Can You Hack Your Hormones?
This week on Your Diet Sucks, we’re talking hormones: what they are, what they do, and why they’ve become the latest scapegoat for every diet culture grift on the internet. From adrenal fatigue (not real) to seed cycling (also not real), Zoë and Kylee cut through the pseudoscience and explain what actually supports hormone health, like eating enough, managing stress, and getting some damn sleep.
We also dive into the bizarre history of hormone manipulation (yes, monkey testicle transplants come up), why cortisol isn’t your enemy, and what to do if your hormones genuinely feel off. If you’ve ever been told to “balance your hormones” with a supplement stack or juice cleanse, this episode is for you.
Can you "balance your hormones" with supplements? Is adrenal fatigue real? Does cortisol make you gain belly fat? In this episode, Zoë and Kylee tackle the explosion of hormone misinformation online—from seed cycling to juice cleanses to "hormone experts" with 24-hour certifications. They break down what hormones actually do, why the "hack your hormones" industry is mostly diet culture in a lab coat, and what really impacts hormone health (spoiler: it's sleep, stress, and eating enough).
What Are Hormones, Actually?
KYLEE: Welcome to Your Diet Sucks, the podcast that won't make you take testosterone boosters or use the fifth full moon to balance your cycle.
KYLEE: I like to think of hormones as little messengers that give your body a signal to do something. That's why when you hear broad strokes about "balancing hormones," it's difficult—because they can be pretty complex.
ZOË: There's so much stuff online about exercising this way because of this hormone, making it seem like if you pick up a weight or put on running shoes or eat grapefruit, it can immediately shift the balance of hormones in your body.
The Major Hormones
- Sex hormones: Testosterone, estrogen, progesterone
- Metabolic hormones: Insulin, thyroid hormones (T3, T4)
- Appetite hormones: Leptin (satiety) and ghrelin (hunger)
- Stress hormones: Cortisol, adrenaline
Does Adrenal Fatigue Exist?
ZOË: Adrenal fatigue is the idea that you're under so much stress that your adrenal glands are constantly pumping out cortisol until they just burn out. But here's the thing—there's actually no existing evidence for adrenal fatigue.
ZOË: There's a big meta-analysis of all papers on supposed adrenal fatigue. The title tells you everything: "Adrenal Fatigue Does Not Exist." It's not validated in existing research, but it's thrown around extremely casually online, particularly to sell supplements.
KYLEE: What people are actually dealing with is often more nebulous—chronic stress, poor sleep, under-fueling. These things can disrupt your appetite and leptin/ghrelin levels. It's not that your adrenals are broken.
Cortisol: Not the Enemy
ZOË: Cortisol is always cast as evil, always bad. But it's something we develop in response to exercise. It helps us get out of bed in the morning. You need cortisol to adapt to training stress.
KYLEE: When you're stressed, when you don't sleep enough, when you're training too much, cortisol can increase. And that can increase your appetite. So people blame cortisol for weight gain, but it's not direct. It's not like cortisol itself causes weight gain—it's a messenger responding to your lifestyle.
ZOË: All exercise produces cortisol. It kills me when I see content aimed at menopausal women saying "lift heavy" or "don't run at all because it'll make cortisol high and cause belly fat." That's a massive oversimplification.
How Dieting Actually Affects Hormones
KYLEE: With calorie restriction, leptin actually drops—which means less satiety. Ghrelin goes up, causing more hunger. Thyroid hormones down-regulate in long-term energy deficit.
KYLEE: I've seen athletes with subclinical hypothyroidism where the solution was actually to eat more—especially more carbs—and the thyroid stuff resolved. Sometimes doctors prescribe thyroid medication when someone just needs more food.
ZOË: So people get on that treadmill of "I'm noticing body composition changes, I need to restrict energy intake," which might actually inhibit the thyroid further.
The Insulin Myth
KYLEE: If you eat carbs, insulin is gonna go up, but it's also gonna drop back down once it does its job. Insulin also goes up with protein—kind of funny that these diets promote high-fat, high-protein while demonizing carbs.
ZOË: Protein just has a better PR team.
KYLEE: Reminder: insulin is not the enemy. It's just doing its job, trying to get things done. You don't blame the mailman for bringing you a package.
KYLEE: Insulin resistance is a metabolic condition—it's not a single spike after eating a cupcake. It's driven over time by sedentary behavior, sleep deprivation, stress, and chronic overnutrition.
The Dangers of Under-Eating Carbs
KYLEE: Studies have shown that even if you eat enough calories but not enough carbohydrates, that can lead to poor bone health. It signals bone resorption factors to increase, weakening bone structure.
ZOË: Wait—it literally reabsorbs stuff from your bones into the body?
KYLEE: It produces chemical messengers that break down bone, essentially. Low-carb diets often lead to under-fueling in general. If you try to eat a lot of protein and fat, it's actually quite filling, making it hard to meet energy needs.
KYLEE: Not eating enough carbs can lead to decreased thyroid hormone production, GI dysfunction, low iron—a cascade of events you'll regret later. A low-carb diet is a restrictive diet that can lead to binge-restrict cycles and damage your social relationship with food.
Can You "Detox" Your Hormones?
ZOË: What about juice cleanses and hormone detoxes?
KYLEE: The word "detox" implies you're getting rid of something dirty or broken. You might hear messaging like "flush out cortisol, reset your estrogen, detox your liver for hormonal harmony." In reality, your body detoxes itself. This is 21st-century snake oil.
ZOË: Girl, if your kidneys aren't working, that's not a problem you can solve with juice. You need actual medical help.
KYLEE: Juice cleanses can actually worsen symptoms. You could have increased bloating, mood swings from low blood sugar, and the fatigue and brain fog you're trying to get rid of—because you have lack of fuel.
Seed Cycling: Does It Work?
ZOË: I keep seeing this idea that "seed cycling" can balance your estrogen. What is this?
KYLEE: The premise is eating specific seeds during certain phases of your menstrual cycle. Follicular phase (days 1-14): flax and pumpkin seeds, claimed to boost estrogen. Luteal phase (days 15-28): sesame and sunflower seeds, claimed to boost progesterone.
KYLEE: Here's my theory: maybe people weren't eating nuts and seeds before, and now they're actually including them. Seeds have great micronutrients that people often avoid because of fat phobia. If you eat healthy fats, that's going to support your hormones—but it doesn't have to be specific seeds on the fifth day of your cycle.
What Actually Impacts Hormone Health
KYLEE: Hormonal optimization isn't about maxing out or minimizing. It's about balance in the context of your life.
ZOË: If it's not juice cleanses and supplements, what actually moves the needle?
KYLEE: All the things we keep coming back to: examining your stress levels, sleep patterns, sleep quality, food intake, and energy availability. These matter more than any magic supplement.
The Real Checklist
- Stress management: Life stress, training stress—examine both
- Sleep: Quality and quantity matter
- Energy availability: Are you eating enough to match training and life demands?
- Not excluding food groups: Especially carbohydrates
- Consistency: Are you skipping meals? Restricting and binging? Over-exercising?
- Recovery: If you're a coach or athlete, proper rest matters
KYLEE: If you don't have enough nutrition coming in, you don't have the building blocks to make hormones. That's the piece people miss when they fixate on specific foods at specific times.
ZOË: You can't out-pill under-fueling. There's no morning routine that can help you optimize if you're overtraining.
The Bottom Line
KYLEE: We're not saying it can't be the hormones—you could have a real hormonal issue. But work with a qualified professional, not a "hormone expert" with a 24-hour certification. If hormones are off, ask yourself: what are they responding to? What's the underlying cause?
ZOË: So do you need to eat, sleep, exercise, and meditate? Or do you need to tape guinea pig balls to yourself? I think we know the answer.
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