When it comes to women’s weight loss, testosterone plays a surprisingly important role. It’s the unknown key to getting leaner and healthier.
Weight loss all comes down to calories. Eat less than you burn off each day and slowly but surely your body mass will come down.
Ans while fat loss is primarily to do with ‘energy in and energy out’, hormones are important influencers on appetite, energy expenditure, fat oxidation and even where you burn body fat.
There’s a new weapon in the war against body fat: testosterone.
Here’s how to harness the power of your natural hormones and discover a slimmer, stronger, more confident you.
Testosterone and women: what’s the connection
Testosterone is a naturally-occurring steroid hormone made in your ovaries, adrenal glands and peripheral tissues.
Although guys have 10-15 times more circulating testosterone in their blood, ‘T’ is still really important for female health, wellness and physical performance.
For women, your steroid hormones help you maintain healthy bone and muscle mass, it keeps your skin and nails looking fresh and young, boosts your mood and also regulates your sex drive.
T isn’t a hormone that causes you to look masculine, have facial hair and a deep and booming voice. It won’t make you big and bulky, or broad-shouldered and manly either.
At 25-70 ng.dL you don’t have anywhere near enough testosterone in your blood to worry.
The benefits of testosterone for women include:
- Heart and metabolic health
- Ramps up energy levels
- Better mood state – less risk of depression and anxiety
- More lean tissue – higher levels of muscle
- Stronger bones and lower risk of osteoporosis
- Optimizes white blood cells and immune system
- Regulates your menstrual cycle
- Enhances your cognitive skills – memory, focus and motivation
Low testosterone and weight gain
Between the ages of 20 and 40, many women experience a huge drop off in natural testosterone levels.
This could leave you with clinically low testosterone levels by the time you reach 45. In fact, a worryingly high 90% of females will suffer the effects of low hormone levels.
And most won’t even realize.
So why is low testosterone an issue for women?
Well the side effects are pretty varied – and also potentially quite serious too. They include:
- Loss of libido, sex drive and ability to orgasm
- Increased belly fat
- Bone, muscle mass and functional strength loss
- Reduced stamina and everyday endurance (tasks become harder)
- Poor memory, co-ordination and energy
- Regular illness
- Depression, low mood and regular anxiety
- Higher risk of dementia
- Increased risk of vascular and metabolic illness, as well as early death
Low testosterone is also strongly correlated with weight gain
In the most basic terms; women with lower testosterone gain weight much, much faster than those that fall into the ‘normal’ category.
Women have much higher levels of estrogen than men. And it’s this hormone that could be responsible for fast weight gain in women. As testosterone drops, estrogen becomes more prominent.
Fat cells contain estrogen, and this can start a vicious cycle of weight gain off.
Studies show that women with lower T levels suffer from appetite dysregulation. As steroid levels drop, the hormone responsible for regulating food intake (leptin) becomes less active.
This means you’re much more likely to overeat too.
Testosterone for women’s weight loss: the cure
In order to help you lose weight, you need to manage not only your energy balance but testosterone levels as well.
Reducing your food intake and generally being more active is a great way to kick off the weight loss process. But to nip weight issues right in the bud you also have to get to the root cause – testosterone levels.
Studies have shown that women find it easier to lose fat if their hormone levels fall within normal parameters.
Correcting your low testosterone will boost your metabolic rate. This helps you develop lean muscles while also chipping away at excess fat stores, leaving you with a much leaner, shapely and athletic body that’ll be the envy of every other woman.
How to fix women’s low testosterone
When it comes to treating low T, there are two main routes you can go down.
- The pharmaceutical option
- The natural approach
The problem with bio-grade medication such as testosterone replacement therapies (creams, patches or injections) is that they don’t always work… and are full of side effects too.
The natural approach is much safer. It doesn’t rely on synthetic hormones, but instead teaches your body to produce its own testosterone, slowly, safely and effectively.
Here’s how…
Lift weights on a regular basis
A key weapon for women to win the war against low testosterone is to take up strength training.
We’re not necessarily saying you have to start power lifting or bodybuilding – but regular resistance training has been shown to elevate testosterone levels in a load of different studies.
Not sure where to start?
Keep it basic.
Aim for 2-3 full-body workouts each week. Choose 7 exercises that hit all of your major muscle groups, and lift challenging weights for 3 sets of 8-15 reps.
Here’s a sample plan for you to try:
- Chest press
- Leg press
- Lat pulldown
- Leg curl
- Shoulder press
- Leg extension
- Seated row
Strength training is a great calorie burner and sparks off some real fat loss too. You might be worried about getting ‘bulky’ or overly-muscular, but don’t be.
Unless you’re using steroids or other aggressive pharmaceutical medications, the only side effect from lifting weights will be a curvier, leaner and more athletic figure.
Use a natural testosterone booster supplement
You might have heard about testosterone boosters already. They are a natural product made up of specialized vitamins and minerals that target the regions of your brain responsible for producing testosterone.
This means that instead of harsh and often dangerous steroid medications, you use the power of nutrition to influence testosterone release.
Testosterone boosters act like a gentle alarm clock, gently nudging your body into making more hormones.
Steroids and invasive testosterone therapy are completely different. testosterone replacement therapy acts more like taking a sledgehammer to your brain – it might be effective at first, but you’ll soon begin to suffer horrible side effects.
Take a look at our curated list of the most effective Testosterone Boosters on the market which are effective for Women
One Comment