Hormones play an integral part in weight loss and weight control.   Hormones control metabolism and metabolism controls the efficiency with which the body burns calories.  Hormones also affect a person’s ability to maintain muscle, another key element in metabolism.   Remember how easy it was to lose weight when you were in your 20’s?  Now think about the decline of that ability to control weight and how it has tracked in lock step with your decline in hormones. Battling weight with unhealthy low hormones levels is like trying to push a rock up hill.  Pushing a rock is difficult – pushing it up hill is extremely difficult. This is how it’s done: Get your hormones – testosterone, thyroid and if possible growth hormone – replaced to healthy levels. Watch your diet, mainly refined carbohydrates (google: “glycemic index”).  Refined carbs causes the body to release excess insulin.  Excess insulin signals the body to add and retain weight. Be as active as your creative mind can conceive.  Healthy hormones will make you want to be more active because healthy hormones will increase energy and remove a depression that may be causing your mind / body to say, “I don’t feel like going for a walk.   I think I will watch TV”. And Last but certainly not least If, and only if, you have made a commitment to the above; take a picture of yourself from your 20’s or 30’s and tape it to your bathroom mirror.   That body can again be yours in 6 months.