If you’ve been feeling tired, moody, and stuck in a cycle of stubborn weight gain, it’s time to stop blaming yourself. The root cause often lies in your hormones—and there’s a way to reset them while reclaiming your energy and balance. These 10 steps will guide you with tips and tools to make each step as easy and manageable as possible.
Understanding Hormone Imbalances
Hormone imbalances can happen for several reasons:
- Chronic stress is a big one—it raises cortisol levels, which can mess with other hormones like DHEA, estrogen, and thyroid hormones, leading to tiredness, mood swings, and weight gain.
- A poor diet full of processed foods and sugar can also throw things off, affecting insulin and hormone production.
- Environmental toxins, like those found in plastic and cosmetics, can mimic estrogen and mess with your hormones.
- Sleep deprivation is another culprit, as it messes with cortisol levels and disrupts hormones that control hunger and metabolism.
- Underlying health issues like PCOS or thyroid problems, as well as life changes like menopause, can also cause hormone imbalances.
- Even medications like birth control or hormone therapy can play a role.
Understanding what’s causing your imbalance is the first step in resetting your hormones and getting back to feeling your best.
10 Steps to Reset Your Hormones
Step 1: Detox Your Diet
Start by cutting out inflammatory foods like sugar, processed snacks, and alcohol, and replace them with whole, nutrient-dense options. Focus on colorful vegetables, lean proteins, healthy fats, and fiber-rich foods to support detoxification and hormone health. Use tools like Whisk to plan meals that align with your goals or EatLove for tailored meal plans.
Step 2: Balance Your Breakfast
Eat a protein-rich meal in the morning to stabilize blood sugar and support hormone production. Include foods like eggs, Greek yogurt, or a protein smoothie with added fiber.
Step 3: Fix Your Sleep Hygiene
Quality sleep is essential for balancing hormones. Aim for 7-9 hours of uninterrupted sleep each night. Create a sleep routine by limiting screen time before bed, keeping a consistent sleep schedule, and optimizing your sleep environment. Use apps like SleepCycle to track your progress and optimize your schedule for better sleep habits.
Step 4: Stress Less with Cortisol Care
Chronic stress can wreak havoc on your hormones. Incorporate mindfulness practices like meditation, deep breathing, or yoga to lower cortisol levels. Apps like Headspace and Calm provide guided meditations and breathwork exercises that are easy to incorporate into daily life.
Step 5: Move Smart, Not More
Focus on strength training and low-impact workouts to support muscle growth and hormonal health. Overtraining can increase cortisol levels, so aim for balanced movement.
Step 6: Heal Your Gut, Heal Your Hormones
Your gut plays a huge role in hormone regulation. Include probiotics, fiber, and gut-healing foods like fermented vegetables, bone broth, and flaxseeds.
Step 7: Hydrate Like You Mean It
Staying hydrated is one of the simplest but most effective ways to support hormone balance. Aim for at least half your body weight in ounces of water daily.
Step 8: Track and Optimize Your Hormones
Understanding how your hormones fluctuate can help you align your habits to support balance. Use apps like FLO to track your cycle and gain deeper insights into hormonal patterns and their impact on your body and mind.
Step 9: Build Habits That Stick
Consistency is the key to success. Small, daily actions lead to big changes over time. Start by choosing one or two habits that align with your health goals, such as eating a protein-rich breakfast or incorporating a 10-minute meditation into your routine. Set realistic expectations and focus on progress, not perfection.
Step 10: Make It Manageable
Life can feel overwhelming, but making your hormone reset plan manageable is all about working smarter, not harder. Prioritize strategies that fit seamlessly into your daily routine. For example, instead of aiming for an hour-long workout, take a 20-minute walk after dinner. Or, if meal prepping for the week feels impossible, start with preparing just one or two meals ahead of time. Use time-blocking to carve out small windows in your schedule for self-care or health-focused tasks.
Functional Testing for a Personalized Hormone Reset
Functional testing provides valuable insights into the root causes of hormone imbalances, helping you create a personalized health plan. Here are three key tests to consider:
- Salivary cortisol/DHEA testing: This is the test for adrenal function. The adrenal glands are 2 small glands that sit on top of each kidney and produce the hormones DHEA and cortisol. DHEA is a precursor to the sex hormones, and cortisol is the stress hormone. When the body senses too much stress, it deprioritizes sex hormone production in favor of survival hormone production and hormones become off. This is very common and can be fixed!
- Food Sensitivity Testing: This test identifies hidden inflammatory responses to certain foods that may contribute to hormonal imbalances, digestive issues, or skin conditions. Eliminating trigger foods can significantly improve your overall health and hormone regulation.
- Saliva Sex Hormone Testing
Saliva hormone testing is an excellent tool for understanding your hormone levels. Unlike blood tests, saliva testing measures hormones available for your body to use. It is the best way to measure the sex hormones progesterone and estrogen.
Resetting your hormones doesn’t have to feel overwhelming. With these 10 steps and tailored functional testing, you can take control of your health and energy in a way that fits your lifestyle.
If you want professional help where we get to the root cause and create a personalized plan with easy-to-follow steps explicitly designed for you, book a call today.
Let’s make 2025 the year you reclaim your energy and feel like yourself again!
