If you're struggling with weight gain (I had an awful time with this, even though I am skinny!) - for me, what helped was...
- Fixing hormones. I had very low hormones - all of them(!). Desogestrel was suppressing my ovaries from producing estrogen and testosterone and without ovulation there would have been little natural progesterone. Starting HRT has helped HUGELY and especially the estrogen. Each time I increased estrogen, my guts worked better/faster and my sluggish guts stopped being slow. I started to process food faster and everything just sped up, including my metabolism. I really think that, without fixing hormones, all the rest is just not going to work. I know that NOTHING worked before I fixed my hormones. After that...
- Eating high fibre. When you find yourself weighing too much, the tendency is to try to eat less and to 'diet'. For me, this just slowed everything down even more. So - eating more food, but making sure this quantity was high fibre and low carb. I ate loads of watercress(!), raw carrots, broccoli, spinach and greens...
- Intermittent fasting or having a short eating window. My husband prefers to skip breakfast and eat his first meal at lunch time and then again at 6pm. I can't do that, I find that I need breakfast - but I don't like eating in the evening or going to bed with food in my stomach, so I eat my main meal for breakfast and then a smaller meal at lunch time and I really don't eat much at all from 3pm until the next morning. It doesn't matter when you do it, but having a 6hr eating window each day really helps like nothing else. You can have water, black coffee or black tea/rooibus any time.
- Apparently research shows that having a tablespoon of vinegar before eating really helps reduce your blood sugar spike after food. (I heard this on the Zoe Health podcast!) So if you have a little green salad with vinegrette on it before your meal, it will help you not to spike after the food.
- No sugar and low carb. Even if your weight is optimal, this is just best practice and healthy eating now. No pasta, bread, pizza, white potatoes, starches... No refined sugar. Use stevia, monkfruit, allulose and healthy artificial sweeteners. A bit of honey or maple syrup is okay but don't go overboard.
- Supplements -
berberine is supposed to be excellent, almost as good as metformin, the prescription diabetes medicine, for improving blood sugar levels. Therapeutic dose is 350-500mg 2x daily. Do not take longer than 8wks, for 5 days a week (2 day break each week). Then stop for at least one month before going again. It's also really good for endo (reduces inflammation) so I am about to start it for that reason.
NAC is also supposed to be great, 3x daily for 3 days a week - also good for histamine issues. And so is
chlorella.
- Exercise. Not to lose weight but because it gets your mitochondria working better and just helps your body get back into energy burning mode. I hate exercise but during lockdown I discovered the Fiit app and the structured 5-6 week courses there, where they assign you 4 classes a week. It really motivates me to get my classes done. Since lockdown, I work out 4x a week with free weights - having hated all forms of exercise before this in my life. I've got muscles where I never knew they existed now
If you are really stuck, you can purchase a continuous blood glucose monitor and use it to monitor what is causing your spikes and how you are reacting to foods. This will really help you know the foods your particular body reacts to.
Hope that helps give people some ideas!
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Topic: Taking continuous Utrogestan when still having periods (Read 7707 times)