In perimenopause, levels of the hunger-stimulating hormone
Estrogen levels can also affect your hunger hormones.
Estrogen may help suppress ghrelin, which can help reduce how hungry you feel. CCK is a hormone that helps tell you when you're full. Estrogen can also increase the potency of CCK in your body to help you feel full and satisfied longer.
What is ghrelin? Ghrelin is a hormone that is produced and released mainly by the stomach with small amounts also released by the small intestine, pancreas and brain. Ghrelin has numerous functions. It is termed the 'hunger hormone' because it stimulates appetite, increases food intake and promotes fat storage.
For example, as women get older, not only do their ovarian reserves decrease but their energy expenditure and activity levels also naturally decline. All of these factors lead to reduced estrogen levels which, you guessed it, causes you to feel more hungry.
Sex hormones play essential roles in the regulation of appetite, eating behaviour and energy metabolism and have been implicated in several major clinical disorders in women. Estrogen inhibits food intake, whereas progesterone and testosterone may stimulate appetite.
Progesterone supports metabolic function and increases your metabolic rate. This can translate to an increase in core body temperature that ramps up your metabolism and appetite. Since estrogen suppresses the appetite, if levels are too low and progesterone is too high, you may experience hunger.
Incorporate high-quality protein-rich foods at meals, starting at breakfast. Compared to carbohydrates and fats, protein is the most filling nutrient. Studies show that protein reduces ghrelin levels so you don't feel hungry and increases leptin to help you stop eating.
High fiber foods stretch your stomach and balance your hunger hormones. Adding protein to your meals helps with satiety by improving leptin sensitivity. Add healthy fats to your meals as well. Foods that contain omega 3 like fatty fish, chia and flax seeds and nuts will boost leptin and keep ghrelin in check.
Exercise Regularly
Exercise increases leptin levels by increasing sympathetic nerve activity and improving insulin sensitivity. It also leads to changes in adipocytes, the cells that store fat. Adipocytes release more leptin when they are exposed to catecholamines, which are increased during exercise.
Leptin resistance not only contributes to the body's ability to absorb more food, but also signals to the brain that the body needs to conserve energy, which in turn limits calorie burning. Therefore, supplementing with blood leptin levels does not actually lead to weight loss.
One of the classes of hormones that have a key role in your daily life are the hunger hormones, namely the ghrelin, leptin, cortisol, and thyroid hormones. They influence your appetite, how much you eat, how much energy you have, how you store your energy, and how much you weigh.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved these prescription appetite suppressants: Diethylpropion (Tenuate dospan®). Liraglutide (Saxenda®). Naltrexone-bupropion (Contrave®).
You don't get usable leptin from food, and there's no evidence that specific foods help boost the hormone.
One of the primary symptoms of this is weight gain. In all these effects note that progesterone does not directly cause weight loss. Instead it reduces the effect of other hormones in the body which are causing the weight gain. Think of it as allowing rather than causing the body to lose weight.
That's why, low progesterone can in turn lead to weight gain as there are minimal levels of this hormone to prevent estrogen levels from going haywire and high progesterone can result in rapid weight loss. This is the perfect example of the Goldilocks principle in action…”not too high, not too low, but just right.”
As we mentioned earlier, estrogen is responsible for depositing more fat onto different parts of your body. If you don't have enough progesterone present to balance out the effects of excess estrogen, you may retain more fat cells than normal.
“The estrogen spike provokes the body to have more carbs and progesterone boosts the cravings for sugar and chocolates as it needs glucose to function optimally. These cravings, called as pre-menstrual symptoms, improve once the period starts and disappear a few days later,” she told indianexpress.com.