Once you find your program, stick with it until you achieve your weight and health goals. At that point your body will adapt to this lifestyle and you will want to continue it, and your metabolism will have stabilized.

More Essential Rules and Examples of Eating for Hormone Health:

Avoid gland blockers

Avoid caffeinated beverages and foods (coffee, soda, sports drinks, diet pills, energy drinks and chocolate).

Eat at least 50 percent organic and hormone-free foods. Avoid packaged or boxed foods with lots of chemicals. Avoid soy products, which are usually genetically modified. If you are on medications, you need to compensate and eat even more raw vegetables (cruciferous and beets are best).

Avoid water retainers

Avoid anything with MSG, including hidden sources under other names. Monosodium glutamate is abundant in many restaurant foods, taco mixes, sauces, gravies, boxed foods, soups and dressings. Read the labels.

Avoid artificial sweeteners, such as high-fructose corn syrup, dextrose, glucose and sugar alcohols (including Splenda). Refined carbohydrates/sugar can deplete your body of potassium and retain sodium avoid them.

Exercise for your body type

We will discuss this in the chapter on exercise, as it’s best to do the eating plan first so that you have more energy to exercise. I don’t recommend exercising if you are tired this is especially true for the Adrenal type. In fact, many people who have adrenal weakness gain weight with exercise.

Reduce stress

Do your best to reduce stress; you will be amazed how better eating will drop your stress level. One counter to stress is exercise especially low-pulse-rate walking. Pain and inflammation in the body can keep you out of fat burning because of high levels of cortisol. Seek help for pain.

Get an adequate amount of sleep

As you clean up your diet and follow this program to find the foods you respond to best, sleep should improve greatly. Get to bed before 11:00 p.m. Many people who eat poorly (especially sweets) will have digestive bloating, which will keep them from sleeping. A sick body can’t get deep quality sleep. Try to get at least seven hours per night.

Other Tips on Eating for Hormone Health

1. As you increase protein, space out proteins evenly throughout the day, eating smaller amounts with each meal rather than a large amount all at one time. You need to eat whole protein, not processed protein (powders and bars). Your body can only digest a certain amount of protein per meal and anything over that adds more stress you should never feel bloated after a meal. Overeating protein can turn it to fat.

2. Do not skip meals. Snack on nuts, seeds and apples through the day. Because fats are low, you might experience more hunger. This is why you need to eat between meals to prevent hunger. Night snacking should be fewer nuts/seeds and more either vegetables or fruits celery, carrots, grapefruit or apple. If you find out you are more of a Liver type, you will eat only three meals per day and not snack between meals.

3. If you are going to consume berries or fruit, eat the majority in the evening (after 5:00 p.m.), not for breakfast. This will keep the fuel in your body burning more evenly. If you eat only fruits and berries for breakfast, you could end up craving sweets later in the day or at night because of lower blood sugar.

The results of the initial program will give valuable feedback as to what eating plan you should continue. The great majority of people (60 percent) will get the most success (weight loss, increased energy, etc.) with the Detox Phase. Around 30 percent will do best on the Adrenal & Ovary eating plan. The rest will fit somewhere in between. Once you find your program, stick with it until you achieve your weight and health goals. At that point your body will adapt to this lifestyle and you will want to continue it, and your metabolism will have stabilized.

There Are Four Different Body Shapes, Each Influenced by Hormones. Many people think that the shape of the body is purely genetic and there is nothing that can be done about it. But our bodies and our body shapes are actually controlled by hormones. Take the Body Type Quiz to determine your body type. Then chose the matching program to create a healthy body.