Hormones are often a hidden reason why people have diffi culty losing weight. There is more to losing weight than just exercising and sticking to a healthy diet. For optimum weight loss we have to activate certain hormones in the body which are the T3 and T4 hormones released from your thyroid. These help get your metabolism moving and when they are out of sync it is di cult for your body to break down food properly. Couple that with estrogen and testosterone not working properly and often, especially in females, iron de ciency and the weight loss process slows signi cantly. Overeating is a big problem for many people and can often be handled better by sticking to a diet which involves eating more protein. Leptin is a hormone that tells your brain you are full, this helps avoid over eating. Eating protein helps your brain become more sensitive to leptin. Fatty processed foods can cause in ammation in the brain thus causing leptin to be less eff ective which can cause you to eat more, even when you are not really hungry. Leptin is produced while you are sleeping and anything less than 6 hours may mean that there isn’t enough of this hormone being produced. This will make it less eff ective in communication with your brain. Your body will do this on purpose so you will eat more in order to make up for the lack of sleep and energy. This is not what you want when you are trying to lose weight. Ironically when trying to lose weight it is important to eat regular, proper portioned meals as these will help activate your hormones. Skipping meals will have the opposite e ffect and slow your metabolism down.