STOP Hormonal Weight Gain! The 4 Hormones to Reset for Women Over 40 (Belly Fat Fix)

Uh, I am here this evening with the lovely Nikki Williams, who is a nutritionist extraordinaire. She's an award-winning nutritionist. She's also the author of a brilliant book, and she's also a podcaster, and she is creator of Happy Hormones for Life. So, uh, she, Nikki's with me today to talk about, um, weight loss resistance and why your body holds on to the fat and how this can a lot of the time be to do with the hormones. So welcome Nikki.

Weight loss resistance is something my, a lot of my clients struggle with. Um, You know, a lot of women know what to eat, what they should be eating. They're doing their best in terms of, you know, going for all the healthy foods. You're maybe exercising, doing all the right things. And, you know, I get this, I hear this so much that a few years ago I started looking into, well, why, if we're doing all the right things, especially after 40 women, you know, with our hormone changes, Why aren't we losing the weight like we used to? Because that's what happens. Basically, we, you know, up until the age of 40, I never struggled to lose weight. I mean, I was always— weight was always an issue for me, but I always managed to get somehow in control of it by just, you know, going from one crazy diet to the next, but they all seem to work. So it was a kind of way of life that I sort of got used to. And I knew I could do something about the weight if I'd put some on. So it was kind of like this balancing act. But when I hit 40, oh my gosh, did that change. I had a spare tire around my middle that I literally couldn't shift whatever diet I tried. I tried all the old tricks that had worked for me before. I tried fasting, I tried this, I tried that, and nothing would shift it. And it wasn't until, um, and I didn't know anything about my hormones at this stage. It wasn't until I got them tested actually that, um, I realized how out of balance all my hormones were. Um, and then I started to learn more about it. Obviously, I gave up my corporate job to go into this, and because I was so fascinated by this, because I knew nothing at that point at all. And, um, it was when I started learning about hormones that I realized how, um, how such an impact they have on your metabolism and on the, on the weight. And particularly as you go through perimenopause and beyond after 40, um, there is an impact before 40 as well, but it's not so kind of dramatic, if you like. So, yeah, hormones have a massive impact on our weight, our metabolism, and actually a whole lot more, by the way, because when I started looking into hormones, I just thought they were about your monthly cycle and puberty and pregnancy and menopause at some point when you're old kind of thing. I had no idea that hormones, what they did, because we don't get taught this at school. We don't know any— and how they change throughout our lives. We don't know about that because nobody tells us. So you kind of have to discover it by yourself. Not now, thank goodness. There's lots of information now. But back when I was going through this, this was, you know, 11, 12 years ago. I really didn't know what was going on. So the more I dug into it, the more I realized that hormones have such a massive impact. They're so underestimated. And so misunderstood as well. We have over 100 hormones running around the body telling cells what to do. So they are these little chemical messengers that tell every part of our body what to do, how much, you know, how to function, and through these little messengers. And when I saw that there were over 100 of them, I thought, whoa, hang on a minute, you know, I've heard of estrogen, I've heard of cortisol, you know, the testosterone, I've heard of those things, but I didn't know half of the the others that were going around, and they all have their own jobs to do. They all have a little job to do. So as we get older, it's not surprising that some of these hormones can get out of balance. And when they do get out of balance, they can really affect pretty much everything because hormones actually not just look after your weight and your metabolism, but they look after your energy, your mood, your immune system, your digestion, your sleep, your sex drive, your— the way you— your appetite hormones. Pretty much everything you can think of is directed by hormones. So we kind of really have to know, you know, what, what they are up to and how to control them so that we can then get that control back that we might be lacking from, from before, from, from our younger days. And I looked at all the hormones and all the hundred of them, you know, we see there are too many to study. So I picked out 4 particular hormones that seem to have like 80% of the impact. And these, I called them the feisty four because they kept coming up and up again. And the reason they're feisty is because when you go on and you're in the perimenopause years, and even after that, post-menopause, these four hormones seem to rule the roost. And if you know what they do and how to balance them and control them, then you're 90% of the way there in terms of sailing through not just the whole menopausal imbalance symptoms, but, but your weight, um, and your metabolism. Because I know that's one of the biggest things that women complain about during that time is the extra tire around the middle, the extra pounds that just literally won't shift whatever you do. Um, and, and as I was looking through these hormones, it occurred to me that there was this weight loss resistance, these resistors that, um, you know, just get in the way, basically block all your efforts. So you could literally be starving yourself and these hormones would just be like, nope, that's not happening. I'm hanging on to this. Thank you very much. And there's reasons for that. Your body doesn't, you know, the body doesn't want to sabotage your efforts on purpose, but it's trying to keep you safe. It's trying to protect you. Um, and I'll talk a little bit more about that, but the way it does that is by storing fat and making sure that you're, you're, you're safe basically in a, in a very, what, what it, what your brain perceives as a very dangerous world out there. So, um, these hormones, uh, if you can get control of these feisty four, then, um, you're, you're on, on the way to not only controlling your weight, but you know, all the other symptoms of hormone imbalances that we can, we can get. Does that all make sense? I mean, there are other things that can stop you losing weight, but from a hormonal aspect, these 4 have a big impact. So the first one is cortisol, and that is your stress hormone. So cortisol gets released from your adrenal glands whenever your brain thinks that— thinks there's a threat somehow. Now, in the old days, that would be a lion attack or a tiger jumping out at you, whatever, and that would kick in your fight or flight survival response. Now, that is your ultimate stress response. It hasn't changed since our caveman days. So you'll still have that, that survival fight-or-flight response if you, you know, if you're busy at work or you're having an argument with your partner or the kids are playing up or you're in a traffic jam or whatever. That response is the same. We don't have a modern-day stress response. We have the old lions attacking you response. So essentially the brain thinks that your life's in danger, even if it's, you know, just having an argument or something. It's a dangerous thing for the, for the brain, so that the brain kicks in your stress response and then your adrenals produce these stress hormones and cortisol is the big one. Now, what happens with that is because your body goes into fight or flight survival mode, the body kind of shuts down a few things and it decides it's going to preserve certain things. And then, you know, because when your body's in survival mode, it doesn't care about, you know, whether you're burning fat or not or whether you're digesting your food or, you know, immune system's working or you're fighting some kind of infection, or your sex drive is, you know, it doesn't care about that either. So cortisol will suppress all those things because they're not urgent. They're not keeping you alive. All it cares about is keeping you alive. So it'll kind of shut down your metabolism to preserve things. And the biggest thing with the cortisol does in terms of weight, it stacks weight around your belly area. And the reason for that is, they think, you know, we haven't proved this, but the theory is that, um, obviously if you're in survival mode, there's a nice sort of spare tire ready for another fight or flight episode. So the body can quickly metabolize, turn that stored fat into energy. And so you can run or fight. So that's one of the reasons we get this spare tire, belly fat, muffin top, whatever you want to call it. Um, and sometimes women can just have that and they're slim everywhere else and they've just got this sort of tummy. And that is often because this cortisol is storing it there for that reason. And we've got 4 times more cortisol receptors around the belly area than anywhere else on the body. So that's another reason that they think that this is happening with cortisol. And it's especially around the belly area as well. When you've got fat stored around there, it also protects your internal organs too, because that's, you know, the key place that the body wants to protect. So cortisol gives you belly fat, basically.

Yeah, and Nikki, just to interrupt you a second, the last year especially with all of the stress of the pandemic and oh my God, you know, that has been— everyday life is hard enough without all of this stress that's been going on in the last year, hasn't it? It's just, I don't think people realize how that has just affected all of us.

Yeah, you know, look, the various lockdowns, all the anxiety, all the uncertainty, people's livelihoods, all of that has had a massive effect on not only stress levels, anxiety is through the roof, and you know, actually, unfortunately, ironically, that kind of weakens your immune system as well. So it's sort of that just not only is not very nice to live with, but it's also down the line it's making us less strong against the virus too. So yes, this last year has been off the scale stressful. So, you know, even, I mean, just homeschooling on its own can raise your cortisol and adrenaline for months at a time. So we've got a lot of stress going on. Yeah, absolutely. But also, you know, midlife women have the most stress. They've done studies on this, have reported most stress in their lives than any other kind of sector. Because, you know, lots of reasons, but, you know, we might have elderly parents, we might have health issues, we might have relationship issues, we might have kids, either young or old, or teenagers, kind of, we've got that hormone clash going on. Lots of reasons, we might have more responsibility at work, there's so many reasons that we've got extra stress around, let alone a global pandemic, which has just made things even worse. So yes, lots of cortisol, but there is, the good news is that you can reduce that cortisol, um, and, and really balance it out because, and I have to say, it's not just good news. It's absolutely a priority now, uh, more than ever, because if you don't do anything about your cortisol, uh, not only is it going to make you feel miserable and keep that belly fat where it is, it's not going to shift. Um, but it's a long-term health risk as well. It's going to, you know, increase your risk of other things down the line. So we really want to get a handle on that and start putting in some, um, self-care and relaxation and all those stress management things that I'll come to in a minute, but it's, it's probably your number one reason. I'd say it's your number one weight loss resistor, particularly if you've got that stubborn belly fat. The next hormone that I want to talk about is insulin. So we know about insulin. Um, you know, if you're a diabetic, it's your blood sugar regulator. So we all have insulin running around every time we eat something with carbohydrates in it. Sugar or carbs and some protein as well, insulin gets released from the pancreas to come and take that extra sugar out of the blood and take it to the cells to, to make energy from it. That's how we make energy. But insulin, what it's doing the majority of the time, because we don't need that much energy, if you're not running a marathon or, you know, doing loads and loads and loads of athletic exercise, you don't need huge amounts of energy, um, because we're eating quite often as well. So you— what happens is insulin comes along to the cell and knocks on the cell door and says, I've got some sugar for you, um, to make some energy. And the cell goes, you know what, I've got enough. You only had breakfast a couple of hours ago, you know, so I'm fine, thanks, and kind of says no. And so insulin then has to do something with that sugar. It can't just leave it there, it has to take it somewhere. So it takes it to your fat cells So insulin, if you just remember that it's a fat-storing hormone, what it's doing most of the time is storing fat. So that means, um, that if you're eating quite a bit of sugar, quite a lot of carbs or sugar, don't forget it's not just sugar, right? Yes. And yes, sugar is— I don't know, you talk about sugar a lot, Sandra. Yes, indeed. Most direct way to put on weight is to eat sugar. Absolutely. Um, but we're also talking about carbohydrates in terms of long chain of sugars. And there I'm talking things like, you know, bread, pasta, um, vegetables are carbohydrates, but what we're really talking about are the refined carbs and that the sugars, the carbohydrates that break down very quickly into sugar. And that can be a really fast process. So I always used to like to give the example of a French baguette, right? Baguettes are very, very simple long chains of sugars, and actually they break down faster in your mouth and in your digestion into sugar than white table sugar. I'm just going to let that land. Wow! Because they have more glucose in the structure, so baguettes are mainly long chains of glucose, which breaks down very quickly into sugar. White table sugar has sucrose in it, so actually it's got less glucose in it for pound for pound. So actually when you eat a baguette, white baguette, in fact, if you eat a piece of baguette and you let it sort of melt in your mouth, you can actually, if you leave it long enough, you can actually taste the sweetness. It's quite bizarre. So, you know, there's these carbohydrates and I don't think they, you know, it's hard to perceive them as sugar when they taste savory, don't they? They taste like bread. But actually it's just long sugars. So there's that. And, you know, white pasta, white flour products, all of that breaks down pretty quickly. So the more of that we have, the more sugar is just running around and the more fat storing we're going to be doing. And that is generally why high carbohydrate diets tend to put on weight more than low carb diets. Generally, I'm talking not for everybody, but because there is no— unfortunately, there is no one size fits all. But insulin is your fat storing. So the reason that, you know, the way we get around that is that we concentrate on really like slamming the sugar and the refined carbs and really focusing on nutrients, protein, healthy fats, and complex carbohydrates such as vegetables. So if you're concentrating and focusing on that, not only will you be storing less fat, but also your blood sugar is going to be nice and stable. So that's going to affect your energy, your mood, your sleep, your brain function, all of that. So insulin is a big one.

Absolutely. And I just want to point out to everybody, Nikki is not advocating dieting. Nikki is advocating having a healthy diet, and those are two very different things.

Oh, I hate diet. Yeah, yeah, diet is such a weird word, isn't it? Because a healthy diet, it says, still says diet, and we want to try and get away from the word diet. So I like to call it healthy eating, really. Exactly. Or a healthy lifestyle. So the next hormone that I want to talk about, and this is number 3 of the 5 C4, is your thyroid, because, um, it's often, um, underdiagnosed and, um, often forgotten. But if your, uh, your thyroid is your metabolism regulator, so basically if you think about a thermostat on your body So if you can turn, if you turn the thermostat up, it gets you hotter. You're going to be more agitated, more anxious, more hyper, kind of, you know, jittery, sweaty, all that stuff. That's going to turn your metabolism up. So you're going to be burning fat if you've got too much thyroid hormone. If you, but unfortunately for most women over 40, it's going the other way. So your thyroid might be underperforming and that means that it's turning that thermostat down, and that basically slows down your metabolism. It slows down every part of you, your brain function, so you can get anxiety and fogginess and memory loss and depression, um, and, you know, not being able to concentrate, all of that. Um, it can slow down your hair growth, so your hair might be coming out when you're brushing it or in the shower. Um, it slows down your skin production, itchy, dry It slows down your digestion so you can get constipation. Massively slows down your energy because you're just going to feel exhausted pretty much all the time with thyroid. If your thyroid is underperforming, you're not going to have enough energy at all during the day. You're just going to feel exhausted all the time, especially if you've had a really good night's sleep. I hear a lot of people, women, saying they just wake up and they just don't feel refreshed, still feel sluggish, lethargic. Nails, brittle nails, cold, because, you know, you just haven't got that circulation. You can get really cold hands and feet. And PMS, if you've still got cycles, it can cause those kind of problems. Low libido. Thyroid, if you haven't got enough thyroid hormone, if it's not optimal, you can get all of those symptoms because it affects every single cell in the body. And you will never be able to lose weight sustainably if your thyroid is low. You're literally going to have to starve to lose any weight because your metabolism is too slow. So, um, it's, it's going to be really, really, really difficult. And it may not just be the, the belly fat that you have with, over with thyroid. It may be fat, you know, generally, um, overweight, um, in, in general. So that's your thyroid, and it's often not very well tested at the GP because what they'll look at is your TSH and your T4, which are two hormones that aren't, aren't your active hormones, they're your precursor hormones. So when they look at those two and they're in the normal range, it may not be, um, actually showing up a problem because it's actually a different hormone that's your active hormone. It's called T3, and it, and that one is not very often checked. So you could have normal precursor hormones, but the active hormone could be low and doing all that damage, but they won't know. So they'll say you're normal. I get so many women through the clinic saying, I've had my thyroid tested, I'm normal.

Normal.

Um, and when we actually go and test the whole pathway for the thyroid, um, they end up having a low T3, or they're in the normal range, but they're sitting right at the bottom. We don't want to be sitting at the bottom of normal. The range is enormous. It's like 95% of the population. So if you're sitting down here, you're still going to have symptoms. We're looking for you to be optimal. We want you to be in the optimal range. So that's where you don't have symptoms. But Of course, you know, the way they measure it is, is very generic. So they, they're sort of that you don't flash up as any problems if you're sitting down here in the bottom of normal because you're still normal. Um, so there's lots of problems with, with medical testing of thyroid. Um, so when we're testing it, we're looking at the whole pathway and we're looking for optimal levels because that's really what will stop you getting these symptoms and will start to boost your metabolism so that you can start to actually lose weight again. So that was number 3. Um, the last hormone of the 4 is estrogen. Incredibly important. It works with progesterone. So there's the 2 kind of work together. And of course, this is, these are our female hormones. They, they are very, uh, they obviously allow us to ovulate each month and we've got our nice curves and all of that. And of course, when we hit from the age of— actually, from your mid-30s, you start going into the perimenopausal years. And of course, that's really young. You don't think that, you know, when you're 35, you don't think you're going into the perimenopause. Um, but it— that's when our hormones start to change because that's when we, um, start to skip ovulation every single month. So the eggs are running out. So we'll, you know, we might not be ovulating every single month from that moment. Now, because it's so gradual, you might not even see any symptoms until your early, mid, late 40s sometimes. It's a very gradual changing of your hormones, but they're declining, they're fluctuating as well. And so we can get all sorts of symptoms. And, you know, one of the things with weight loss is, um, in the, in the menopause, particularly in this, in this period over 40, is that, um, when your ovaries start to decline and you start to miss a few ovulations, um, your estrogen is going to start to decline as well. And one of the other sources of estrogen in the body is your fat cells. These are— these can supply estrogen. So when your ovaries aren't producing enough, the brain switches and says, right, fat cells, come on, we need some estrogen. And, and the more fat cells you have, the more chance you'll get enough estrogen because your body needs estrogen for all sorts of things. It needs it for your brain, for your bones, for your heart. For lubricating every single artery and vein and bits, lining of everything. So estrogen is incredibly important. And as we start to decline in that, the body's going to look for other sources of estrogen. So one of the theories is that it will put on fat cells. It'll put you— it'll stop you losing fat because it doesn't want to lose that source of estrogen. So this is very, very important as we're going through menopause because You know, if the body wants to put fat on because you're lacking in estrogen, then it's going to be very difficult for you to shift that.

Um, wow. Yeah.

I mean, I know it's always— it all sounds such bad news. There is good news. Us poor women.

Us poor women.

I know we have to put up with an awful lot. But the good news is that there are lots of good things we can do. We are— we have the knowledge now and the tools to be able to affect these hormones and get them working for us and not against us. Um, and you know, HRT is one avenue, um, as a— and I'm a big proponent of natural HRT, body identical HRT, which I love, and I'm on myself. I take oestrogen gel and natural progesterone through the doctor, through the NHS. It's all available. You just need to know what to ask for. But that only replaces your oestrogen and progesterone. We've got these other hormones that can be at play, particularly, like I said, cortisol. So, you know, it's really, really important to manage your diet and lifestyle. And there's supplements that can help as well because you want all of these hormones to be in balance. So even if you're on HRT, you absolutely need to do the natural stuff and do and help yourself as much as possible, not only to balance those other hormones, but to be healthy in general, because HRT is only looking at those two sex hormones. Um, and if you're not on HRT, you need to work a little bit harder as well with the sex hormone balance too. But there are ways you can do this naturally too. A few things that, um, I want everyone to think about in terms of the dietary stuff first of all, 'cause obviously that's important. I'm gonna talk about stress in a minute, but I'm gonna talk firstly about diet 'cause that's my life. That's where I've come from, my nutrition background. So the way to allow, you've gotta, you can help your 4 hormones through your diet. So we've talked about cortisol. Now to help your cortisol balance through the diet, it's not just about stress management, which is really important, but you can also help cortisol through what you're eating. And that is because when we're eating foods that the body doesn't recognize, the body has to deal with, the body might be sensitive to, um, or it might be sort of kicking off an inflammatory process, that is going to raise cortisol. So your body's got enough to deal with, with the stress in the world at the moment. It doesn't need to deal with stress in your diet. So the way to avoid stressing out, dietary stresses, is to obviously, you know, avoid the foods that are going to stress your body. Sugar, refined carbs, vegetable oils. Very important not to eat too many vegetable oils because we've been told in the past that they're the best things to eat, but when they're heated and processed, they're very volatile and they turn into these sort of trans fat, trans fats that are very inflammatory and can stress the body out. So we want to be avoiding that. So we really want to be focusing on, you know, healthy fats like olive oil, coconut oil, those sorts of fats, butter and lard and animal fats if you're not a vegan, are the most stable fats to eat and cook with. So we don't want to be cooking with sunflower oil or vegetable oil or even rapeseed oil. Because they're very commercial and processed, and then they can, they can be quite inflammatory in the body. So those are sort of called stresses, dietary stresses. And then we've got to think about food sensitivities as well. So if you're sensitive to gluten or dairy in particular, those are the kind of top two, although, you know, there are many others, but gluten and dairy are the most common. If you're sensitive to those, again, the body's going to be stressed by that when you eat them. It's going to create inflammatory processes. It's going to raise cortisol. So we want to be really aware of any foods that may trigger a reaction in us. So if, if you eat bread or wheat or pasta and, or dairy and it bloats you out or you get reactions or you kind of know that you don't feel great after it, then do get yourself a food diary and just have a look at any patterns that you might be seeing. Because you may be sensitive to those foods and that is going to trigger this cortisol stress reaction. And that is not going to help your weight at all because the more cortisol, like I said, the more you're going to hang on to that belly fat. So avoiding stresses like that. Alcohol is another stressor. I know, and we've been relying on that as well during lockdown. But, you know, again, not only— alcohol is not great for our weight for many, many reasons, to be honest. It messes with that blood sugar, so it'll increase your insulin. It definitely raises cortisol. It can irritate your gut lining as well and cause more inflammation, and your gut microbes don't like it— doesn't like it either. So there's lots of reasons that— and also when you drink, you know, you're a bit, you're a bit more lax with the willpower, aren't you? So that you're going to try it, maybe, you know, you're going to go for the wrong types of foods when you've had a few drinks. So many, many reasons for the alcohol thing as well. But really just to avoid food stresses, and they can be different for different people, so work out what your food stresses are and just limit them as much as possible. Foods for insulin are, and keeping that blood sugar stable, I've already mentioned, complex carbs. So really just fill half your plate with vegetables, you're on your best, you're on your way if you can get colorful vegetables, sort of half your plate, and then the rest of it healthy fats and protein and complex carbs. Perfect. Um, and then your blood sugar is going to be nice and balanced and you're not going to be wanting carby snacks in between, which is also going to provoke more insulin. Um, foods for your thyroid, your thyroid needs lots of nutrients. So just lots of plant foods and good quality protein and healthy fats for your thyroid to work properly. So again, we're going back to the same food groups that, um, I'm sure Sandra tells you to eat anyway. And then for estrogen, progesterone, if you can't take HRT for any reason or you don't want to go down that route, then you can be looking at things like plant estrogens, phytoestrogens, which are very similar to HRT, but they are plant-based. So they're not the same strength as HRT, so they won't necessarily fix everything, but they're a very mild kind of way to regulate estrogen levels. They can push them up or pull them down if they're too high. Um, so these are things like soy. Now again, soy, you don't want to be going near if it's processed, heavily processed or sweetened or anything like that, or if you have a sensitivity to it because it's one of those that you could be sensitive to. It can cause digestive problems as well. But soy is full of these things called isoflavones and they can help balance estrogen. So if you're not sensitive to soy, you can have organic unprocessed soy milks or yogurts. Edamame beans, tofu, but go for the best quality you can, and then it's the least processed. And then flaxseeds are the biggest source of, um, the next biggest source of phytoestrogens. So flaxseeds, or they're called linseeds as well if you're looking for them in the shops, and milled are the best because then you can digest them very well, and they're really good for your digestion too. So flaxseeds are a good way of supporting your estrogen. So that is kind of dietary stuff in terms of supporting your hormones. Um, stress has an impact on all 4 of your 5 C4 as well. So, you know, you know, you know what it— you know what works for you in terms of switching off and stress management. What I find with most women is that they don't put themselves first very often, and their self-care is usually at the bottom of their to-do list. After everybody else and everything else. Now, however much I bang on about this, and I do a lot, I still get women saying to me, "Well, I just don't have time to look after myself," or, "Actually, I try and switch off, but I can't." This is a really common one. And I say, "What do you mean you can't switch off?" They say, "Well, I sit down to do nothing, and I just feel either guilty or kind of bored." because nothing's happening. And there's this, I think it's just part of the, I don't know whether it's women's empowerment or the Industrial Revolution or whatever, but you know, we kind of feel if we're not doing something, then perhaps we're not important or we don't have a purpose, or many of these things may be going on in your head, or that you just feel guilty that you're not looking after someone or doing something for someone. Because we're essentially people pleasers as well. Or we may just be on adrenaline all day long that when we sit still, it's like, oh, I'm still, you know, you're still on adrenaline, so you're wanting something to do. It's so, so important to slow down and try and get over that initial resistance to doing nothing, because doing nothing is absolutely essential, even if it's just 10 to 15 minutes a day. And it doesn't matter if, you know, you don't have to be sitting there meditating. You can just be reading a book, or you can just be, you know, you don't have to sit there doing nothing either. You can, you know, read a, reading a book has actually been shown to reduce cortisol levels. You can listen to some music which is relaxing for you, or you that you love, or you can be up and dance for 15 minutes, or go out for a walk in nature where you've got the added benefit of nature, kind of the healing of nature as well. So There are lots and lots of ways of reducing and balancing that cortisol, but we've just got to prioritize it and make sure you're doing it every single day, and not just on holiday or on a spa weekend. And it, for me, it's an absolute non-negotiable, because if, if you don't do it and you leave your cortisol raging, not only is it going to affect your weight, but it's going to affect a lot of other things, and particularly your health in general. So And not only that, if you get— if you de-stress yourself and you put yourself first to make sure that you have that 15 minutes of me-time self-care every day, how much nicer are you going to be for the people around you? How much more helpful are you going to be for other people than having you stressed out, wired, overwhelmed, and snapping? So that's why it's a non-negotiable for me. The next thing I would look at is exercise and movement, but it's not the most important thing. The most important thing are those first two: what you're eating and how you're managing your stress. If you're doing those two, you're most of the way there, but of course we need to move our bodies, and one of the things as well with lockdown working from home is that we're, we're sitting a lot, And you might notice that I've got this exercise bike in the back here. I had ordered a sofa for the back of my room. This is my office, and I'd had my eye on this beautiful turquoise plush sofa for ages, and I finally ordered it. It was taking ages to come, but as I was doing a video on movement, the importance of moving more, and how we sit too much, I had a text come through saying my sofa was about to be delivered. And I just thought, hmm, hang on a minute. Do I need more encouragement to sit on my bottom?

No.

I sit at my desk all day and then I sit in the evening watching TV. I really don't need another sofa in my life. So hence the bike took its place and I've been using it ever since. And it's fabulous, actually. It's really good. But the point is that we need to be obviously doing as much as we can to not sit all day, because that is not only bad for our hormones and our circulation and our nutrients and all of those other things, but it's obviously going to step— going to stunt your metabolism. But also it's very unhealthy generally. They're doing studies now on sitting We're not designed to sit down all day. We're just not. It's bad for our posture and our backs and our joints, and it's just not good for us in general. And they're doing studies now and they're calling it Sedentary Death Syndrome. That's nice, isn't it? So yeah, they're really worried about this whole sitting thing. So the antidote to that is, you know, getting up and just taking breaks, as many as possible. And if If you've got a time— the great thing is we've got apps now for absolutely everything. There are quite a few apps now that tell you to stand up. I've got one on my watch that says time to stand. I've got one on my computer that says take a break. And, you know, just going up, getting some water from the kitchen, or just having a stretch and just a little walk around, it really makes a difference. So we're not generally, you know, I wouldn't— I'm not a big fan of, you know, kill yourself at the gym or do mad intense boot camps. If that's your thing, and that's great, but it's not necessarily the best thing for your hormones, especially as we get older, because a lot of that intense stuff is designed actually by men, younger men as well. Um, and it actually raises your cortisol quite a lot. And this is, I get this a lot as well. Women say to me, I am going to the gym 6 times a week. I'm exercising, I'm doing spin, I'm doing this, class, I'm doing that class, and I'm just not losing a pound. And sometimes that's because over-exercising increases your cortisol too much, and then the cortisol of the brain kicks in with fight or flight, and it hangs on to the fat, and it's really, really difficult to shift when you're over-exercising. So the, the right amount of movement and exercise for you will be different for every single woman because of your background, your fitness levels, your lifestyle, and your hormones. So you've got to find the right balance for you. Um, and what my guidance is generally, if you're doing, um, some activity and you don't— it absolutely depletes and exhausts you afterwards. You feel absolutely like, oh my God, I can't move, or I can't, you know, I'm dead. I've got nothing left. Then maybe it was too much in the first place. So if that activity rejuvenates you, makes you feel good, makes you feel amazing, then, you know, that's a good sign. It's probably what your body needed. So just be aware of that because I get a lot of cardio bunnies and runners and, you know, doing it for all the right reasons, but, um, your body's— the body's, you know, resisting.

But also, um, Nikki, HIIT and kind of bringing yourself to a glow is actually quite important with insulin resistance as well, isn't it? So it's— that's been proven.

Um, so it's, uh, it's a difficult balance to strike sometimes. Yeah, it definitely is. You know, HIIT is great for many women, but it's not for everyone.

Right.

And I say that because I see a lot of people that are, uh, women particularly, that are, um, completely depleted. They're on, you know, they're on the verge of burnout. They've got adrenal fatigue, they're overwhelmed and stressed out and exhausted. And HIIT for them is not the best thing at all. For them, the best thing is to walk, walk gentle walks, yoga, Pilates.

I can see that if you're exhausted. I mean, I listen to my body and there's some days that, you know, I get to the end of a week and I'm so exhausted that there's no HIIT in the world that will make me feel better. So that's time to actually sit down and do nothing.

Yeah, you've got to have the energy for something like HIIT. It's, you know, it takes a lot out of you, so you've got to have that in the first place. And if you have got literally the energy reserves just to get through your day, then it may not be the best thing for you. Um, if you go through and do all everything I recommend in these 4 steps, so dietary, diet stuff, stress management, environmental, kind of minimizing exposure to chemicals, um, and then, and getting the right movement with some targeted supplements, sort of 5 areas. If you're doing all of that, you can absolutely control these 5 T4. And on the blog I have, if you type in supplements, so there's two main blogs on there. One is the top 5 supplements for women over 40. Um, and this is, um, a multivitamin that's not just Menopace or some multi that's heavily advertised. You want a really good quality multi that will give you the active levels of B vitamins, the right minerals, and all of that. And unfortunately, some of the mass market products have too many fillers and additives and they're just not great and they don't have enough of the right absorbable form of your vitamins. So it's a bit, um, hit and miss with that. If you take a good multi, you'll get everything you need from that. You need vitamin D, um, all the way through the winter and most of the summer if you're not exposing your skin to it. Vitamin D is critical. It's actually a hormone, but we didn't know that. Um, vitamin C, I'm also recommending in the top 5 because not only is it Brilliant for your immune system. It's also a major antioxidant and it helps your skin, your eyes, your hair, all of that as you get older. So it's an antioxidant, which means it helps you, well, I can't tell you it doesn't, it helps with aging. We all age, but it helps with the ravages of aging, should we say. Number 4 is a good fish oil because we don't eat enough oily fish and omega-3s. Again, if you're vegan, there's algae versions of Omega-3s that you can take, but we absolutely— Omega-3s are essential for the brain. And as we get older, you know, the cognitive decline, the memory loss, brain fog, all of that, we absolutely need to support that. Your brain is 60% fat and we need to be replacing that. So a good fish oil with good amounts of DHA and EPA are essential. And then lastly, um, what's the last one? Magnesium, incredibly important. Especially now with all the stress. It's your anti-stress hormone. It gets massively depleted with stress and we just can't get enough. We just don't eat enough dark green leafy veg to keep replacing it. And magnesium does over 300 things in the body. It relaxes your muscles. If you get any kind of twitching at night or if you feel like, you know, if you can't sleep properly, magnesium is really good for that. But it's also just generally good for producing energy and all sorts of other things. So magnesium is a big one. We are mostly deficient in it. So, get that into your regime. Top 5 supplements. Again, go to my blog, look for supplements, you'll get them all listed. I also have a shop that, not my supplements, but just, I take you to a page where this, my top 5 are there, my top 5 favorite brands are there. They're not mine, I don't make any money from that, but it's happyhormonesforlife.com/shop-now. You will go to that page and see my top 5 favorite ones if you wanna go and try them out. There's also lots on there for menopause in particular. So for menopause, there's things like formulas with sage and hops and black cohosh and isoflavones from soy or red clover. There's all different ones. And unfortunately, with the menopause formulas, there is no one magic formula. It kind of is a bit of a trial and error and see what works for you. And that's only if you're not on HRT. So there are these, these formulas that can really help. There's also things like, um, you know, digestive support and all kinds of other things. So go have a look at that page and you'll see all my favorite brands on there. Thank you so much. It's been amazing to chat to you all, even if virtually I can't see your faces. But please hop over to the website. I've got a free hormone balancing guide that you can download. It's all free, loads of free stuff. Um, there's also a quiz you can do. So if you just go to the website and you click Start Here on the front of the home page, it'll take you to all the different options and you can have a look around and download whatever might suit you. So hopefully you'll enjoy that, and of course the book as well, so if you want to buy the book.