Why You Should NOT Do HRT (Hormone Replacement Therapy) For Weight Loss!

[00:00:00]Hey, this is Stu Shafer and I'm about to explain why I do not recommend doing HRT, hormone replacement therapy, for weight loss and longevity. This is both for men and women. Now, let the hate comments begin and I've been getting a lot of them. I'll give you some examples. I always get the comment of, "Oh, look at this. It's a man who's talking about women and menopause. What does he know?" Well, you know, I've only been doing this for the last 20 plus years and I've only worked with thousands and thousands of women over 40 and even in their 50s, 60s, and 70s. I get repeated results like very predictable results over and over again and I've seen women and men naturally balance their hormones without any hormone replacement therapy. So, what I'm about to tell you, I've done. I've done it over and over again over the last two decades. It's not theory. This is what's working with real people in the field. So, I don't care if you listen or not. It's not going to affect me one way or the other, but you might want to consider what I'm about to tell you. There's five reasons that I do not recommend HRT for weight loss and longevity. Let me go over what they are. The first one is that it's a one-way street. When you start HRT, whether it's bioidentical or not, what you're doing, this is the same for men and women. What you're doing is you're putting hormones into the body from external sources. When that happens, your body will stop producing whatever it was producing and it will become reliant on the external hormones. So, once you start them, you're going to be on them forever. Plain and simple. So, if you're not ready for this to be a permanent thing, a permanent shift, then I wouldn't do it. And there's other ways you can balance your hormones first.

[00:02:05]Now, there's going to be comments about how it's impossible that women's hormones go down when they age, and so do men's, and all this stuff. And what I'm about to tell you is because I've seen it happen over and over again.

[00:02:18]Women that I've worked with will have certain hormones that are undetectable.

[00:02:23]They're not there. They're gone.

[00:02:25]And within 3 to 6 months, they're back in normal range without hormone replacement therapy. This is just through very specific ways of eating, exercise, mindset, and certain supplementation. So, you can do it. You can do it naturally. Why wouldn't you want to start that way? Because then it's not a one-way street. It's all natural. It's better for your body anyway. So, if you are going to go down the HRT road, just remember, once you start, it's permanent. And that's why I don't recommend it. The second reason I don't recommend it is because it's not addressing the root cause. Most of the time, if men's and women's hormones are off, which many of us have hormones that are off, especially in menopause, especially when men hit age 40, the root cause is not just the age or menopause or whatever. There are other root causes that make your hormones go out of balance. For example, the number one root cause is high [snorts] cortisol.

[00:03:31]Now, another one is gut issues. If you If your gut health is off, then that'll indirectly raise your cortisol. If you're eating poorly, I shouldn't even say poorly. If you're not eating correctly, and this is a big distinction. You can be eating healthy foods, but be eating incorrectly, and therefore you're causing the chemical reactions in the body. This will also throw off your hormones. This will also make them decline more quickly.

[00:04:01]And you can rebalance them by eating correctly, which is different than just healthy.

[00:04:06]Correctly. This also impacts your weight loss. This also impacts longevity more than anything else, which is why you'd always want to start there.

[00:04:14]So, the root cause is not just, "Oh, I'm getting older. That means I have to have hormones." No. If your hormones are off, you want to first address the root cause. Is it stress? Is it diet? Is it gut issues? Is it too much exercise, which is a form of stress? Is it something else going on? You're eating foods that you have food sensitivities to, which are causing inflammation. Or you are experiencing inflammation for some other reason. If you just replace your hormones through HRT and you don't address those other things, guess what?

[00:04:49]They're still going to cause all these other issues. And many clients will get on HRT and then they can't even figure out how to balance them because these underlying root causes, they haven't addressed them. You want to always start with the root cause, and not just throw a band-aid on it, which is HRT.

[00:05:07]Let's look at the third reason I don't recommend hormone replacement therapy.

[00:05:11]And that is the fact that it's not natural. Now, someone's going to say inevitably, "Bioidentical hormones are like natural hormones." It's not natural. You are putting a substance in externally that's your body is It's going to change how your body responds.

[00:05:28]Natural is food and exercise to some degree, maybe some natural herbs or supplements. When you do it all natural, your your body won't become reliant on anything. It's You're Think about this.

[00:05:43]Your body, our bodies, my body, your body, everyone's body is designed to heal itself and to balance itself. This is why when we get a cut, it heals itself.

[00:05:54]Okay, it's also designed to keep your system in balance and it's got thousands of chemical reactions, hormones, enzymes, you name it. And the there's a pituitary gland and your thyroid, there's all these systems in your body like a thermostat in your home that are specifically designed to keep everything in balance.

[00:06:15]Now, what impacts how well your body can do that? That's going to be your nutrition, your exercise, your sleep habits, your other lifestyle habits, stress, etc. So, if you do it all naturally, guess what? Your body is going to balance itself, heal itself, and it's going to be in the right zone, the right range for your body, and this really, in my opinion, is the only way to do things.

[00:06:37]Look, obviously we have a ton of technology now. We've got hormones, peptides, all this stuff. Just because we have it and we think we're so smart and technologically advanced, doesn't mean it's the best thing. Doesn't even mean we should be using it.

[00:06:54]The natural way is always going to be the best and this should always be your predominant or primary uh function or way of doing things. Something like HRT should be a last resort after you've already exhausted all of these other potential variables.

[00:07:12]And so when I work with clients, the thing we do every single time is we're balancing their food, exercise, mindset, stress, sleep, lifestyle in a way that's super simple, but that puts their body in harmony. And this is why they get such fantastic results. They get amazing weight loss results, their energy goes up, their brain fog goes away, their hormones balance, their thyroid strengthens, their metabolism strengthens, they look 10 years younger because that's what the body is designed to do. But we have to put it in the right environment. Diets like keto aren't going to do that. Carnivore aren't going to do that. Fasting aren't going to do that. Cutting out carbs aren't That's not going to do Those have the opposite effect. They overstress the body. And so they make things worse.

[00:07:59]So you want to go the natural route.

[00:08:02]Let's look at the fourth reason I don't recommend HRT. And that's because of what I just referenced. You can do it with food. You don't need the HRT. Now someone's going to inevitably comment that some women have to have HRT.

[00:08:19]I'm doubtful on that because I've seen so many times. Think about this. If you've seen hundreds of women over the years balance their hormones naturally just with nutrition changes, with activity and lifestyle changes, you would be a little leery too that someone has to have HRT. Now are there probably outliers out there that yes, that there's someone that absolutely might need it. Probably. Because anything's possible. And I would never rule that out. But the likelihood that you need HRT, whether you're a man or a woman, testosterone replacement therapy or HRT, the likelihood that you need that is very low. The likelihood of you being able to do it with food, lifestyle, exercise changes instead is extremely high. And if that's the case, then you would always want to start the natural route. Make those changes because you're going to feel amazing.

[00:09:19]You're going to address all the root causes. And the end result is going to be the same, but your body won't be reliant on anything coming in from the outside. And so there's no downside. HRT has a tremendous downside. And if it's reliant, you're going to be on it for the rest of your life. There's always going to be side effects, so you want to consider that as well. You can do it with food and lifestyle changes. Why not start there? Why not at least start there before you automatically push the HRT button and put a band-aid over the the real solution?

[00:09:52]Why not start there? And I'll have comments about, "Oh, you don't know what it's like. You know, it's pure hell and you know, how long would this take to do it naturally?" 3 to 6 months. You're telling me you can't spare an extra 3 to 6 months to get this figured out all naturally, do it in a way that's going to be permanent, and won't have any of the downside? That just doesn't make sense to me. That's There's just so much upside to doing it that way. Why wouldn't you at least uh try that? Okay?

[00:10:23]All right, the final reason I don't recommend HRT, the fifth reason, is because you can start with natural supplements.

[00:10:31]So, even if you've done the the nutrition, the lifestyle, you've addressed the root causes like stress, gut issues, and something is still off, there are a number of supplements and natural roots and and substances that are are effective for helping your body balance your hormones. Again, it's way cheaper than HRT.

[00:10:59]It's way healthier. Because it's all natural, it's non-addictive. Your body won't become reliant on it. You might even get the same results. Let me give you just a couple examples of things that can help with women's hormones. One example is myo-inositol. Now, women who have PCOS, polycystic ovarian syndrome, I mean, their blood sugar will be out of whack, their hormones will be tanking, they might even be dealing with depression and anxiety. Myo-inositol, which is a sugar alcohol, by the way, all natural, has been shown in clinical studies to be very effective at balancing blood sugar and insulin, balancing hormones, easing anxiety and depression, and it's all natural.

[00:11:40]This is very simple example. There are so many of these supplements. Now, I'm not going to list the dozens of supplements because if you're looking at supplementation, that's something that absolutely has to be specific for you and your blood work. It would be very careless to just take a bunch of supplements without understanding what's going on with your blood work first, and that's vital.

[00:12:03]But, there's natural supplements that aren't hormone based, they're not bioidentical, they're herbs and roots and things like that that literally work with your body in a natural way like food to allow your body to heal and balance itself including the hormones. They can aid in sleep, lowering cortisol, uh weight loss, metabolism, you name it.

[00:12:27]And so, why not start there, too? I mean, it it's just it does it just makes sense to do everything natural and not automatically jump on the HRT bandwagon.

[00:12:38]So, why is there so much talk about HRT right now?

[00:12:41]Simple. One word, money. Okay? They the black label thing happened and now the HR the hormones are are different, you people can prescribe them differently.

[00:12:52]This is a cash cow for doctors and functional doctors and naturopaths people that own practices and whatnot.

[00:13:01]So, why wouldn't they be promoting HRT?

[00:13:04]It's money in their pocket. It's just going to it's just going to, you know, help their bottom line. So, of course they're going to recommend it.

[00:13:12]We're human beings, okay? No one is immune to human nature. And unfortunately right now, human nature in this country is very competitive and it's very money based. The same thing with creatine. Everyone's talking about creatine for women all of a sudden.

[00:13:30]Creatine has been around commercially and was popularized back in 1994 and men have been using it for 30 years.

[00:13:38]Why all of a sudden do you hear all this stuff about how magical creatine is all of a sudden for women? Because the menopause market is exploding. So, you slap menopause on creatine, now all of a sudden you're selling out of it. So, you have to remember that there's fads and people chase money. Not long ago, if you slapped the word keto on something, a recipe, um a brownie mix, keto brownies, you would sell these things like hot cakes.

[00:14:07]And there's a lot of people out there that just chase the fads and all they want to do is make money. Hormones right now is a fad, everyone's jumping on it, same with peptides. They it's such a lucrative thing that everyone's jumping in like sharks to try to make extra money. You just have to be aware of that. Here's what we're going to do really quick. There's two links in the description. One for a free fat loss quiz, one for a free fat loss masterclass. Go click those links, go watch those right now. Also, we're going to splash up two video lessons.

[00:14:40]Go watch those right now. They're going to give you more in-depth knowledge on everything. This is a straight talk, it's what works in the field.

[00:14:48]This is it. This is legit. I'll see you over there on the other videos. I hope this was helpful. All right, take care.