The Hormone Diet

As I am naturally interested in any book which talks about hormones in relation to diet, I came across a recent book by an American naturopathic doctor called The Hormone Diet.

Dr. Natasha Turner’s primary focus is on hormone fluctuations that can negatively affect your weight. She looks at all the hormones impacting the body and of course hormone balance is crucial in a healthy menopause, primarily the balance of oestrogen and progesterone.

She outlines a six-week, three-phase process designed to sync hormones and promote an overall healthier body through diet, exercise, nutritional supplements, and detoxification.

The diet regulates what you eat and also tells you the right time to eat to ensure maximum benefit to your hormones, so in case you find it helpful I have outlined it below.

Phase 1

This part of the diet involves a two-week “detoxification” process. You avoid eating gluten-containing grains, dairy products made from cow’s milk, many oils, alcohol, caffeine, peanuts, sugar, artificial sweeteners, red meat, and citrus fruits.

Acceptable foods during this phase include naturally gluten-free grains and starches, most vegetables, most fruit, beans, nuts and seeds, poultry, fish, soy, eggs, plant milks, dairy from sheep or goat, and certain oils.

This phase also involves taking nutritional supplements including probiotics and anti-inflammatory products like turmeric and fish oil.

Phase 2

This phase incorporates some of those foods back into your diet while paying attention to how your body responds to them. However, the diet recommends an ongoing avoidance of “hormone-hindering” foods.

These include high fructose corn syrup, fish with high mercury levels, non-organic meats, non-organic coffee, raisins, dates, and peanuts. The full list is in the book “The Hormone Diet.”

The second phase also involves ridding your diet of manmade foods, which include: processed foods, artificial sweeteners, refined grains and foods that contain nitrates, such as cured meats, peanut butter, and chocolate

Phase 3

The third phase focuses on entre physical and mental wellness through cardiovascular exercise and strength training. The diet plan of the second phase continues on into the third phase.

The diet promotes natural, nutritious foods and regular exercise, so including water loss the diet aims for weight loss of up to 12 pounds in the first phase and aims for about two pounds a week after that without calorie counting. This is quite an initial loss and many may find it hard to manage.

Helpful information

The Hormone Diet claims to be the first diet book to emphasise the importance of hormonal balance and to be the first to explain the lifestyle habits that can help boost hormones to burn fat.

Nutritionist Patrick Holford wrote an excellent book called Burn Fat Fast which I have also reviewed in the past. The main planks in The Hormone Diet are not new and include: sleeping, eating, managing stress and exercising which are pretty much the foundation of all good diets.

The diet takes a good stance on weight loss and overall health and the focus on emotional health, stress management, and adequate sleep are all important components that everyone should be doing, whether they are on a diet or not.

You may certainly find it helpful, and the initial 12 lb weight loss from water is certainly helpful but many experience this initially when using bioidentical progesterone as it acts as a natural diuretic.

My view is always if it works for you, good, but there are other diets that might be more helpful if weight loss is your main goal.