Have you been trying to lose weight for months or even years without seeing results? If you’ve been restricting calories, hitting the gym more, and still not seeing results, chances are there might be something in your body that is preventing you from losing weight. Have you ever read about the hormone leptin?
Although it may seem strange to think of a hormone affecting our weight loss, there have been many studies in recent years pointing to exactly that! The hormones in our body regulate many different processes, and leptin is the hormone that regulates weight loss and gains. This can be especially useful for moms trying to lose weight after pregnancy.
Leptin and Weight Loss: What Leptin Is and How It Works
Leptin is a hormone in your body that is connected to your metabolism, your appetite, and therefore, your weight loss. If you’ve been trying to lose weight for ages but still haven’t found success, the problem might not be in your willpower. Instead, the problem may have something to do with the leptin in your body.
When we eat our food, our body releases the hormone leptin. As more and more leptin builds up in our bloodstream, this sends two signals to our brain. The first signal is appetite. When our body releases enough leptin, this tells our brain that we have eaten enough food. In turn, our appetite is suppressed. So, leptin is associated with appetite suppression.
Next, when there is enough leptin in our bloodstream, this also triggers a boost in our metabolism. This boost in our metabolism increases the heat in our muscles and in our bodies, allowing us to burn the calories that we’ve just eaten. Leptin actually tells our bodies to burn more calories.
The role of leptin in our body is to regulate our body weight, keeping us at a happy and healthy weight. If you feel that you eat a normal amount of food, and yet you have an unhealthy body weight, you might be struggling with leptin resistance.
Leptin Resistance: The Problem Behind Your Weight Gain
Many Americans today feel that they eat a normal amount of food and yet they still gain weight and feel that they are living in unhealthy bodies. The culprit behind this weight gain might be leptin resistance.
As I outlined above, when you eat food, your leptin levels increase. As the leptin levels increase, this causes you to feel appetite suppression and to have a boost in your metabolism.
But if you constantly have high levels of leptin in your body, you can slowly develop leptin resistance over time. Unfortunately, people who live a standard American lifestyle and follow the Standard American Diet (SAD) run the risk of encouraging leptin resistance in their bodies.
Leptin resistance can, in turn, lead to many health problems in our bodies. For example, leptin resistance has been shown to connect to heart disease, obesity, high blood pressure, and more health and heart-related complications.

