Hormonal Fatty Deposits

Did you know that hormones can help the body decide where it should store fat? It does, and it starts for most of us during our young years, especially around puberty. 

Prior to this, male and female shape is much the same. Body fat is primarily what makes the difference in shape between males and females.

Hormones are like traffic cops in our body, that tell organs and cells how to react to certain things.

Example: when we get an increase of sugar in our blood, our pancreas will release insulin to safely remove the excess sugars and carry it off to various places of the body to store it. I often tell my members, that if we have extra stored body fat, its only because the insulin is doing its job, (sugar left in the blood can cause our arteries and blood vessels become a sticky mess).

Hormones that can affect fatty deposits: estrogen, cortisol, low testosterone, high testosterone, high insulin, low progesterone, low growth hormone, low DHEA. 

Keeping our hormones in balance can go a long ways in helping keep body fat levels down and to help distribute it throughout our body, in a way that we want. Body fat under the skin can help us look better and is not a bad thing at all. It’s when we get too much that it begins to present a problem. 

All these hormones and what they do, can really be complicated to remember, and I am not advocating at all that someone needs to learn them. You can get blood work done to see if you have hormone imbalances, but there are some simple things we should do before we feel we should spend the time and money getting blood work done. Remember, there is a reason hormones get out of whack and we should figure out what that is before we force hormonal changes synthetically!  

These are great hormone balancers: 

1. Water as beverage of choice 

2. Healthy diet with unprocessed foods 

3. Weight control 

4. Exercise and activity 

5. Sunshine 

6. Clean unpolluted air 

7. Healthy social connections 

8. Deep sleep 

9. Staying mentally stress free or finding ways to get rid of it.

Hormonal fatty deposits for women: 

Chest fat: high estrogen, low testosterone. 

Belly fat: high cortisol, high insulin, low or high estrogen, high testosterone, low growth hormone. 

Love handle fat: high insulin and blood sugar imbalance. 

Hips, butt and thigh fat: high estrogen, low progesterone, low growth hormone.  

Hormonal fatty deposits for men: 

Chest fat: high estrogen, low testosterone. 

Arm fat: high insulin, low DHEA. 

Abdominal fat: high insulin, high estrogen, high cortisol, and low growth hormone. 

Love handle fat: high insulin, blood sugar imbalance. 

Hips, butt and thigh fat: high estrogen, low growth hormone.

Steps to track hormone imbalance: 

1. Find out the possible hormonal imbalance for that area.

2. Find out what the hormones are for.

3. Find out what helps offset this hormone imbalance. 

“These 3 steps should help you track down where the problem may be coming from and what you can do to counter balance it.” 

Example for testosterone, growth hormone, cortisol and insulin: 

Growth hormone: a higher rep set (where you go slow on the negative part of the rep), to make your muscles really feel the lactic acid burn, will increase growth hormone. 

Testosterone: a heavier weight where your muscle fatigues (before you feel the lactic acid burn) boosts testosterone levels. 

Cortisol: regular exercise and good sleep habits can help keep stress levels down, thus reducing cortisol levels. 

Insulin: lowering our sugar intake, regular exercise (along with the extra muscle mass that comes with exercise), will help lower blood glucose levels, thus lowering insulin levels.

Insulin and cortisol: insulin spikes from sugar, and cortisol spikes from stress are 2 major culprits in causing fat deposits. Avoiding sweet foods and stress help shrink fatty deposits. If you cannot avoid stress, the endorphins from exercise will help offset the stress hormone cortisol and adrenaline hormones.

We could get lost in the maze of technical terms of hormones and body chemistry, but most hormonal issues can be remedied by 

1. What we eat.

2. Exercise.

3. Sleep habits.

4. Keeping our stress levels down. 

When we do these things with consistency, things start balancing out and fatty deposits start disappearing. 

Our hormone systems have a feedback loop, (that can carry back a healthy message or a continued negative message), and the message for more or less production of the hormones they produce largely depends on us and our lifestyle choices…