Excess Matters

Tag: mood

  • It’s Not You, It’s Your Hormones by Nicki Williams: Summary, Key Ideas & Review

    Book in one sentence: A UK nutritional therapist walks women through the four hormones wrecking their health after 40, and shows how food and lifestyle can actually fix them.

    What Is It’s Not You, It’s Your Hormones! About?

    Picture this: you’re standing at the kitchen sink, too depleted to think, and your seven-year-old comes in to show you a drawing she made at school. You snap at her. Her face falls. She says, “Why are you always so grumpy, Mummy?” That moment happened to Nicki Williams in January 2007. She was 42, exhausted, gaining weight around her middle despite trying every diet, and had just left her GP’s office holding a Prozac prescription she didn’t want.

    Williams sat in her car and cried. Then she called her father (also a doctor, one who had long since moved toward functional medicine) and he said: “Don’t worry, Nick. It’ll be your hormones.” That conversation sent her back to school, through a four-year qualification at the Institute of Optimum Nutrition, and eventually into a clinical practice built around the population she had become: women over 40 who feel terrible and keep being told their bloodwork is fine.

    It’s Not You, It’s Your Hormones! is the book that came out of that journey. Williams is not an academic, and she writes like a practitioner, not a researcher. What she offers is a clear, accessible framework for understanding why perimenopause-era symptoms (fatigue, abdominal weight gain, brain fog, mood swings, broken sleep) happen at a physiological level, and what food and lifestyle changes can do about them. The UK origin means NHS references and British supplement brands appear throughout, but the underlying physiology translates cleanly anywhere.

    Why Am I Gaining Weight When Nothing Has Changed?

    That question drives most of the women who pick up this book. They haven’t changed what they eat. They’re not sedentary. They’re doing all the things that used to work, and the scale is still creeping up, specifically around the middle, in a way it never used to.

    Williams’s answer centers on cortisol and insulin working together against you. Cortisol, the stress hormone, has a direct effect on abdominal fat storage: abdominal fat contains four times more cortisol receptors than fat anywhere else in the body. When cortisol is chronically elevated (from any form of stress, including poor sleep, refined carbohydrates, or skipped meals), it mobilizes blood glucose. That glucose spike triggers insulin. Insulin is the fat-storage signal, and with blood sugar elevated, it’s chronically activated regardless of how little you’re eating.

    “Not only do we have four times more cortisol receptors in our abdominal fat than any other part of the body, but cortisol also stimulates appetite — sugar and carbs are vital when you need energy to run from that lion.”

    The practical consequence is brutal: calorie restriction often makes this worse. A severe cut signals famine to the brain, which triggers more cortisol, which slows metabolism and breaks down muscle for glucose, which produces powerful cravings for sugar and refined carbohydrates. Williams draws on Zoe Harcombe’s work to note that 98% of people either fail to lose weight on a calorie-controlled diet or regain what they lost. The mechanism itself produces those outcomes.

    The loop she describes is also behind the 3am wake-up and the afternoon crash. Blood sugar drops overnight, cortisol surges to correct it, and you’re wide awake. The morning exhaustion that follows sends you to coffee and carbohydrates, blood sugar spikes and crashes again, and the cycle restarts. Understanding that this is a physiological cascade, not a willpower failure, is the orientation shift the book is built around.

    What Is the Happy Hormone Code?

    Williams organizes her intervention into four steps: Eat, Rest, Cleanse, Move. Each maps to a specific hormonal lever. The whole system is built around what she calls the “Feisty Four”: cortisol, insulin, thyroid, and estrogen/progesterone. These four hormones interact so tightly that dysfunction in one tends to cascade into the others.

    A few things worth knowing from each step:

    Eat reframes food as hormonal information rather than calories. The practical targets are protein at every meal, low-glycemic-load carbohydrates, cruciferous vegetables (which contain indole-3-carbinol to support estrogen metabolism through the liver), healthy fats, and 35 grams of fiber daily. Ground flaxseeds get specific attention: two tablespoons a day, because flaxseeds contain lignans at roughly 100 times the concentration of any other food source, and lignans bind excess estrogen for elimination via the gut. A minimum 12-hour overnight fast is also recommended for insulin management.

    Rest addresses cortisol directly. Williams is clear that stress management isn’t optional, it’s the foundational intervention. Consistent sleep before 11pm, diaphragmatic breathing (five-count rhythm, ten repetitions), and screens off one hour before bed are her baseline. Adaptogenic herbs like ashwagandha and rhodiola get a mention as cortisol modulators, and magnesium glycinate at bedtime comes up repeatedly as a first-line supplement because magnesium is rapidly depleted by stress and supports both cortisol regulation and sleep.

    Cleanse focuses on xenoestrogens, the environmental chemicals from plastics, pesticides, and personal care products that mimic estrogen in the body. Williams recommends switching to glass and stainless steel where possible, choosing organic produce for high-pesticide items, and supporting the liver and gut as the main clearance routes for excess estrogen. The cruciferous vegetable recommendation reappears here.

    Move reframes the exercise question for cortisol-depleted women. More cardio is not better. Williams advocates 30-minute daily walks, brief HIIT sessions (15 minutes, two or three times a week, because short HIIT raises growth hormone and improves insulin sensitivity without adding significant cortisol load), resistance training, and yoga or Pilates for their cortisol-lowering effects specifically.

    One of the more useful distinctions in the book is Williams’s separation of estrogen dominance from low estrogen. These are two different perimenopausal states that require different responses. Estrogen dominance (too much estrogen relative to declining progesterone, common from the mid-30s onward) produces heavy or painful periods, breast tenderness, PMS, bloating, and conditions like fibroids. Low estrogen (the later perimenopausal and menopausal state) produces hot flushes, night sweats, dry skin, and memory changes. Using phytoestrogen support for the dominance phase can worsen it. The framework to tell them apart is one of the book’s more distinctive contributions.

    What Does “Normal” Lab Work Actually Miss?

    A significant portion of Williams’s readership has already been to their GP, had blood drawn, been told everything looks fine, and left no closer to understanding why they feel awful. The testing chapter is written for them.

    Williams draws a sharp line between “normal” (anywhere within a reference range) and “optimal” (in the range where symptoms actually resolve). The thyroid example is the clearest illustration. The NHS upper limit for TSH is 5.0 mU/L. Many integrative practitioners treat 2.5 mU/L as the functional upper limit. A result of 4.2 is entirely “normal” by conventional standards and may prompt nothing further, while a patient at that level could be functionally hypothyroid.

    “There is often a huge difference between someone with optimal TSH and someone with a level that is just within range. It will most often show up in their symptoms. If you ask me, I’d be wanting OPTIMAL levels not ‘normal’ levels.”

    Standard thyroid panels measure only TSH, which is the pituitary’s signal to produce thyroid hormone, not whether the body is converting that hormone into its active form (T3) or whether the cells can receive it. Williams recommends requesting TSH, free T4, free T3, Reverse T3, and TPO antibodies (the last one for Hashimoto’s autoimmune thyroiditis, which she notes accounts for roughly 80% of hypothyroid cases). She also introduces the Barnes Basal Temperature Test, six consecutive mornings of underarm temperature readings before getting up, as a low-cost screen: consistent readings below 36.6°C suggest low thyroid function even with normal labs.

    For adrenal function, she recommends saliva cortisol testing over serum testing, because saliva captures cortisol at multiple points through the day (including the critical morning cortisol awakening response) rather than a single snapshot. For sex hormones, she specifies timing: days 19-20 of the cycle, when progesterone should be at its peak and the estrogen-to-progesterone ratio is most informative. A woman tested on day 5 or day 28 gets a picture that tells a very different story.

    Is It’s Not You, It’s Your Hormones! Worth Reading?

    Read this if you’re between roughly 35 and 55, experiencing the cluster of symptoms Williams describes (fatigue that doesn’t resolve with sleep, abdominal weight gain, worsening PMS or cycle changes, mood instability, brain fog), and especially if you’ve had normal labs and been told there’s nothing wrong. Also useful if you’re a health coach or practitioner working with this population and want a clear client-education framework.

    Skip it if you want a heavily cited research text or if you’re primarily post-menopausal and focused on HRT decisions. The HRT chapter is balanced and honest about the limits of Williams’s expertise in that area, but it’s thin coverage for someone who needs it to be the main event.

    One caveat: the book was published in 2017, the research base for several claims (especially around HIIT for women over 40 and some of the adrenal fatigue framing) has evolved since then, and the UK-specific medical references require translation for anyone outside the NHS. Williams does not always distinguish clearly between interventions with strong evidence and those with more preliminary or clinical-observation-only support. Take the supplement protocols as a starting point for a conversation with a practitioner, not a prescription.

    Books Like It’s Not You, It’s Your Hormones!

    BookAuthorBest For
    Happy HormonesAngelique VermeulenWomen who want a broader hormonal overview beyond perimenopause
    The Hormone ShiftTasneem BhatiaDeeper clinical detail with a heavier research base
    Hormone IntelligenceAviva RommIntegrative MD perspective with stronger evidence citations
    The Perimenopause SolutionDr. Shahzadi HarperUK-based GP who covers HRT and lifestyle together
    Is It Me or My Hormones?Marcelle PickSimilar audience, more emphasis on the emotional and relational side

  • Is It Me or My Hormones by Marcelle Pick: Summary, Key Ideas & Review

    Book in one sentence: A functional medicine nurse-practitioner explains why your hormone labs can look completely normal while you feel completely terrible, and what to do about it.

    What Is Is It Me or My Hormones? About? {#what-is-it-about}

    Picture a woman who has seen ten doctors. Her labs keep coming back normal. She keeps getting offered antidepressants. She’s not depressed, she says. Or maybe she is, but only for one week out of every four, which seems like a different problem entirely. Nobody has a satisfying answer for her.

    Marcelle Pick built her career treating that woman. She co-founded Women to Women, a Maine clinic she started alongside Christiane Northrup, and spent decades in clinical practice before writing this book. Her argument, built from patient case after patient case, is that conventional medicine keeps looking at the wrong hormones. It tests estrogen and progesterone, finds them in the “normal range,” and calls it a day. Meanwhile, cortisol and insulin (the hormones that actually run the show) are never checked, never addressed, and never implicated.

    Pick is an OB/GYN nurse-practitioner writing from a functional medicine framework. Her tone is warm and direct without being breathless. The book opens with her own story: sitting in a car outside a pottery shop at age 20, too numb to feel anything, unable to understand why her exciting life wasn’t landing. Only later did she recognize it as PMS. That personal grounding gives the book something most hormone guides don’t have: the writer has actually been in the body she’s describing.

    The book covers estrogen dominance, adrenal dysregulation, thyroid, mood, weight, cravings, libido, and perimenopause, then delivers a graduated four-week plan for fixing it. What makes it useful for anyone thinking about eating and emotions is that Pick connects the mood-hormone link directly to food behavior: cravings, stress eating, comfort eating, loss of motivation, and the particular misery of doing everything “right” and still gaining weight.

    Why Your Mood, Your Eating, and Your Hormones Are Running the Same Loop {#the-loop}

    Here’s the pattern Pick describes over and over: a woman’s hormone levels look fine on paper, but two weeks of every month she’s snapping at everyone, craving sugar, gaining weight, and barely sleeping. Her doctor shrugs. She wonders if she’s losing her mind.

    She’s not. The cravings aren’t weakness. The mood swings aren’t character flaws. They’re downstream effects of a system running out of balance upstream.

    Pick’s central framework is the hormonal cascade. Your body has more than 100 hormones, and they talk to each other constantly. Cortisol and insulin are the dominant voices. When cortisol stays elevated from chronic stress (or poor sleep, or skipping meals, or a life that runs too hot), it suppresses thyroid function, disrupts leptin and ghrelin (your hunger and fullness signals), and depletes the precursors your body needs to make progesterone. Dysregulated insulin causes blood sugar spikes and crashes that trigger more cortisol. Estrogen and progesterone sit downstream of all of this, which is why fixing them directly often doesn’t work.

    The mood-eating connection runs right through this cascade. When cortisol is high, your brain craves fast fuel (sugar, refined carbs). Low progesterone pulls serotonin down with it, making cravings worse and emotional regulation harder. Blood sugar crashes after the granola bar you had for breakfast, and your body reads it as an emergency and reaches for the nearest quick fix. This isn’t psychological weakness. It’s biology.

    “If you crave sugar, sweets, and starches, that’s partly because of the ways hormones affect your brain’s response to serotonin. Anxiety, depression, and mood swings can likewise result from imbalanced levels of stress hormones, serotonin, and other neurotransmitters, including dopamine.”

    Pick’s most useful reframe: you cannot diet your way out of hormonal eating patterns. Restricting calories when cortisol is elevated and insulin is dysregulated tends to make things worse (more cortisol, more cravings, more fat storage). The tractable entry point is blood sugar stabilization, not restriction.

    One caveat worth naming: Pick uses the term “adrenal fatigue” throughout the book. Conventional endocrinologists don’t recognize it as a diagnosis, and the evidence base is genuinely thin. The underlying concept (that chronic stress dysregulates cortisol patterns) has real clinical support. The specific term is contested. Read it as “chronic HPA axis dysregulation” if you prefer language with harder evidence behind it.

    What Is Estrogen Dominance and Why Isn’t Anyone Testing for It? {#estrogen-dominance}

    Estrogen dominance is probably the most practically useful concept in this book. It’s also the one most likely to explain what’s happening when your labs come back fine and you still feel terrible.

    Estrogen dominance doesn’t mean your estrogen is high. It means your estrogen is high relative to your progesterone. Both values can sit comfortably inside the reference range while the ratio between them is badly off. High-normal estrogen plus low-normal progesterone produces a recognizable symptom picture: bloating, breast tenderness, weight gain in hips and thighs, cyclical mood instability, heavy or irregular bleeding, and a general sense of feeling overwhelmed that gets worse in the week before your period. Two “normal” numbers on a blood test won’t flag it.

    Pick identifies the main drivers:

    • Chronic stress steals progesterone precursors (cortisol and progesterone share a biosynthetic pathway)
    • Insulin resistance promotes estrogen production in fat cells
    • Excess body fat is itself a source of estrogen, which creates a self-reinforcing loop
    • Xenoestrogens from plastics, pesticides, and synthetic fragrances mimic estrogen and add to the total burden
    • Poor liver detoxification means spent estrogen isn’t being cleared properly

    One thing Pick says that most books in this genre miss: estrogen dominance tends to get worse in perimenopause, not better. Progesterone drops first and faster as the transition begins, so the ratio tips further toward dominance even as absolute estrogen levels fall. This is why many women in their 40s feel more hormonally chaotic than they did at 35, not less.

    The practical answer isn’t necessarily prescription hormones. Daily cruciferous vegetables, ground flaxseed, adequate fiber, and regular bowel movements all support the liver’s ability to clear spent estrogen. Reducing xenoestrogen exposure (glass containers over plastic, filtered water, unscented personal care products) reduces the incoming burden. These aren’t dramatic interventions, but they work on the actual mechanism.

    What Pick Actually Recommends You Do {#what-to-do}

    The second half of the book is a graduated four-week plan. Pick adds one or two changes per week deliberately, because asking for a complete overhaul on day one is how most plans fail. The core of it:

    Dietary foundations first:

    • Half the plate is nonstarchy vegetables, one quarter protein, one quarter low-glycemic carbohydrate
    • Never eat a carbohydrate alone (always paired with protein and fat)
    • Three meals and two snacks, eating within 30-60 minutes of waking
    • Daily cruciferous vegetables for estrogen detox support
    • Two tablespoons of ground flaxseed or chia daily for estrogen metabolism
    • Eliminate sugar, refined flour, gluten, and cow’s milk dairy (at minimum initially)

    Lifestyle anchors:

    • Seven to nine hours of sleep consistently (Pick frames sleep as a hormonal intervention, not just rest)
    • Moderate interval exercise four days a week, not long steady-state cardio (which raises cortisol)
    • A daily parasympathetic practice that starts at five minutes of belly breathing and scales to 30 minutes by week four

    Supplement foundations for everyone:

    • Methylated multivitamin (with 5-MTHF, not just folic acid)
    • Fish oil for hormone synthesis and inflammation
    • Magnesium (depleted by stress, supports sleep and muscle function)
    • Ground flaxseed (lignans for estrogen metabolism)

    Targeted additions (for PMS, perimenopause, mood, or cravings) layer on after the foundation is established. Pick is firm about sequence: you can’t supplement your way out of a destabilized foundation.

    The most actionable single change: stabilize blood sugar first. Protein and fat at every meal, starting at breakfast, is the intervention with the most downstream hormonal benefit. It quiets cortisol, reduces cravings, and begins to let progesterone normalize. Everything else builds on top of it.

    Is Is It Me or My Hormones? Worth Reading? {#worth-reading}

    Read this if you’ve been told your labs are normal but you don’t feel normal, especially if mood, cravings, or weight are involved in a way that feels cyclical. If you’ve tried restricting and exercising your way through it and it isn’t working, Pick’s upstream-first framework is a useful reorientation. She’s warmer and more emotionally attuned than most hormone books, and more clinically grounded than most wellness books.

    Skip it if you’ve already read Sara Gottfried’s The Hormone Cure or Brain Body Diet, which cover the same framework with more granular testing protocols. Also skip if you’re looking for heavily cited research; Pick gestures at evidence without pointing to specific papers, which is a fair criticism.

    One caveat: the book is built on Pick’s clinical practice at Women to Women, a patient population that sought out functional medicine practitioners. Women with severe hormonal disorders, autoimmune conditions, or complex psychiatric histories may need more than this framework offers. Pick acknowledges this, but the book’s optimism about what’s achievable through diet and lifestyle alone can sometimes outrun what the evidence supports.

    The reader rating reflects the niche audience more than the book’s quality. For its intended reader, it’s one of the better hormone guides available.

    Books Like Is It Me or My Hormones? {#books-like}

    BookAuthorBest For
    It’s Not You It’s Your HormonesNicki WilliamsUK-based companion; covers similar ground with a sharper tone
    The Hormone ShiftTasneem BhatiaMore clinical; useful if you want deeper testing context
    Hormone IntelligenceAviva RommBroader scope, more research-forward, integrative medicine angle
    The Perimenopause SolutionEmma Ellice-Flint & Shahzadi HarperUK clinical focus; strong on perimenopause specifically
    Rising StrongBrené BrownPairs well if the emotional side of hormonal shifts is what you’re working through