Dr. Sara Gottfried’s recent Instagram post on 9 Ways to Reset Your Hormones caught my eye. She’s a New York Times bestselling author, and today’s podcast guest. In her post, she shared that you can optimize your hormones at any age to help maintain a healthy weight, feel focused and energized, and reclaim your sleep.
Sleep more to reset leptin, ghrelin, insulin, and cortisol. If you have one night of bad sleep, you will temporarily worsen your insulin and prediabetes, so it’s even more important to eat pristinely that next day. Aim for 7 to 8.5 hours/night.
Add extra fiber to lower appetite, insulin, and glucose. Look for a functional fiber containing water-soluble polysaccharides. Pectins are a type of dietary fiber made of gel-forming polysaccharides derived from the cell walls of plants, especially apples and citrus. Pectins appear to reduce appetite, insulin, and post-meal glucose.
Drink a glass of filtered water with apple cider vinegar to lower blood glucose and perhaps reset insulin. Add about 1 tbsp to 8-12 oz of water daily, ideally before you eat.
Increase your magnesium intake to raise adiponectin and lower inflammation, either from food (pumpkin seeds, leafy greens like spinach and kale) or by taking a supplement.
Limit or remove caffeine. Excess caffeine will raise your cortisol. Swap coffee for green or black tea, or even herbal tea if you’re highly sensitive.
Drink more mineral water to decrease ghrelin and cravings.
Practice intermittent fasting to help lower insulin in addition to your set point.
Stop snacking to repair leptin and insulin. Eat three meals a day and when you want to snack, have a glass of water and ask: Am I hungry, or angry, lonely, or tired? Eat every 4 to 6 hours on the days when you’re not fasting to help optimize insulin and leptin.
Exercise wisely for a minimum of 30 mins, 4x a week. Exercise has been shown to lower leptin, raise adiponectin, lower insulin, and burn fat.
