Sugar and Your Hormones, Part 1

The biggest way sugar impacts our hormones is through:

 ✨Something that many people don’t realize is a hormone – INSULIN✨

➡️When you eat something sugary or carby, your blood sugar spikes, and more insulin is released to help usher that sugar into your cells.

➡️At the same time, this process can also trigger lower levels of sex hormone binding globulin (SHBG), the hormones that binds to excess estrogen and testosterone.

➡️Lower SHBG = higher circulating estrogen and testosterone⬅️

Although estrogen plays a major role in regulating insulin (part of why insulin resistance becomes more of an issue as women near menopause), it also can go high quickly with that lowered SHBG, causing estrogen dominance (think painful PMS, fibroids, cysts, etc).

Too much insulin can impact:

✅ Ovulation

👉🏼 Meaning you don’t produce enough of estrogen’s balancing hormone, progesterone.

✅ Insulin also increases testosterone production

👉🏼 Which in women can show up as increased facial hair, acne, and hair loss, and is also a contributing factor to PCOS (which is why getting your blood sugar regulated is so important with this condition!).

So before you jump to a supplement or medication to help regulate your hormones, look to sugar and refined carb intake in your diet.

Reducing sugar consumption and leveling out your blood sugar will have the BIGGEST positive impact possible on your hormones, no matter what your age.

How To Turn This Ship Around

What’s one of the easiest ways to approach reducing sugare in your diet? Start adding more protein and vegetables.

If you begin your day with 30g of protein at breakfast, you will naturally reduce sugar consumption AND successfully set up your blood sugar levels for the day.

In part 2, we’ll talk about how sugar impacts inflammation, which in turn impacts your hormones.