Balance Hormones.
All of your hormones affect the other hormones in your body, and having the correct amount of hormones in your body is important. When your body is healthy, then your hormones will be in balance. Weight fluctuations, acne, and difficulty with women’s cycles or getting pregnant can be signs of an imbalance to the hormones.
Here are some tips to balance your hormones and get your body in tip-top health and shape.
1. Exercise Regularly.
Exercise has many benefits to the body, including to balance hormones.
Sometimes people struggle with motivation to work out, and maybe some people are confused at which workouts to engage in. Start off by doing a kind of workout that seems interesting to you, such as yoga, barre, dance, or martial arts. Or, join a class. Doing it in a group can be motivating.
But find a way to start working out and be consistent with it. Try to get a little in every day. If you miss a day or so, give yourself grace and then get right back in when you can. Workouts don’t even have to be long.
Motivate yourself by imaging who you want to be in your minds eye, and embody that new you. Think: What would this “new me” do right now? Workout? Eat this or that? Then, do what your “new me” self would do. This has helped me a lot.
What I do is workout with an online team who supports each other. In my workout program, we have access to all kinds of workout programs, with and without weights, live and replay workouts. We also have nutrition help, yoga, meditations, and a mindset health esteem program. If this sounds interesting to you, maybe you’d like to check it out here.
2. Consume Protein at Each Meal.
Protein is important for weight loss, but also important for a healthy body and to balance hormones. Your goal is to get 25-30 grams of protein at each meal. I’ve noticed that sometimes in America we prioritize carb-heavy foods. But remember, protein will help you stay full and satisfied until your next meal.
So when you look at the food on your plate, just remember that you want to prioritize eating the veggies on your plate as well as the protein first. This protein will help keep your hormones functioning optimally!
Consider my favorite nutritional meal-replacement protein shake, My Healthy Shake to really boost your nutrients and protein intake.
And if you like to work out (which this article suggests you should start looking into even short exercises if you haven’t already), consider this post-workout muscle recovery, which is basically an ultra-yummy chocolate protein drink! Tastes like chocolate milk. I drink this after each time I work out, and I feel great getting that extra tasty protein.
3. Prioritize Gut Health.
Our digestive health actually impacts our mood, sleep patterns, cognitive function, and agility to both gain and lose weight. The gut helps the body break down our foods and helps us to absorb the nutrients, which supports our normal everyday bodily functions. Gut health is clearly so important to our physical and mental health as a whole.
Eating plenty of veggies and get great sleep are perfect ways to help gut health. It can be so simple to say “eat more veggies” but also harder to do. Maybe you don’t like to eat vegetables. Maybe they just aren’t on the plate at places that you eat out at or order from. But there is a simple way that I found to get a full serving of veggies in an easy way, by ordering this Super Greens Powder. I add it to My Healthy Shakes, which I’ve noticed no taste difference to the shakes, but you can also add it to your cooking or other drinks.
Look into a better diet to help gut health, and My Healthy Shake can also be a great first step, if you’re looking for one. This meal replacement has fantastic nutrient-dense ingredients that helps improve gut health.
I have an article about how to help gut health, which goes hand-in-hand with how to balance hormones. There’s a ton of more information about gut health in my article, so check it out!
4. Lower Sugar Intake.
Sugar is everywhere! Sugar and added sugar is honestly so hard to avoid in an American diet. And once your body is used to it and bloated from it, your body chemically has a continual desire for it. Before my health journey, I was certainly addicted to sugar. It’s actually been proven to be more addicting than cocaine in some studies, and has such negative affects on the body, including weight gain, obesity, insulin resistance, prediabetes, and diabetes.
Monkfruit is a great natural-sugar alternative. This can greatly help your addiction to sugar, if you have been addicted like I have. Addiction is so hard, I know. The more you have Monkfruit, the more you will like it, and I like how natural it is. Lakanto is a great company that makes Monkfruit desserts and more. Check it out!
Additionally, when shopping, you can consider more wholesome products than those with added sugar. The internet search is such a great tool to find new companies that are producing yummy foods that are better for you than what has traditionally been bought in stores. However, stores do often have some health-centered sections.
What about sugary drinks? A 12-ounce can of coke contains 9.75 teaspoons of sugar, which is 39 grams of sugar. And fruit juice isn’t much better for you because it has a concentrated amount of sugar and calories. Both of these can lead to weight gain, obesity, and diabetes. And being addicted to sugar. Luckily, you can easily swap out your normal sugary drinks with low-calorie and low-sugar carbonated beverages that taste awesome, such as Spindrift and LaCroix. I like to pretend I’m having an adult drink when I have one. It just makes it more fun.
Life can be fun with less sugar.
5. Stress Less, Sleep More.
Why is everyone so stressed out? I can speak for the Western World way of life that due to multiple factors, we are a stressed out nation. Work-life balance isn’t balanced. Many of us have a work-hard mentality. Work seems to takes priority over important things like spending time with family. And I personally absolutely love working remotely and working from home. But I’ve also noticed that it has made it impossible to take a real vacation away from work.
Law of Attraction.
Of course, work isn’t the only thing stressing us out. It can be our family, people in our lives, past unhealed traumas that affect us, or our financial state. I personally study the Law of Attraction which is a spiritual practice, and know that whatever energy we put out into the universe and God, we will get back. If we put out an energy of worry, then we get more things to worry about. When we put out an energy of abundance, suddenly the money starts flowing. It truly works, so if you think the Law of Attraction can help eliminate your stress, there are a ton of channels on YouTube to listen to. I personally love Abraham Hicks and Andrea Shulman for LOA help to improve your life!
Yoga to Balance Hormones.
I have been on a yoga journey, which in itself is a spiritual path to enlightenment, but even if you haven’t been seeking that path, yoga and meditation is proven to not only destress us, but to assist us in becoming less reactive to situations, especially stressful ones, and help us achieve more mental clarity and calm throughout the day.
Meditation to Balance Hormones
Meditation is hard, but it’s a practice, not perfection.
To Meditate:
- Become comfortable.
- Close your eyes and focus directly on your breath coming in and out of your nose.
- When your mind wanders, calmly notice it, and bring your attention back to your breath. Even if you must do this a thousand times.
Ways to make meditation easier:
- Move your body before meditating, either through exercise, yoga, or simple stretching. This helps the mind to focus on the movement of the body, and then makes it so much easier to then focus on the breathing with so much mental activity going on.
- Listening to soothing music can help beginners.
- Guided meditations on YouTube or apps like Insight Timer can really help, especially beginners.
- Practice yoga breath work. This gives the busy mind something to focus on while helping your body feel in top shape. An easy one is to breath in for 4 counts, hold your breath for 4 counts, and exhale for 4 counts. Relax and see how you feel. Keep going. You can do this with your eyes open or closed. A great way to meditate throughout the work day.
- Practice meditation even when your eyes are open, and you’re in a stressful situation. Start focusing on your breath. I believe you can “meditate always” similar to the Biblical, “pray always.”
Sleep is often the first thing sacrificed.
If we have to get things done, or sleep on time, then we’ll most likely choose to get things done. However, this habit is built from a society that doesn’t prioritize our health. And without our health, what do we have?
Lack of sleep gets us a compromised immune system, which has a negative snowball effect on our mental and physical bodies. This can make us gain weight, struggle with fertility, and have a negative sense of wellbeing. So, consider getting “enough” sleep. Play around with the hours of sleep you get that make you feel truly energized, whether it’s 7 hours or 10, since every body is different. Earplugs and eye pillows have been a life savor for my sleep!
If you feel that it’s hard to fall asleep, then meditate, focusing on the breath, until you fall asleep. You’ll find that meditation also helps you feel refreshed.
I hope in this article you’ve found some great ways to easily balance your hormones and lead a healthy life.
Please check out My Healthy Shop for my products, and check it out!
Wishing you blessings on this health journey we’re doing together.
~ Sarah Van Buskirk, AKA Celestial K.