How To Lose Weight With An Underactive Thyroid: Your 6
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Losing weight and keeping it off can be a struggle.
Especially if you have an underactive thyroid. Your metabolism has slowed down and youre almost always feeling tired.
But if you break down the process into small steps, and tick each box as you go, weight loss comes much easier.
This guide covers the 6 fundamental steps required to successfully lose weight with an underactive thyroid.
Contents
Cut Back On Added Sugars And Refined Starches
I need to begin with this clarification:
Carbohydrates are not inherently bad for you. That is, they do not make you fat or sick on their own .It always comes back to total calories consumed.
That said, carbs in the form of added sugars and highly refined starches are unhealthy and unnecessary. They offer almost zero nutritional benefit and make up a large portion of the excess calories we consume.
In fact, the average American adults consumption of added sugar increased by more than 30% in the last 30 years, with children consuming approximately 20% more. This was illustrated below by Obesity.org.
Fortunately those numbers have began to reverse a trend that needs to continue. Nevertheless, cutting back on added sugar is still the most simple and direct way to cut out excess empty calories.
This is done by limiting intake of junk foods, flavoured drinks , alcohol, white bread, most cereals and muesli bars, and a good portion of packaged food in your supermarkets health food aisle. That includes gluten-free junk food its still junk food.
Now its unrealistic to expect yourself to completely avoid added sugar every day of the year. But you need to begin taking actionable steps that help you cut back and form healthier habits.
Start by not having junk foods at home, or at least keep them out of sight in a cupboard you never use.
Food Sources Of Known Mycotoxins:
- Alcoholic beverages
- Refined sugar and artificial sweeteners
Increasing activity levels supports the immune system in every way. Any exercise will do, as long as its regular.
Prescribed diets are antithetical to restoring immune system balance simply cutting out the stuff we know is detrimental and replacing it with fresh organic produce and healthy sources of proteins and fats will give your body what it needs.
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The Best Way To Lose Weight When You Have Hypothyroidism
Real talk: It’s hard, but it’s not impossible.
You know that quote about insanitythe one claiming that its definition is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results? .
Well, that’s basically how it feels trying to lose weight when you have hypothyroidism. The good news: It’s not just you. Because , it really is harder for those with the condition to drop pounds.
Nutrition And Lifestyle Recommendations To Boost Thyroid Function And Restore Vitality
Approximately 10% of women suffer from an under active thyroid, and often they find themselves living in a zombie like state, experiencing debilitating symptoms that have a huge impact on their quality of life.
Once diagnosed there are so many nutrition and lifestyle changes that can be made to improve thyroid hormone levels.
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Limit Raw Cruciferous Veggies
Although cruciferous vegetables such as kale, broccoli, cauliflower and are superfoods packed with important vitamins and minerals, eating them raw could be bad for your thyroid. They contain goitrogens, which disrupt thyroid function and interfere with iodine uptake. But you dont have to cut them out completely . Since eating them raw delivers the most goitrogens possible, make sure youre steaming or sautéing your cruciferous veggies before chowing down.
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Hey!
Susan Ohtake here and if youre ready to get lean, strong, and fit with short, super effective workouts you can do at home
If youre tired of doing the same workouts over and over again …
Or if you want to see how super short 25-minute workouts can replace 60+ minutes of long, boring cardio and reset your metabolism for more calorie burn all day long
Id like to invite you to join me for my 21-Day Metabolic Reset!
Before you get started, let me share why these workouts are so effective
and a few of the common workout mistakes that keep most women from seeing results.
Lets clear up one thing first, ok?
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Optimise Your Thyroid Medication
I wanted to begin with a nutrition recommendation, but correcting your thyroid medication first priority.
If your medication is not helping to correct TSH and your T3 and T4 thyroid hormone levels, as well as relieve symptoms, then weight loss goes from difficult to impossible.
Work with your health care provider to determine what type of medication is better for you, and also to find the optimal dose required. While Levothyroxine is on average more effective, Armour is reportedly much better tolerated.
There is no difference between taking your thyroid hormone meds in the morning vs evening. Choose whatever is easier for you to have it on a fasting stomach .
Summary: It is fundamental to work with your doctor to explore what type and dose of thyroid medication is best for you. Until your thyroid hormone levels are corrected, weight loss is much more difficult.
A Prerequisite For Weight Loss
The web is full of advice on diet and exercise to help us lose weight, but normal thyroid function is a prerequisite for other methods to be effective. Fortunately, medical specialists have reliable tools, such as lab tests, to assess thyroid function and guide patients to appropriate treatments or lifestyle changes.
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Go For The Smart Salt
Dr. Oz has called iodine the key ingredient you need for your thyroid. We cant make the thyroid hormones without it and thats the reason its been added to table salt since the 1920s. But many of us dont get enough of the nutrient.
One reason: The popularity of gourmet salt means up to 80 percent of what we shake on our food no longer has iodine added to it, Dr. Oz reported. Making matters worse, common toxins can prevent iodine from being absorbed. Luckily, adding a little ordinary salt back into your diet is typically all it takes to restore the production of thyroid hormones. Dr. Ozs Rx: A pinch of iodized table salt every day.
Bonus: Selenium is another nutrient crucial to thyroid function, helping activate the hormones. Dr. Holtorf says theres even evidence it helps fight autoimmune thyroid conditions. The best source? Brazil nuts. Dr. Oz recently tweeted: Eat two Brazil nuts a day for thyroid health.
Are Hormone Treatments For Weight Loss Effective
With mild hypothyroidism, treatment with thyroid hormones, including thyroxine, will have minimal effect on body weight. Even with the most severe forms of hypothyroidism, weight loss from hormone treatment is not expected to exceed 10% of body weight. That is because the weight gain is only partly caused by the lack of thyroid hormone. Obesity is never caused solely by a hypofunctional thyroid gland.
Furthermore, thyroid hormones have little effect on fat accumulation in a particular tissue . Other phenomena and hormones are involved in that process .
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After Medication Adjust Your Expectations
In a perfect world, any weight gained by hypothyroidism would magically fall off after you start taking the meds, right? Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way: Normalizing the thyroid with thyroid hormone will not cause the weight gain to be reversed, says Dr. Tan. To lose that weight, you actually need to work at it, which I know seems very unfair because you just gained it easily.
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Scott D. Isaacs, MD, medical director of Atlanta Endocrine Associates, agrees. If blood tests are normal and youre no longer technically hypothyroid, the weight-loss playing field is essentially “even” in that case, he saysmeaning you still have to work at dropping pounds.
Also important: Some info circulating the web suggests that certain medications or combinations of medications can lead to weight loss quicker than others, but none of that has been proven true, says Dr. Isaacsit’s all totally dependent on your body and your weight-loss efforts.
How To Reset Your Thyroid To Activate Metabolism And Burn Fat
The thyroid is a tiny gland that is located at the base of the neck. Its size belies its importance as it is tasked with ensuring that the bodys metabolic processes go on seamlessly. When its function is out of whack, it causes havoc on the bodys metabolism.
There are two instances where this is possible: hypothyroidism and hyperthyroidism. Just as the names suggest, these two conditions develop when the thyroid gland is either under producing or overproducing thyroid hormones respectively. It is important to note that each of the two conditions has an adverse effect on ones body with varied symptoms.
Hyperthyroidism for instance, is a condition where the body overproduces the thyroid hormones. These increases the rate of metabolism so that affected people will often experience inexplicable weight loss, increased heart rate, anxiety and insomnia.
Hypothyroidism on the other hand, tends to have the opposite effect. It leads to extreme fatigue, depression and rapid weight gain. These symptoms are attributed to slow metabolism that makes it easier for the body to store up the pounds than expend the energy.
In addition to this, someone with an underactive thyroid is likely to have higher cholesterol levels. To counter this, it is important to know ways in which you can reset the thyroid to activate metabolism and burn more fat. The first priority ought to be getting medical attention for an accurate diagnosis.
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Crockpot Coconut & Lemon Chicken With Garlic & Basil Rice
Ingredients
- Additional salt and pepper to taste
Method
The Thyroid Gland’s Role In Weight Control
By controlling metabolism, the thyroid gland helps maintain body weight. When the thyroid gland is working too hard, a condition known as hyperthyroidism, the body burns many calories, leading to significant and sometimes unexplained weight loss. Accelerated basal metabolic rate is the main cause.
When it works below capacity, the body does not burn enough calories, which leads to weight gain. This is known as hypothyroidism and is usually accompanied by weight gain that is particularly difficult to lose because of the slower basal metabolic rate.
Our thyroid gland’s health is one of the factors to consider when faced with unexplained weight gain or loss. That said, body weight is also affected by the interaction of several other factors, including the following:
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If You Want To Lose Belly Fat Or Fat From Anywhere More Cardio Is Not The Answer
Yes, cardio burns calories, but the problem is: where those calories come from. They mostly come from carbs, not fat!
This is especially problematic if you’re any stage of menopause .
Here’s an example:
You have anywhere from 1,500 to 2,500 calories from carbs in your body at any given time.
So, let’s take running…
Per hour, you could burn 400 to 600 calories.
That means it would take two to six hours of cardio to burn off all those carbs before you even begin to burn any fat!
So, how do you get lean, fit and toned without spending hours doing cardio or eating like a rabbit?
It’s actually easier and takes much less time than you think.
Untreated Or Undertreated Hypothyroidism
You may find it difficultor even impossibleto lose weight if your hypothyroidism is untreated or undertreated. If you’ve tried diet and exercise without success, consider having your thyroid hormone levels tested.
- If you’re already being treated for hypothyroidism, your thyroid hormone levels may not be in the optimal range. You may need a dosage increase or additional medications.
- If you haven’t been diagnosed with thyroid disease but can’t lose weight, testing may reveal hypothyroidism.
It’s possible to have weight loss problems when thyroid hormone tests show you’re in the correct range for thyroid-stimulating hormone . That’s not the only measure of thyroid function, and research suggests there’s no TSH level that’s optimal for everyone with hypothyroidism.
So, even if your tests come back “normal,” you may need a medication adjustment. Often, it’s a low T3 level that blocks weight loss efforts.
You can ask a healthcare provider to test your free T3 level. If it’s low, they may add the T3 replacement hormone liothyronine to your treatment regimen. For weight loss, studies show this is a more effective approach than levothyroxine alone.
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Mistake #: Repeating The Same Workouts Over And Over Again
Have you ever started a program, made big changes to your diet and workouts, and started seeing results
only to have all your progress come to a sudden STOP after 3 or 4 weeks?
I call it a plateau and it might be the most frustrating part of getting in shape.
Your body is really smart!
If you give it something to do like a new workout plan, a new exercise, a new diet to follow
…your body will get used to it.
This is why you hit a plateau!
When it comes to workouts, the best way to get out of a plateau is change.
What happens during a plateau is simple: Your body gets comfortable with what youre doing.
And your body responds to change, not comfort.
This is why well mix things up during the 21-Day Metabolic Reset. Its also why Ill give you a guide for repeating the reset so that you can switch up the workouts, do them over again, and keep seeing results!
Mistake #: Working Out At The Wrong Intensity
Our body works best in 2 intensities: HIGH and LOW
You want to avoid the in-between .
If youve ever tried HIIT workouts but you dont have much to show for all of your effort, you may have been caught in this in-between.
Its easy for HIIT workouts with the wrong intensity and improper rest periods to fall into this zone and leave you tired, out of energy, and no more in shape than when you started!
When youre doing HIIT workouts properly, you have to exercise at the proper intensity.
I see so many HIIT workout classes at gyms that are 45 minutes or 60 minutes long and every time I see them I think to myself: If you workout with the proper high intensity, there is absolutely no way you can exercise that long!
A proper HIIT workout can only be around 20-25 minutes at the most and that usually includes warm-up time too.
And remember how I mentioned that most HIIT workouts were made for the way men respond to workouts? That means that even if you are doing HIIT workouts, theres a good chance that youre still working out at the wrong intensity!
The 21-Day Metabolic Reset uses high intensity workouts made for the way our bodies respond so you can finally get workouts at the intensity you need to see results.
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How To Reset Your Thyroid To Burn Fat And Activate Your Metabolism
Its estimated that over twelve percent of the population in the developed world will experience a thyroid problem at some pointstill more conditions will go mis- or undiagnosed.
The situation has been called epidemic by some and the incidence of thyroid cancer has doubled in the last forty years. This is troublesome because the small bow-tie gland in the neck is a primary component of the immune system if its not functioning properly, we become susceptible to an infinite number of illnesses.
The thyroid is responsible for producing hormones that regulate metabolism, heart rate, digestion, muscle control, and brain development. Typical problems with the thyroid are hypothyroidism or hyperthyroidism .
When the thyroid doesnt produce adequate amounts of hormonesparticularly T3 and T4 the metabolism slows, resulting in weight gain, fatigue, increased blood pressure and cholesterol levels, and depression.
Producing too many of these hormones has the opposite effectuncontrollable weight loss, accelerated heart rate, insomnia, and anxiety.
Environmental and lifestyle factors contribute to a malfunctioning thyroid and, while some are seemingly out of our control, many are not.
Key Components Of Weight Loss
Whatever diet or exercise plan you follow, don’t neglect these basic necessities for weight loss:
- Get sufficient sleep: Studies show inadequate sleep makes weight loss especially hard.
- Drink enough water: Proper hydration is linked to more successful weight loss efforts.
Adequate water intake is considered to be about four to six cups for a healthy adult. Ask your healthcare provider if you have any conditions or factors that require more.
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Pick Up The Pace On Cardio While You’re At It
Cardio is essential for maintenance of weight loss, says Dr. Pearceespecially if you have a thyroid condition, which again affects the function of your muscles. Dr. Apovian agrees: ” can lose weight, but they have to do more resistance and cardio than the average person.”
Shoot for about 30 minutes to an hour of activity five days a week, suggests Dr. Pearce. That can include any sort of activity where youre sweating and getting your heart rate up, whether its jogging, walking whatever keeps you motivated and having fun is the right thing to do.