My hormones are whack and what I’m doing to try and fix them

Like my post title?  I’ve given up trying to spend my time finding the ‘perfect’ title for google’s benefit and instead I’m just going to write what I want to write.  Today this pretty much sums it up.

My hormones are whack.

Unsurprising given the last year I’ve had really, but annoying all the same.

How do I know they’re whack?

My digestion is all off.

My body is still holding onto pregnancy weight.

I’m sleeping like rubbish.

‘Irritable’ and ‘anxious’ have become my middle names.

In case you’re wondering about you… Google also tells me that other signs of hormone imbalance are:

• persistent weight gain or difficulty maintaining a healthy weight
• belly fat and loss of muscle mass
• low sex drive
• fatigue
• depression
• unexplained cravings

For me it’s a whole lot of grief and multiple pregnancies in a year related. My nervous system and adrenals are pretty run down and despite the fact that I eat pretty well (although I have to make a conscious effort or I just grab the easiest thing), move regularly and go to bed at a reasonable time – I’ve been waking up feeling like crap.

So I decided it was time to do something.

I went to see a naturopath last week who was recommended to me as a fertility specialist.  Admittedly I probably should have thought it through a little more because I wasn’t technically going to see her to help us conceive. It’s probable that this will be in our sometime future, right now I just wanted to know what was going on with my body and get help to feel good again.

She did muscle testing on me to find out what parts of my body are needing support and then mixed me up a sludge of supplements to take twice a day.  I also get to do this sexy clay detox on my hands and feet.  You guys, have you had muscle testing before? It blew my mind how what seemed like such a simple test could tell how my internal organs are working.

There were no surprises, really. Mostly I am fit and strong but my nervous system (hugely impacted by our emotions) needs a lot of support.

My adrenals are suffering.

My liver and gall bladder needed some detoxing.

I need to drink more water (I’m so good some days and terrible others. If that’s you too- go and have a glass of water now, I’ll wait.)

I’m low in iron. (duh!)

Other than drinking my sludge for two weeks and taking a couple of other supplements, I’m just trying to make a conscious effort to eat good food, drink enough water and unwind properly before bed so that I can sleep well.  I’m prone to bad sleep at the minute so if I try and go straight from social media or watching something to bed, I end up lying awake for another hour before I can actually sleep. I’m doing my best to eat lots of greens (my veggie patch is paying keep as bok chop and kale is ready now) and making sure I eat a variety of things (I tend to get in food ruts where I eat the same thing every day! I know I’m not the only one who does this.)  I’m also trying to eat lots of good fats (coconut oil, avocado, etc) and not eating too much processed food.

And of course then there is the stuff I’m doing to deal with the emotional stuff.

Counselling.

Daily meditation and journalling.

Lots of white space in my day.

Connection (I go crazy if I spend too much time with my own thoughts. So I’ve been organising lots of catch up with friends recently – it always helps me feel better.)

Physical movement to keep it all flowing.

I’ll go back to the naturopath in a couple of weeks to see how the sludge is working and from there I have a suspicion that acupuncture is going to be the next recommendation as we talked about it last appointment.  There is no quick fix to hormones but I feel better knowing that I’m doing something.  I’ll let you know how it goes.

Are your hormones whack too? What are you doing to fix them?