Balancing hormones isn’t just important for women, but men too. Hormones secreted by the endocrine system are used by cells for communication between body tissues including the brain, organs, other glands, muscles, etc. When hormone levels are out of balance, our mood, digestion, weight, stress, sexual function, sleep, energy, blood sugar levels, and, for women, ovulation and even fertility are impacted.

In my new video I share 6 things to know when using fasting to balance hormones. They are presented in no particular order, because all six are important.

6 Steps for Balancing Hormones

Hormones work as a team.

Addressing one hormone often means looking at all hormones on the team. This is important for balancing hormones. When adrenals are not working properly, it’s not just an adrenal problem, but we must look at the other organs as well, especially the liver and cells. It helps if you understand the hormonal hierarchy. Oxytocin is at the top of the domino effect of hormones, therefore boosting oxytocin will have a positive effect on the hormones below like cortisol, insulin and sex hormones, progesterone, testosterone and estrogen.

Fasting is the best way to balance insulin.

A fasting lifestyle is incredibly effective at managing insulin and fat burning. Also if you’re someone who struggles with insulin resistance, watch 3 Types of Insulin Resistance & 7 Ways to Reverse Insulin Resistance.

Repair cells to make them hormone sensitive again.

Toxicity and inflammation block the receptor sites on our cells, making them unable to receive vital hormones and communication. So it really doesn’t matter how many supplements you take, if your cells aren’t open and clear to allow hormones in. How do we open cells up? We must lower inflammation and reduce our toxic load. Intermittent fasting is one of the most effective ways of inducing the cellular repair processes and removing waste material from cells. If you’ve tried fasting and still aren’t seeing results, a deep detox might be your next stop, check out my 90-Day Toxin Reset for more details.

Lose weight.

If you want to balance sex hormones, one of the best things you can do is lose weight. This is because toxic estrogen is stored in fat. So if you are carrying extra fat, you are likely carrying excess estrogen. Excess estrogen throwns progesterone and testosterone off balance. The best way to lose weight is to become insulin sensitive, which we talked about in Step 2 above. And the key to insulin balance is to create a fasting lifestyle!

Customize fasting to work for you.

Fasting can look different for each person, it’s not a one size fits all approach. For example, if you have adrenal fatigue, you’ll want to fast a certain way. Or you are a woman between 40-55 years of age (perimenopause, menopause years), you need to be careful about when and how women should fast. Hint: it has to do with your cycle.

Apply the concept of “intermittent living”.

Modern living has made our lives incredibly comfortable. Too comfortable in fact. According to this study, you can undo metabolic syndrome, inflammation and adrenal fatigue using the practices of intermittent living, such as cold baths, sauna, HIIT training, breathing techniques for intermittent hypoxia (ex. Wim Hof method) and intermittent fasting. This means that little stressors on our cells can be effective at promoting adaptation, mitochondrial repair and cellular healing.

For more on repairing hormones, watch my Fasting and Hormones playlist.