Estrogen is a tricky hormone when it comes to women’s fat loss. Too much estrogen can negatively affect a woman’s weight. Too little estrogen can also negatively affect a woman’s weight.
The goal of this post is to establish a happy medium so that women won’t have to worry about estrogen imbalances hindering their fat loss efforts.
In this article, we are going to address:
- What is Estrogen?
- Different Types of Estrogen
- Estrogen Dominance
- Ways Women Can Naturally Reduce Estrogen Levels for Fat loss
What is Estrogen?
Estrogen is the most abundant sex hormone found in females. Males produce estrogen as well, but not nearly as much as females.
The bulk of estrogen is produced by the ovaries. Small amounts of estrogen are made by the adrenal glands and fat cells. The placenta also secretes estrogen during pregnancy.
Estrogen contributes greatly to the development of secondary female sex characteristics including:
- Breast
- Vagina
- Uterus
- Curves
- Menstruation
Puberty and young adulthood is when estrogen hormone is heightened. Reason being, estrogen is preparing a young woman for the potential of pregnancy.
Different Types of Estrogen
There are 3 different types of estrogen that females make E1, E2, and E3.
Estrone (E1)
Estrone is the dominant form of estrogen in post-menopausal women. It supports reproductive and sexual health.
Estradiol (E2)
Estradiol is the dominant form of estrogen in pre-menopausal women. Not only does estradiol support the reproductive system, but it supports:
- Brain health
- Heart Health
- Skin Health
- Bone Health
It is the strongest of the 3 estrogens.
Estriol (E3)
Estriol becomes the primary form of estrogen once a woman becomes pregnant. It supports the health of the uterus and unborn baby. This type of estrogen is made in small amounts.
Estrogen Dominance
Estrogen dominance is a condition where your estrogen levels are higher than the levels of your other sex hormones. One thing that’s not talked about enough is estrogen dominance impacts both women and men.
Women that have high estrogen in comparison to progesterone are estrogen dominant. Men that have high estrogen in comparison to testosterone are estrogen dominant.
For the purpose of this article, let’s focus on why estrogen dominance is problematic for women’s fat loss efforts.
If a woman produces more estrogen than she can capitalize on for menstruation and pregnancy, she becomes less insulin sensitive.
Meaning:
- Appetite goes up
- Cravings for junk food goes up
- Cravings for sugar goes up
- Metabolism goes down
- Fat storage goes up
For overweight and obese women, insulin resistance and estrogen dominance are on the same side of the same coin. If you are insulin resistant, then by default you are estrogen dominant.
8 Ways Women Can Naturally Reduce Estrogen Levels for Fat Loss
Hormone replacement therapy or (HRT) is not necessary for reducing estrogen dominance. HRT can increase your risk of breast cancer, heart attacks, stroke, and everything else that’s bad.
Instead, you as a woman want to focus on getting your bodyfat levels below 20%. If you can maintain sub 20% bodyfat, estrogen will be balanced.
Now, let’s get into some strategies you can utilize to balance out your estrogen levels for sustainable fat loss.
1. Learn How to Eat at a Caloric Deficit
Many women are under the impression that calories in vs calories out only applies to men. They think fat loss for women is all about hormonal balance.
This is not true. Women are not exempt from the law of thermal dynamics. To lose fat, a net energy deficit must be implemented for a prolonged period.
Hormones can manipulate where the fat you already have is distributed in your body, but if you’re not in a caloric deficit, there is no reason for you to lose stored bodyfat.
There are calculators online you can use to determine what your maintenance calories are. These calculators are not 100% accurate, but they can give you an idea of what you can get away with at your current bodyweight.
Once you figured out the calories needed to maintain your current bodyweight, subtract 400-1,000 from your maintenance and that would be the amount of food energy you would take in to lose fat.
Let’s say you are a 190 lb. female with a caloric maintenance of 2,400. If you want to lose fat slowly, you would eat around 2,000 calories a day. If you wanted to lose fat more aggressively, you would eat around 1,400 calories a day.
In short, smaller caloric deficits lead to slower fat loss. Larger caloric deficits, lead to faster fat loss.
If you need help determining your maintenance calories, you can use this online calculator to give you a rough estimate.
2. Perform Heavy-Resistance Exercise a Few Days a Week
Strength training should be the foundation of your workout program. The research shows that exercise alone can reduce excess estrogens.
Many women either don’t lift weights or they don’t lift with enough intensity. You need to build muscle to increase your metabolism, increase your lean body mass, and have sustainable weight loss.
If you just focus on calorie-reduction and cardio, you will not have sustainable weight loss. If you pair a caloric deficit with an effective strength training program, the weight loss can be more permanent.
An effective strength training program doesn’t mean you are working out 5-days a week for 2-hours a session. Instead, you would train just 3-days a week with 48-72 hours of rest in between workouts.
Natural lifters cannot recover as quickly as lifters that take performance enhancement drugs.
The 5-6 day a week training culture was popularized by bodybuilders taking anabolic steroids. That is why they can train so often, because they can recover quickly.
Since strength training is basically natural bodybuilding, you need to incorporate more rest days. When you have more rest days, you have better central nervous system recovery. Therefore, you can overload a major compound exercise more consistently.
The main goal of strength training is to increase your relative strength, which is your strength to bodyweight ratio. The stronger you get relative to your bodyweight, the less bodyfat you will have.
If you want to learn more about the importance of relative strength, check out this article Gaining Muscle Without Gaining Fat.
If you are more interested in the benefits of cutting back your training frequency, give this article a read The Fitness and Lifestyle Benefits of Training Only 3 Days a Week.
3. You Can Do Intermittent Fasting as a Woman
Intermittent fasting is beyond powerful when it comes to lowering excess estrogens. When you fast, you teach your body how to utilize its own fat as a fuel source.
This allows for:
- Increased human growth hormone for muscle retention
- Increased fat oxidation
- Easier management of calories
- Significantly less insulin spikes
- Autophagy for cancer prevention
- Improved cognitive focus
Now, there’s a myth out there that intermittent fasting is dangerous for women’s sex hormones. Some studies suggest that intermittent fasting can cause infertility or missed periods.
This is complete and utter nonsense. Humans have been fasting for most of evolution as an essential health practice. Humans do include women.
These studies indicating that fasting can “harm” a female’s reproductive system were done on animals. There are no human studies suggesting that intermittent fasting can cause infertility and missed periods.
As long as you are eating adequate nutrition, maintaining functional hormones, and don’t have dangerously low levels of bodyfat, you should have enough resources to support a fetus.
If you want to learn more about the benefits of internment fasting, check out this article Intermittent Fasting Windows.
If you’re already familiar with intermittent fasting and interested in a less popular approach to doing it, go to this article The Most Lifestyle-Friendly Approach to Intermittent Fasting.
4. Eat Enough Protein
Protein is vital for estrogen regulation. You need enough protein to support the development of lean muscle mass, which leads to pure fat loss.
A lot of women will complain that:
- They’re losing weight but not looking significantly different
- There not progressing in their training and hitting strength plateaus
- They’re always hungry on their diets.
- They are having a lot of cravings.
The common denominator for all these things is insufficient protein intake. You only need about 0.6 – 0.8 grams of protein per pound of bodyweight based on the research. Protein needs are dependent on how much fat you carry.
If you are a leaner female, you will require about 0.8 grams of protein per pound of bodyweight, because you are more at risk for muscle loss in a caloric deficit.
If you are obese, you will only need 0.6 grams of protein per pound of bodyweight, because you are not at risk for muscle loss in a deficit.
If you don’t know which foods to focus on for hitting your protein needs, give this article a read 11 Best Sources of Protein for Promoting Fat Loss.
5. Consume More Beef
This is not talked about enough, but beef can help fight estrogen dominance. Beef is a nutritional powerhouse. There is no other single food that can give you:
- All 9 essential amino acids
- Essential vitamins and minerals
- Dietary collagen
- Dietary creatine
Society tends to demonize red meat because of misleading research. The research is often taken out of contents.
You can consume red meat every single day and still be incredibly healthy. If you’re eating quality grass-fed, grass-finished, or unprocessed red meat, you will be fine.
If you need a more convincing argument as to why you should eat more beef, check out this article Red Meat is the Only True Super food.
6. Get More Cruciferous Vegetables in Your Diet
There are compounds in vegetables from the cruciferous family that have been shown to metabolize excess estrogens.
Some of these vegetables include:
- Broccoli
- Cauliflower
- Brussell Sprouts
- Cabbage
- Arugula
- Kale
Cruciferous vegetables contain cancer-fighting properties, which is extremely important. They are also rich in fiber, vitamin C, and Vitamin K.
It’s best to have some kind of cruciferous veggie with 1 or 2 of your meals every day.
7. Refrain from Doing Cardio
Cardio is not effective for reducing estrogen dominance. The hunger hormone ghrelin goes up because of cardio and the stress hormone cortisol goes up because of cardio.
What makes fat loss so difficult for women is the fact that they expend significantly less calories than men.
You may be a female that can eat the same amount of food as your husband, but you are metabolizing the food at a slower rate than your husband.
Do not confuse a big appetite for a fast metabolism. They are two different things.
The foundation for a woman’s fat loss program should be strength training. Doing cardio on top of already keeping your calories low can cause compensatory hunger.
This means you will eat more than you should, because you did extra activity that wasn’t necessary for you to do and now you feel entitled to eat whatever passes your face because you “deserve” it.
This is how cortisol causes you to gain weight.
- You get compensatory hunger, which causes an activation in the reward pathway part of the brain.
- You end up eating more than you should
- You go into an exponentially high caloric-surplus
- You gain fat
- You accumulate more excess estrogen
Cortisol needs to be regulated in a deficit. If you need more of an understanding about cortisol, give this article a read How to Reduce Cortisol for Better Fat Loss.
8. Do More Walking
Walking can eliminate fat cells that produce excess estrogen. Going for a long walk is not the same as doing traditional cardio. Walking is a physical activity that you can do consistently in short windows.
You need daily physical activity. You don’t need cardio.
Most overweight or obese women who desire to lose weight cannot sustain 3-mile runs long-term. They will not enjoy it, and they will see it as this miserable chore they have to do daily to lose weight.
Walking is a low-impact exercise. Sure, it doesn’t burn as many calories as running, but its more sustainable long-term for the general public.
Walking:
- Is muscle-sphering
- Does not impair training recovery
- Can suppress your appetite
- Utilize a higher percentage of fat as fuel
- Does not cause significant fatigue
- Has been shown to reduce depression
- Has a very high enjoyability factor.
You can go for a 1-hour walk every day outside in nature or break your walks up into two 30-minute walks every day. You can even walk around your house listening to a podcast or taking a work call.
The great thing about walking is you can still be productive as your exercising.
If you are still not convinced as to why walking is so great, give this article a read Why Walking Is the Best Exercise for Long-Term Fat Loss.
Conclusion
Women need estrogen to some degree. It is important for the development of lean body mass and reproductive health. Once you have more estrogen than needed to compensate for those 2 things, you should work to reduce it.
If you want to balance estrogen hormone for better fat loss:
- Learn how to eat in a caloric deficit
- Perform heavy resistance training a few days a week
- Adopt an Intermittent fasting plan
- Make sure you are eating sufficient protein
- Eat more beef
- Integrate more cruciferous veggies into your diet
- Ditch the cardio
- Program your body to walk more
If you want to learn more about hormones that need to be kept under control for weight loss, go to this article 7 Hormones You Must Manage on a Weight Loss Program.