WHATEVER AGE YOU are, fitness should be a regular part of your lifestyle. Why? Fitness maintains strength and agility as we age, allows us to improve our appearance and build self-confidence, and supports our cardiovascular, immune, digestive, respiratory, and other systems, including the endocrine system–which regulates our hormones.
Throughout our lives, our hormones will impact, and be affected by, all the interconnected systems that regulate processes in our bodies. Influencing our appetite, metabolism (the rate at which our body burns what we eat and drink for energy), and body fat distribution.
Hormonal shifts in your 20s and 30s can cause hair and skin changes, including adult acne and thinning hair.
They influence where fat goes on the body, and with ageing, the belly becomes the preferred dumping ground for fat tissue. In men, it can also be a drop in testosterone in middle age that results in differences in fat distribution around the body.
When a woman goes through menopause, their oestrogen levels drop. It can cause fat to build up around her waist instead of on her hips and legs. Postmenopausal women have 15–20% of their body weight come from belly fat, while premenopausal women only have 5–8% from belly fat.
A regular fitness routine can positively impact your hormones – not just your sex hormone levels but also others such as serotonin and dopamine – so you can improve your physical and mental health and well-being. You can also use exercise as a preventative measure for hormone imbalance or in preparation for menopause.
Experts say that the 18-34-year-old- age group is most likely to gain weight because the stress of starting college, getting a job, and starting a family may make them eat bad food, exercise less, or drink more alcohol. Cortisol is a hormone that is regulated by pituitary gland in the brain plays an important role in the stress response.
What happens to your hormones when you work out?
Oestrogen
There is a strong link between exercise and oestrogen. This sex hormone helps keep bones healthy, makes collagen in the skin and connective parts, affects lean body mass, and does more. But too much oestrogen can make you more likely to get hurt and less fit, so finding a balance is essential.
One study found a link between aerobic exercise and better use of oestrogen. Participants also lost weight and got healthier in other ways that help the body properly use oestrogen and other hormones.
Testosterone
Testosterone is the “male sex hormone” often linked to men’s muscle growth. But testosterone is also crucial for women. It helps with memory, bone structure, muscle tone, red blood cell production, and heart disease prevention. Lifting weights (they don’t need to be big) can help your body to raise your testosterone levels naturally.
The chemicals serotonin and dopamine
These chemicals in the brain could make us feel good after working out. Many experts in mental health say that exercise is good for our moods. There may be many reasons our attitudes improve after exercise, but serotonin and dopamine may be two big ones.
If you don’t work out, what happens?
One of the significant effects of laziness is gaining weight, which affects all parts of your health, including how your hormones work. When you eat poorly, it’s easy for your body weight (and especially your body fat) to go up.
The more weight you gain, the more it affects how your hormones work, which makes you gain even more weight. Also, hormones that don’t work well make it harder to lose weight.
Finally, fitness has a bigger purpose than aesthetic body image. Meta-Age is the antithesis of the superficial fitness narrative of losing weight and getting a six-pack. It is the ability to live a healthier longer life–hormonal balance— keeping your skin healthy and improving your health in every area of your life–the goal of fitness.
