Suzanne Somers Hormone Diet
Suzanne Somers’ own hormone diet, better known as “Somersizing” is another of the hormone diets which help you to feel great, lose menopause weight, promote your health and help to balance hormones and those other uncomfortable symptoms of menopause.
Suzanne Somers is a one woman powerhouse industry herself. Once an actress on “Three’s Company”, a television show she left because they wouldn’t pay her the same wage for the same work as the men, overcoming an abusive childhood and other difficulties, and a stage performer, she has moved on to selling products, promoting bioidentical hormones and awriting at least 15 books on health, anti aging, cooking, and menopause. We take a good look at her hormone balancing diet from her book “Slim and Sexy Forever” in this article.
Let’s discuss her critics first. One would have to admit that her critics are either not yet in menopause or andropause. These people are criticizing something of which they know nothing of – the hot flashes, the night sweats, the struggle to sleep, menopause weight gain, anxiety, heart palpitations and feelings of irritability and downright depression. Suzanne Somers herself is living proof of the program she follows which includes her Somersizing hormone balancing diet and the use of bioidentical hormones. She’s looking good at 62, after all these years, still working and still excelling. She has also overcome breast cancer and uses bioidentical hormones. That says something there. There’s proof in the pudding, but please excuse the reference to desserts.
Suzanne’s book “Slim and Sexy Forever” is her first book on a hormone solution for permanent weight loss and optimal living. This is not her first diet book. She admits in the book that she was eating correctly and all of a sudden she started gaining weight and nothing she tried could get rid of the weight. What was happening is that she was entering menopause and her hormones were declining. She has learned from her own experience that if your hormones are out of balance, nothing you do will help you lose the weight. First, one must balance your hormones to lose weight. However, it is not possible to just balance your hormones and continue to eat bad unhealthy food. You still have to change certain elements of your lifestyle and your diet. You still have to follow one of the hormone diets AND balance your hormones, reduce your stress levels, get quality sleep, take health supplements and exercise. All of these hormone diets we are discussing are a multi-faceted approach to optimum health and weight loss. If you are not taking care of yourself by the time menopause or andropause approaches, you will be looking at serious health issues in the future. Now is the time.
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So the first step in Suzanne’s book is to balance your hormones and this can be done by going to a doctor who can prescribe you individual bio-identical hormones to replace what is missing in your body. The next step is to throw out all the junk food in your fridge and cupboards. Get rid of the sugars, the bad carbs and the bad fats. Suzanne recommends eating healthy real food to lose hormone weight and she promotes this way of eating as a lifestyle. She also recommends that you exercise for a half hour every day. These really are simple and intelligent suggestions to lose that menopause weight.
She also discusses the symptoms of menopause which is a very difficult time for most women. Suzanne calls them the “Seven Dwarfs of Menopause” – sweaty, all dried up, forgetful, bloated, sleepy, itchy and bitchy. Anyone who has been through menopause will know what she is talking about. It is not an easy time for anyone. In fact, it’s darn right dreadful. Doctors are now acknowledging this fact and that hormones need to be replaced. You should already know about the Women’s Health Initiative Study in 2002 which revealed that synthetic hormones are bad for you, causing all sorts of serious health issues and only make your symptoms worse. Women these days are are using natural bioidentical hormones, looking for healthy hormone balancing diets and changing their lifestyles to help them through the difficult period of menopause.
Other problems that women and men face as they approach menopause and andropause are the problems of adrenal fatigue and high insulin levels. The importance of the adrenal system is not forgotten in Suzanne’s book. The adrenal system affects weight loss or gain. Without proper adrenal function, all your hormones will be out of balance. The adrenal glands stop functioning as we age after a high stressed life of working, poor eating and sleep habits, bringing up children and pleasing our partners and everybody else. What happens is that the adrenal system breaks down and stops functioning. We lose energy, experience weight gain, exhaustion, loss of libido, insomnia, depression and malaise. We try to revive our energy levels with caffeine and sugar. Your doctor may prescribe antidepressants. Antidepressants make you fat. Eventually, you will be suffering from what is called adrenal burnout and when that is out of whack, all your hormones will be unbalanced.
Suzanne discusses adrenal burnout (adrenal fatigue) in her book and how to help re-establish a burnt out adrenal gland. She also talks about high cortisol levels which cause weight gain. High cortisol levels come from chronic stress which causes weight gain during menopause. High cortisol also causes insulin resistance which can lead to weight gain and possible diabetes. Insulin resistance causes our bodies to convert carbohydrates and sugar to turn to fat. Insulin is the fat storing hormone, the hormone that decides whether sugar will be stored as fat or burned off as energy. Suzanne discusses these problems in an interview in her book with Dr. Michael Galitzer, a specialist in anti aging medicine and bioidentical hormone replacement therapy. When our hormones are a disaster, weight gain is inevitable. Also, not only does stress kill, it will make you fat. Get rid of the stress in your life. Check with your doctor for testing of your hormone levels, your cortisol levels and verify whether you have insulin resistance or not. Then take charge of your life and chose any one of the hormone diets, whether it be the Okinawa hormone diet, the Mediterranean diet, Dr Oz hormone balancing diet, Dr. Turner’s hormone diet, or Dr. Schwarbein’s hormone diet. Add some exercise, learn how to sleep again, quit smoking and have a glass of red wine a day.
Yes, Suzanne’s Somersizing diet for hormone balance and optimal weight loss does include a glass of red wine per day in the second level of her diet plan. Red wine has been researched and is found to prevent heart disease and reduction of lung tissue inflammation because it contains a powerful antioxidant called resveratrol.
Suzanne’s hormone diet consists of two levels of eating and has rules for combining food. Like all the other hormones diets, this diet has rules but can easily become a way of living if you are wise enough to make it so. These diet rules are not too difficult to follow.
On level one, you have to eliminate sugar, (public enemy No. 1), corn, high fructose corn syrup, refined carbs and a list of what she calls the “funky foods”.
Suzanne’s funky foods are as follows:
- Sugar
- Beets
- Carrots
- Corn syrup
- Honey
- Maple syrup
- Molasses
- Sugar
- Bananas
- Corn
- Pasta
- Popcorn
- Potatoes
- Sweet potatoes
- White flour
- White rice
- Winter squashes such as acorn and butternut
There are rules for following the diet which include waiting three hours between meals, only eating fruits alone, eating fats and proteins with vegetables and only eating carbs with vegetables and no fat.
Once you have lost your menopause weight gain, you proceed to Level Two of the diet, an easy and pleasurable way of eating which should become a way of life for you.
Suzanne’s hormone balancing diet is a sound and healthy balanced weight loss program which will improve your health and help you to achieve menopause weight loss. Also included in the book is a collection of delicious and healthy recipes for Level One and Level Two for your new style of living and eating. Does this hormone diet work? Yes, definitely, for achieving hormone balance, optimal health and losing weight at the same time.
admin @ October 1, 2009