Malnutrition is another cause of low progesterone. If you automatically assume that this can't apply to you, your loved one or a patient, because sitting in front of you they are"overweight", consider the many ways someone can be malnourished.
You can be malnourished if you eat a lot of calories without nutritional value. Eating a lot of junk food, and very few fruits and vegetables, for example, can deplete the body's supplies of important vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants.
You can be malnourished if you eat so much of one kind of food that in the process of metabolizing it, you burn through important nutrients. That can happen if you eat a lot of carbohydrates, for example, it uses up a lot of chromium.
You can be malnourished if the list of foods you eat is very narrow--even if all of them show up somewhere on the Internet as the"world's healthiest". You need variety in order to get all the nutrients that makes your hormones work.
You can be malnourished if you take certain medications. The list of nutrients that can be depleted on certain medications is long. If your physician or dietitian have never checked yours, maybe it's a good service to request on your next visit.
You can be malnourished if you only consider"nutrition" to be what you weigh and you starve yourself in order to change that number. That happens a lot with PCOS. It is an erroneous belief that overweight causes PCOS. PCOS is worse if your weight is too high, but your weight does not cause it. Eating healthfully will steer your weight down, if you need to lose some, but starving yourself may keep you stuck at a weight you'd rather not be at.
You can be malnourished if you yo-yo diet. That is what happens when you put all of the above together in one scenario. Eating disorders and PCOS go hand in hand. Most of the women I work with are soooooo afraid of food on our first visit. They don't eat anything because they're scared that one indiscretion will elevate their blood sugar, prevent that pregnancy, make the scale go up…and then when they can't take it anymore, they binge on all the foods they tried to avoid.
That is simply no way to live!
I had the most enjoyable visit with a client a few days ago who was exactly like that when we first met. I was so surprised when, in the middle of our visit, she took me into her kitchen and showed me her refrigerator, loaded with all kinds of fruits and vegetables. Then she cooked me some green beans in red chile that she'd created. We finished the visit over mango slices sprinkled with chile powder. (For another post!) It was such a turnaround, and I was so happy to see that the focus had become all of the wonderful things you can DO with food, instead of all of the sacrifices you have to make if you want to"eat healthy".
She's pregnant now. At one point she rubbed her belly and said,"Thank you, baby!" That little miracle we are all extremely excited to meet did her mama a huge favor by introducing her to food as something fun, and something to enjoy.
I am hoping that all of you enjoy your Thanksgiving dinners and think about what you eat as how you NOURISH, not what you DEPRIVE yourself of. It may prove to be an important part of pumping up your progesterone.