When I started strength training, I knew I would get stronger. I knew I would gain muscle. And I knew all of those things would change my body.
But I had no idea what the balance between muscle mass and body fat would do to my hormone balance.
See, a few years into strength training, I found myself binge eating. A lot. I was going through an identity crisis at the time—an identity crisis spurred by deciding whether to remain a teacher or switch careers into the fitness field—and I coped by eating.
I gained 40 pounds in under a year.
As I was recovering and getting my food habits under control, I was also getting closer and closer to 40 years old. My menstrual cycle started changing—my periods lasted several days longer than normal, I was experiencing more PMS symptoms than normal, and my cycle was less predictable than it had ever been.
My doctor had a simple answer for me:
“Welcome to 40.”
And so I accepted that my age was likely the cause.
Until I realized it wasn’t.
After a few years of slowly working my body fat levels down, I finally got myself consistently into a normal BMI range when I noticed my menstrual cycle changing again. My periods got shorter again. And lighter. I got less PMS. And things started running like clockwork.
Could my doctor have been wrong? What if all those changes weren’t about being almost 40? What if they were tied to my excess body fat levels instead?
I did some research. Turns out, there’s a ton of information out there about how your hormones affect your training and body fat levels.
But there’s very LITTLE info out there on how training and body fat levels affect female hormones.
So here’s a short primer on what I think every woman ought to know.
1. Testosterone isn’t the only sex hormone that’s affected by training.
We hear, all the time, that it is good for women to have their testosterone production increased by weightlifting. And that is true—lifting boosts your testosterone, and women with optimal testosterone levels have better energy, more lean muscle mass, better libidos, and enhanced confidence and moods. So having low testosterone, even as a woman, is not a good thing.
But we shouldn’t lift just to boost testosterone.
2. Estrogen matters, too.
Estrogen tends to get a bad rap. When we feel weak, bloated, and exhausted in the couple days just prior to and the first couple days of our periods, estrogen is to blame. It drops at that time in our cycle, and that drop can make us feel pretty awful. Every few months or so, I have a workout on one of those days of my cycle where even my warm up weights feel difficult—and it’s all because of that estrogen drop.
Estrogen also gets a bad rap for its ties to other problems, like obesity, cancer, PMS, and type 2 diabetes. Excess estrogen is bad for women.
And what makes us produce more estrogen?
Body fat.
See, your body’s fat cells aren’t lazy. They actually do work, and one of their jobs is to help your body produce hormones. In fact, fat cells help convert testosterone into estrogen, and if you have too many fat cells, well, guess what happens to your hormones?
Testosterone drops, and estrogen increases.
Low testosterone combined with excess estrogen is a recipe for a host of bad stuff—testosterone helps you lower body fat by increasing muscle mass, so if your body cannot do those two things, even more estrogen gets produced in the long run, creating a cycle of increasingly bad health problems.
Those health problems start with obesity, but they go past that. Obese women, statistically, have worse menstrual pain, heavier periods, and greater risk of breast cancer, and all of these issues can be estrogen-related.
The only thing, other than hormone-replacement therapy, that can help balance those hormone levels is strength training. By increasing muscle mass, we boost metabolism and testosterone. With faster metabolisms, we burn more body fat, and with less body fat, we produce less estrogen.
Strength training = winning.
3. It’s possible to swing too far in the other direction.
The same mechanisms that can help obese women lose body fat and lower their estrogen levels can cause severe damage for underweight women.
Extremely low body fat levels lead to low estrogen levels, and low estrogen levels lead to bone loss, heart disease, and lack of menstrual cycles. Women suffering from anorexia, for example, may lose their periods because of their low body fat levels.
The key, then, is to find a balance.
After all, estrogen itself isn’t a bad thing. In fact, estrogen helps women recover from exercise quickly. Women can generally tolerate higher volumes of training than men partly because of the role of estrogen. When your estrogen levels are highest in your cycle, for example, during days 1-14, you might feel extra strong, energetic, and invincible in the gym.
But we need the right balance between ALL of our hormones to get the most benefit out of each of them, and finding that balance is dependent on having the right balance between muscle mass and body fat.
So sure, lift weights to boost your confidence and to look amazing.
But also lift weights for your hormones. They need the training, too.
About the author
Kristen Perillo
Kristen Perillo is a teacher by day, trainer and nutrition coach by night. She's also a Star Wars nerd, writer, dog (and cat) mom, peanut butter junkie, and Seinfeld devotee. Fitness has done nothing but make her life better, and she is privileged to show other people that it will do the same for them.
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