The difference between an enzyme and a hormone is the start of a dirty joke.
But the difference between you hitting plateaus, not seeing results, getting frustrated AF... anddddd you seeing great results, and feeling amazing, may actually be your hormones.
Hormones out of whack typically means so is your metabolism and your ability to lose body fat.
That's why we take our clients, especially our moms, thru the 90 Day Momma Metabolic Method.
What we're really doing is getting the hormones back in balance.
Here are 5 things we implement during this phase that you can immediately apply to your own training, nutrition, and lifestyle:
Favor strength training over cardio - most of the people who come to us are doing a ton of cardio and eating in a calorie deficit before seeing us and have plateaued. Yes, you eventually need to eat in a calorie deficit to lose body fat, but having repetitive stress such as running, elliptical, and biking will crush your hormonal system.
Eat in a caloric maintenance or slight surplus - pushing up the calories will help push up the metabolism. This will indirectly help the hormones maintain better balance over time as your metabolism gets revved back up. It will also make sure you're getting enough nutrients in your body for hormone optimization.
Focus on eating anti-inflammatory foods - your car runs better on 91 vs 87 gas. Same with your body. Focus on eating anti-inflammatory foods (you can find any guide on google) and also take note of foods that make you feel sluggish, moody, give you a headache, etc, as they probably inflame you more. This will be gender, genetic, and even ethnicity dependent (i.e. Indian women process vegetarian diets very well but most other ethnicities do not)
Take out caffeine - caffeine is an inflammatory. It also boosts cortisol (stress hormone) and crushes your adrenals. If you can't take it out completely, find the minimum dose necessary for you to get the benefits you're looking for.
Sleep 7+ hours per night - recovery is key for your hormones. If you aren't sleeping, you're stressed, and you are training hard/eating in a deficit, this is a recipe for disaster.
This list may seem overwhelming. What I would do is "habit stacking." Take one habit from the list above, focus on it for a week or two with 100% adherence (start over if you miss a day), then add another habit.
Start with whichever variable above seems stupid simple (KISS = keep it stupid simple).
Hope this helps!
-Dylan
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