I’m always thrilled to find out about a product that’s helping my patients. I recently spoke with a woman who we’ll call Jill. Jill had recently begun attending a workout class developed by Sebastian Lagree, a passionate weight lifter and exercise enthusiast. As you can imagine, this is an intense program. Jill described it as “Pilates times a million.” Most of the people who attend the class are in their early 20s. Jill is more than twice their age.

It’s been said that getting older is better than the alternative. While that may be true, some people certainly age more gracefully than others. And many of the perceived negatives of aging aren’t inevitable. In fact, there’s a lot we can do to help ourselves look great and feel great for decades. 

When it comes to weight loss, we tend to assume there are only two pieces to the puzzle: diet and exercise. Or to simplify it even further, calories in and calories out. But in fact, there are a whole host of other factors that contribute to or hold us back from weight loss success. I’m sure it won’t surprise you to hear that hormones can play a major role. After all, these chemicals affect almost every aspect of our health. Fortunately, we aren’t simply at their mercy. There’s a lot we can do to affect the balance of our hormones and how they influence our fat storage, appetite, and weight. We just have to understand what they are and how they work.