize reproducing. It's going to be all about surviving and holding on to the calories that it needs to keep you alive. That is the priority. So in modern day, that can look like if we're just dieting all the time, doing all this intense hit after a really stressful meeting, or after a really terrible conflict at home, or sitting in traffic or almost being in an accident. Right? It's like all these compounding stressors. And then on top of it, you're getting notifications to your phone all the time. You're getting emails constantly pinging in, and our brain just processes that as constant stress and threat. So it lowers your ability to reproduce when you're stressed. So cortisol is going to steal resources essentially from making estrogen and progesterone, which often leads to things like irregular cycles, PMS, low libido or fertility struggles. The next one is the blood sugar roller coaster. Cortisol raises blood sugar to fuel a fight or flight response, and then over time, this strains insulin function. So this results in things like cravings, energy crashes, and eventually insulin resistance. Also impact on sleep hormones. High cortisol at night can lower melatonin, which makes it harder to fall asleep and stay asleep. And then poor sleep kind of perpetuates that stress response. So it's like a vicious cycle, right? Inflammation and gut hormone imbalance. Chronic stress increases inflammation and weakens gut health. And since the gut helps regulate your estrogen metabolism, this can contribute to estrogen dominance, which looks like heavy periods, mood swings, and bloating. Okay, so I know that's a lot. It can kind of feel overwhelming, especially if you're a high stress girly and you're like, oh gosh, I know that I am high stress. So think about some of these tools and what you can start implementing right away to just help minimize and manage your stress. Things like limiting screen time. Be serious about it. Maybe it looks like literally putting your phone away for the day at like 6 p.m. so that you can be present so you can eat dinner without distractions so that you can limit your blue light access, especially as you near bedtime. Be intentional with limiting your screen time or access to social media. Maybe you set a goal of not being on social media all Monday through Friday. One of my clients is doing that right now, and I think it's such an awesome idea, um, to have those boundaries, because otherwise it can just start to bleed into everything. And I personally have noticed how stressed I get from social media more than ever lately. It feels like the culture on social media is just so divided and angry and it's a lot. Okay, so set some boundaries around that. Journaling, reading, spending time in nature, getting a sun on your face, having just boundaries in general of how much you're saying yes to, um, picking some de-stress activities like taking a bath, getting a massage every now and then when you can, calling a loved one, um, going for walks, having a few of those tools kind of up your sleeve, especially if you find yourself elevated. If you find yourself in this like fight or flight state where you're just anxious, your shoulders are up to your ears. You're clenching everywhere. Your mind is racing. Have these up your sleeves so you can start to implement to get yourself out of a fight or flight state. Okay. Habit number six supporting gut health. So the gut hormone connection, your gut health is going to affect your estrogen metabolism and inflammation. And it also really affects your mood. The gut is linked so much to mood disorders. So it's a really, really important to have a handle on your gut health. So a few quick things that you can focus on would be fermented foods getting some into your diet, having a good probiotic. Make sure it's good quality. And also the strain is going to determine the function. So not all probiotics are created equal. If you have specific areas of your gut health that you want to be focusing on, you can actually find specific strains of probiotic to address those specific needs in your gut. Um, getting enough fiber. So really shooting for like 35 plus grams of fiber per day, drinking enough water. A lot of us are not doing that. A mindful eating. So actually sitting down and eating distraction free, not just looking at your phone and not eating on the go, not eating in the car so you can really properly digest. Stress reduction also kind of plays into mindful eating and then low inflammatory foods. All of that is going to really add up to help with a healthy gut. Also, if you can minimize the amount of antibiotics that you're taking, um, really only take them if necessary. And even over-the-counter stuff, if you can try some like herbal options instead, some more natural, uh, routes. Obviously there's a time and a place sometimes you got to take some medicine, but we don't want to just, like, throw that at every little thing, because that definitely can affect your gut health over time, because antibiotics not only kill the good or the bad bacteria, but they also kill the good bacteria. And that takes time to build back up. So especially if you've been on antibiotics a ton lately, you got to be pretty active with your, um, probiotic usage. Really be proactive with that. All right. Habit number seven avoiding toxins and endocrine disruptors. So what do I mean by this. This would be things like plastics um, poor skincare products, perfumes, cleaning products that are not good quality. All these things do have the ability to, um, disrupt our endocrine system. So we want to make sure that we are careful and selective with the products that we're using. Um, also, food quality and water quality plays into this, making sure you have a good water filter and as much as you can, especially with the dirty dozen fruits and veggies trying to get organic and good quality meats. Um, I know it's more expensive. I can't do this all the time, but when I can, I do so prioritize it when at all possible. Um, so here's some helpful everyday swaps for endocrine health. So instead of having plastic water bottles going for stainless steel or glass, I do this with baby bottles and my toddler cups too, because they're getting heated frequently. Um, so I moved away from the plastic bottles for their health plastic Tupperware swapping for glass or stainless steel food containers instead of plastic wrap. Beeswax. Beeswax wraps or silicone lids. For cookware. Steering away from Teflon or nonstick pans and doing cast iron, stainless steel or ceramic cookware instead. Instead of the conventional lotions, shampoos with parabens and things like that, you want to go for clean brands. So looking for things that are paraben free or a fragrance fragrance free are going to be really good indicators that you're going to have better quality, um, similarly, synthetic fragrances and perfumes or body sprays swap those for essential oil rollers or fragrance free options. Yes, previews smell great, but it does kind of come at a cost. So either use sparingly or try the essential oils instead. Um, as far as cleaning supplies, instead of harsh chemical cleaners looking for options that are vinegar based baking soda, Castile soap, or natural cleaning brands? Um, there's a lot of good ones now. So what I've been doing is, like, as I run out of some of the more classic chemical based cleaners, um, I'm just swapping them slowly for better quality products instead of just trying to do it all at once, like just do one thing at a time so it doesn't overwhelm you. Um, instead of scented dryer sheets, you can do the wool dryer balls with a drop of essential oil. That's something that we do as well. Um, for food choices, instead of canned foods that are often lined with BPA, you can do fresh or frozen versions or BPA free cans instead of the highly processed packaged foods. Looking for a whole minimally processed foods, or even like if you're buying, you know, frozen stuff or pre-made things looking for organic options, there's a lot of really, really great. Um, like the Simple Truth brand has great, great options. Um, if you can shop at, like, Sprouts or Trader Joe's or Whole Foods, they have such great pre-made stuff that makes it easy, but it's really good quality, um, for home environment. Instead of air fresheners, plug ins, or candles with artificial fragrance, look for beeswax candles. Essential oil diffusers are great too. And instead of vinyl shower curtains, look for cloth or PVA shower curtains. All right. I know that's kind of a lot, but hopefully that just gives you a basis for where to start with non-toxic products in your home and in what you're putting on your body. Um, habit number eight is cycle thinking and body awareness. Um, so basically what this means is kind of just keeping track of generally where you're at in your monthly cycle and understanding the patterns. I'm not talking about cycle thinking, and that you need to have a different workout program for every single day of the week of your cycle. I think this definitely gets overhyped and it's not necessary. You can do the exact same training program all month, but you can alter your intensity based on where you're at in your cycle. So you kind of got to understand what each week indicates in order to do that. So, um, you know, how are you going to be feeling during ovulation versus menstruation, your follicular phase versus your luteal phase, and then adjusting your workout intensity and perhaps your duration or frequency based on how you're feeling and kind of where you're at in your cycle. You can also kind of rotate how you're operating around nutrition and just cycle certain foods in based on what your body is going to need most during each phase of your cycle. So I'm not going to go into a ton of detail on this, because we actually have an awesome free resource that outlines how to implement this with your monthly cycle, exactly how to scale back or scale up with your workout intensity, and how to approach eating, what key nutrients you're going to want to be getting, and where you can get those from. As far as food and beverages every single week of your cycle. So that's really going to make it quite easy for you to implement all of this. If that sounds interesting to you, you want to learn more? Um, just DM us at the fit underscore for Hiking Instagram page. Just DMs cycle and we'll send that out to you. You can definitely just dive in and learn a ton more there. All right. Habit number nine is focusing on sunlight and circadian rhythm. So morning sunlight is really helpful for regulating cortisol and melatonin and kind of setting the stage for a healthy circadian rhythm. Um so there's some certain things that you can do in the morning to help the natural cortisol curve do its thing so that your stress is where it should be throughout the day. Ideally, your cortisol should peak around 9:10 a.m. and then from there it's starting to slowly dip off. Not a super fast drop, but we want to have a slow decline so that as you near the evening time, you are sleepy and starting to feel like you need some rest. Okay, so that is how it should be. Unfortunately, there's a lot of things that can disrupt the natural path of your cortisol and throw off your circadian rhythm. So if you want to learn more about this, we did a whole podcast episode on this episode 65 How to Optimize Your Cortisol, all about circadian rhythms and how you can really optimize your morning routine, your midday activities, and your evening routine to have the best, most optimal circadian rhythm possible. So episode 65, we'll link it in the show notes, but definitely go back and check that one out. And then habit number ten is focusing on liver health. This one is definitely kind of underrated because your liver function actually accounts for about 15% of your basal metabolic rate, which is a lot. So if you are not having an optimally functioning liver, you are potentially leaving a lot to be desired with how well your metabolism is going to function. So. Let's talk a little bit about what this actually looks like. What is the liver and hormone connection. So your liver is basically your hormone filter. So the liver's job is to process and clear out excess hormones from the body, particularly your estrogen, cortisol and thyroid hormones. If your liver is overloaded or sluggish then hormones can accumulate. This leads to imbalances because you have excess hormones floating around in your body. So estrogen detox and balance. The liver is converting estrogen into forms the body can safely excrete. This is a really important role. A stressed liver often goes hand in hand with systemic inflammation, which impacts nearly every hormone system in the body. As we've talked about before with inflammation. So healthy liver function is foundational for hormone harmony. When the liver can do its job efficiently, estrogen, cortisol, thyroid and other hormones stay balanced. Overload it with processed foods, alcohol or toxins, and you risk kind of a domino effect of hormonal issues. And this doesn't happen overnight. But this tends to start to happen as we get older. And our liver has been overloaded for years and years and years of poor lifestyle choices. So things that you can do to support your liver health. Drinking lots of water. You need to flush out all of the crap that we're putting into our bodies. Okay, so drinking enough water to effectively do that um, sweating often. So you are actually excreting some of the toxins that your liver is processing, limiting external toxins as much as possible, focusing on quality, water quality, food quality, air quality products in your home. As we've discussed limiting alcohol and trans fats as well. Um, so obviously that's just kind of the tip of the iceberg. And I could do a whole episode just on liver health, but that kind of gives you a starting point there. So that is our ten habits we covered a lot today. This is kind of a meaty episode, but I have a couple other resources for you. So if you're kind of interested in more about hormone balance and having a healthy cycle, um, go back and listen to episodes 67 and 68. Um, that's a two part series we did about understanding hormone balance with our functional practitioner, Alicia. She works within Mountain Metabolic Coaching with our gals who have any sort of hormone or gut dysregulation issues. She's very educated. Um, these episodes are great. So go back and listen to those. We'll link them in the show notes. And then if you want a guide to nutrition for healthy hormones, understanding what to eat for each particular hormone and kind of just breaking it down, making it as simple as possible. DM us hormones at the fit underscore for hiking Instagram page. Okay, so that's just another free resource for you. So much goodness in this episode. I hope that it is helpful because hormones can be overwhelming, especially in the age of social media where everyone is acting like an expert and they don't even know what hormones they're even talking about. So hopefully that this more thorough look at things really helps clear up some of that and gives you direction on how to implement this in your everyday life without having to buy a bunch of fancy products, or do detoxes or cleanses. A lot of this you can just start doing today, right now. And it's simple lifestyle changes compounded over time. Um, so definitely check out those free resources, check out those other episodes that we're linking in the show notes. And if you're interested in learning more about what we do with within Mountain Metabolic Coaching to support hormone and metabolic health, then you can click the link in our show notes to apply, and we will chat with you about the program and see if it's a good fit for you. Thank you so much for tuning in, you guys, and I will chat with you in the next episode. Thanks for tuning into 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 ponytail on Etrailer.com. Happy and healthy trails.