I was talking to my friend… a doctor…
… and I asked him about hypothyroidism…
He said…
“If you have low thyroid hormone, you’ll have to take T4 hormone for the rest of your life…”
I began to ask him how that was going to help me…
He said…
“I don’t know… we’ll have to monitor you and adjust…”
… but I still wasn’t convinced about that being what the rest of my life would look like…
“…When a defining moment comes along… you define the moment… or the moment defines you…”
Roy “Tin Cup” McAvoy
I realized that he didn’t know how I could get my my body to produce its own hormones…
I could have allowed this moment to define me…
Doomed to take hormones for the rest of my life…
… but instead I defined this moment as the moment I had to take responsibility…
Go in search of the answer myself…
His ability to help me had ended…
If I wanted an answer, I had to go figure it out on my own…
Here’s the 5 Steps to boost hormone production and balance your hormones
#1 – Vitamin D
I started by learning more about the root cause of my low hormone production and hormone imbalance…
I had poor digestion…
Leaky gut…
Yeast overgrowth…
… and who knows what other pathogenic bacteria triggering all sorts of autoimmune conditions…
Like breaking out in hives…
Turns out I had low Vitamin D…
I was at 22 ng/dL
Boosting my Vitamin D was important because it’s actually a hormone…
The liver converts it into the active hormone called calcitriol…
Hormone imbalance happens when one of your hormones is too low or high (like cortisol)…
#2 – Cholesterol
“…Testosterone is derived from Cholesterol…”
Tim Ferriss
I read that quote in The 4-Hour Body by Tim Ferriss...
… and immediately realized that my hormone imbalance was also being affected by low testosterone…
I was developing man boobs…
Losing my hair…
I was estrogen dominant…
Giving me mood swings…
Gaining weight…
I started learning how to produce testosterone…
Here’s a couple videos that helped me understand testosterone (and estrogen)…
I was terrified to add cholesterol to my diet because up until then I had heard nothing but bad things about cholesterol…
… I wanted to get my energy back so I went for it…
Not to mention that I was losing my hair…
Not enough testosterone (or too much) is known to cause hair loss…
However, boosting testosterone wasn’t just a matter of adding cholesterol to my diet…
Found out there were other issues I had to solve to produce more testosterone…
I had to watch my insulin sensitivity levels…
… and even if I produced more testosterone…
… Two proteins (SHBG and Albumin) can bind to testosterone making our bodies unable to use testosterone…
It turns testosterone into…
#1 SHBG-bound Testosterone – (Sex Hormone Bound Globulin)
#2 Albumin-bound Testosterone
#3 – Ketogenic
As I began to understand the importance of Vitamin D and cholesterol in my diet I realized one thing…
The body can produce hormones more efficiently when it’s keto-adapted…
Meaning when it runs on fats as a source of fuel…
That’s because Vitamin D is fat soluble…
Cholesterol is itself a lipid (oil)…
Up until I had health issues, I could not even fathom the idea of a meal without some sort of carb… like bread…
…. or sugar (dessert)…
I had really strong sugar cravings…
I only knew how to run on sugar as a source of fuel…
So part of my transformation was to become keto-adapted…
Easier said than done…
This was the 3rd challenge I had to face…
#4 – Endocrine Disruptors
The first three are the most important…
Really the bulk of hormone production…
… but when it comes to balance, endocrine disruptors come into the picture…
We are being bombarded by different types of disruptors that affect hormone production and balance…
Xenoestrogens
Phthalates (plasticizers)
PUFAs
Easiest thing to do is to learn how to identify these and avoid them…
#5 – Nutrient Deficiencies
Last but not least…
Because I had low Vitamin D…
Leaky gut…
Hashimoto’s…
… which all basically translates to poor digestion…
I was becoming deficient in many nutrients like
Iron
Zinc
Choline
Selenium
Amino acids
… and others…
Iron is important for hair growth…
Certain amino acids are important for hormone production…
The amino acid Tryptophan is used for Serotonin… the happy hormone…
The amino acid Tyrosine is used for Dopamine… a focus and energizing hormone…
Tyrosine is also essential for the conversion of the inactive thyroid hormone T4 into the active T3 form…
This last challenge was the final tweak I made to my diet to ensure proper hormone production and balance…
So there you have it… 5 steps to hormone production and balance…
#1 I raised my vitamin D levels
#2 I learned how to incorporate cholesterol into my diet
#3 I trained my body to become keto-adapted
#4 I identified and eliminated endocrine disruptors
#5 I ate foods with the nutrients needed for hormone production and balance…
Stay tuned for more advanced techniques on hormone production and balance…
1 Response to "How to Produce and Balance Hormones"
Is there a cure for hoshimto thyroid