Balancing the endocrine system including the use of maca

Today is my first day concentrating on the following goals:

• Looking after my endocrine system
• Reducing my weight back to normal after gaining 3kg
• Completing four weeks of C25K
• Creating a balcony garden

I’ll be focusing on these four goals over the next 30 days and so I’ll report my progress here to keep myself honest.

Endocrine System

It seems that so many people, women in particular are finding their endocrine systems are getting out of whack due to xenoestrogens in the environment, including water supply, pesticides on food and even in our own home with discharge from plastics etc. I want to ensure that my endocrine system is working well, rather than let the environment control my health.

I took a heaped teaspoon of maca with my breakfast in the morning. It has a really strong taste so I’ve been disguising it with some strong tasting smoothies. Maca should only be consumed raw as the special nutritional properties it contains will be damaged if cooked. Here is an explanation about what maca does:
The Health Benefits of Maca for the Endocrine System

Basically the information I have collected through reading numerous sources on the web and also reading David Wolfe’s Superfoods book states that maca is a powerful adaptogen that is particularly well known for balancing the endocrine system which has a flow-on effect to increase fertility in women. Here’s what David Wolfe has to say about this special Peruvian root:

“According to research, maca as an adaptogenic superfood increases energy, endurance, oxygen in the blood, physical strength, neurotransmitter production, and libido. It supports the endocrine system, the adrenals, and the thyroid, typically improves one’s mood, and helps support healthy hormone production.”

So as part of my goal to strengthen my endocrine system I plan to take maca every day for thirty days. Some maca websites have suggested that while maca should be taken every day for a period of time it is best to have a rest after a few weeks use.

For this goal it will be a little difficult to determine whether my 30 days has worked or not, but for the next 30 days I will measure my Basal Body Temperature (BBT) every day to see whether the maca is regulating the temperature. It is my theory that if the maca is having a good effect in my body then I should see a balancing of temperatures in the first half of my cycle that are clearly in the estrogen zone and temperatures in the second half of my cycle that are clearly in the progesterone zone. At the moment my BBT recordings seem a little erratic, so that is my primary goal, to see a definite strength in the right hormones at the right time. Perhaps next month I will take my goal a little more seriously by taking a saliva hormone test before and after my 30 days so that I can see if the things I have done have actually balanced them. A saliva hormone test will test all the hormones in my endocrine system rather than just estrogen and progesterone.

I did some research last night about how to support the endocrine system and there are a few more things that I would like to do:

• Avoid any plastic coming in contact with anything I am going to eat – this means giving up my pre-washed salad in plastic bags and instead washing my own. Maybe the organic salads in corn bags are OK, but I’ll need to look into it.
• Eat only organic products – pesticides are xenoestrogens.
• Do whatever it takes to reduce stress. Cortisol (adrenal stress hormone) is in direct competition with progesterone and progestrone is the female hormone which needs to be increased in general due to most women having an estrogen dominance (largely caused by xenoestrogens).
• Go to bed before 10pm because staying up later upsets the biorhythms which in turn upsets the adrenals.
• Reduce sugar consumption and increase magnesium consumption, because sugar consumption causes the body to excrete magnesium and magnesium is necessary for breaking down estrogen, including all the harmful xenoestrogens from the environment.

So that’s a lot of things to do and I’ll get cracking on improving in all of these areas over the next 30 days. If it takes me a bit longer to incorporate these habits into my lifestyle then I can always start again with another goal.

I’ve run out of time to report on my other three focus points, so I’m not going to stress out about it . Tomorrow!

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