Hello 👋🏻

I’m diagnosed hypothyroid and have about two stones to lose. Most of this sits around my stomach as I also have raised cortisol levels.

I have found the diet easy to follow. I’m wondering if anyone can give me an insight into where I’m going wrong or adjustments that may help me?

Breakfast is typically two eggs and a coffee with a splash of milk.

Lunch and Dinner is a handful of salad leaves, teaspoon of hummus, fresh herbs, fish/meat/poultry/eggs and maybe 2 more coffees

I’m coping well and staggered that I’ve not encountered hunger or any adverse reaction, but I’m not losing… 4 pounds maximum and before now I was eating a quasi healthy, but high carb diet.

My weight gain is since pregnancy and being diagnosed hypothyroid. I’m on Dessicated Thyroid and my levels are currently optimal.

So frustrating but sure there are others who can relate.

I’d be so grateful for any pointers thank you 🙏

Basically I’m eating a handful of salad leaves with a little peppers, fresh herbs, fish/meat/poultry

Hi MsMelanie,
I am sorry that no one with practical experience relevant to your question has replied. – A lot of people focus on one of the 2 regular challenges, either the weekly or 4 weekly challenge, there is so much chatter on those threads a lot of people don’t have the time to look for one off questions. Perhaps it would be worth repeating your question on one of those threads? If you search on the list of recent topics you will see the weekly one has the current date in the title, while the current 4 week one has a title about vrooming into June. –

I struggled for years with all of the common signs of an underactive thyroid. – My body temp was very low and I relied on external heat sources to keep warm, struggled with energy levels and keeping weight off, but each time the blood tests were performed I was apparently just over the cut off limit of what is considered by the NHS to be a normal range of the hormone. – For a while I went private with a doctor who had a policy of treating the symptoms rather than the blood tests. – Who had a thriving practice prescribing Amour to those who were displaying signs of underactive thyroid and monitoring the results. It was great, but then I dropped out of the rat race so had a loss of income, and moved to a different country within the UK were there wasn’t an equivalent private practice at the same time as that doctor retired.

Since finding out about the science behind Insulin and fat storage, I have been reading about different research or articles published by experts on the topic. One of whom is a Dr Bikman. I saw this article by him that I thought you might find helpful. – I have been on the BSD since mid October, and am close to a 6 stone weight loss. I have noticed that I am a lot warmer than I was. – My low body temp was so bad that the first time I spent the night with one boyfriend he woke up screaming in the night. He had rolled over, put his arm over me and I was so cold to the touch that he thought I had died and he was in bed with a corpse. – Managing body temp in office spaces, or in cars or any space shared with others used to be such a problem.

” Here’s a small piece I wrote some time ago about insulin and thyroid that may be insightful: Insulin affects thyroid hormone production and action. This isn’t very surprising, as both hormones have a powerful metabolic role; while insulin signals the body to depress processes that use energy in favor of storing, thyroid’s role is to, at its simplest, regulate the “metabolic choke valve”—increasing or decreasing the rate at which the body’s cells are working. The totality of studies exploring the relationship between insulin and thyroid hormone yield a few important observations.

People that are insulin resistant are usually thyroid resistant. Yes, it’s possible to be resistant to the effects of thyroid hormone. Just like with insulin resistance, where the body is less responsive to insulin and, thus, the body must make more insulin to have an effect, with thyroid resistance, the body must make more thyroid hormone for it to have the desired effect. This is why most overweight/obese individuals usually higher-than-normal thyroid hormone levels, not lower [1,2]. One of the most interesting manifestations of this phenomenon can be found in one interesting disorder of insulin resistance. Polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) is a female fertility disorder that arises from insulin resistance—the ovaries begin producing too many male hormones (i.e. androgens) and too few female hormones (i.e. estrogens), which is a result of too much insulin in the blood. These women with PCOS (remember, it’s a disorder of insulin resistance) tend to have larger thyroid glands [3], and the higher the insulin, the larger the thyroid gland [4].

Multiple reports show that carbohydrate restriction lowers thyroid hormone levels in the body. In one study, subjects were placed on two low-calorie diets that differed in their carbohydrate content. While both lost weight and had reductions in metabolic rate (which always happens when you eat less), the low-carbohydrate group had the greater drop in thyroid levels [5]. Another study put subjects on two low-carbohydrate diets that replaced the carbohydrates with either protein or fat [6]. Interestingly, but not unexpected, the group that ate the high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet not only had the greater drop in insulin, but also a bigger reduction in thyroid hormone.

Why does thyroid hormone drop more with carbohydrate restriction? Because insulin directly affects the thyroid gland. In particular, the thyroid gland appears to have more insulin receptors in conditions of increased insulin (i.e. type 2 diabetes) [7]. Additionally, insulin drives the growth and proliferation of thyroid cells [8]. Another potentially important connection is that insulin appears to increase thyroid receptors in certain cells throughout the body [9] (though this likely only happens if the body is sensitive to insulin). This may be another explanation of how improving insulin sensitivity can improve thyroid sensitivity—there are more receptors for thyroid hormone, allowing it to act better. And as thyroid hormone acts better, the body doesn’t need as much of it.

As a final note, I’ve often stated that I’m unaware of any condition of human obesity that isn’t in some way linked to insulin—insulin is the master regulator of body fat. This holds true with thyroid disorders. Thyroid hormone affects insulin receptor expression at fat tissue. The most commonly known effect of thyroid hormone is to influence body weight. However, most people that are overweight, as indicated above, have normal to elevated levels of thyroid hormone. However, in those people with genuine hypothyroidism, they will often experience fat gain. This phenomenon, as with all other instances of humans gaining fat, is coupled with insulin. When thyroid levels are low (i.e. hypothyroidism), the amount of insulin receptors on fat tissue goes up by almost double [10]! In contrast, when thyroid is high (i.e. hyperthyroidism), the amount of insulin receptors on fat tissue drops to less than half. As a reminder, insulin is the signal that tells fat cells to grow or shrink—it’s the key regulator. If there are more receptors, there’s more “growth signal”, whereas fewer insulin receptors would convey a “shrink signal” on the fat cells.

What this means for you: There are no reports, none at all, that a low-carbohydrate diet lowers thyroid hormone too much; in other words, reducing carbohydrates will not cause hypothyroidism. As carbohydrates are reduced, the lowered glucose in the blood will lead to lower insulin in the blood, not only causing improved insulin sensitivity, but also improved thyroid sensitivity. And if you’re more sensitive to thyroid hormone, you need less of it.”

MsMelanie,

JGwen has given a lot of information above and I hope it helps. If you post hypothyroidism in the search box you will find other posts relating to it.

For myself. I have been taking levothyroxin for some 20 plus years. December I was able to reduce my dose from 150 to 125. As I am only tested once a year I will have to wait to find out if I can reduce it some more.

The downside is that I have had an enormous amount of trouble losing weight, even on this way of life. I have been eating this way since October 2016 and I have lost a total of 6 stone since I began. 4 Stone in the last 8 months. I am not going to say this is easy….for me it isn’t. I am surprised at how dogged I am about following this way of life. But I can say…it works. I eat only once a day (not recommending it, it just works for me!). I hit plateaus regularly and it is demoralising when this happens but I plod on and so should you.

One of the things I have learned from this site is not to always measure your success from the scales. Quite often you are losing internal fat. Also, as you lose weight the cells fill with water and until these empty the scales will not show a difference. Take a really good look at your body and see if the fat areas have changed in texture. This could mean fat is moving and water is present. We look for Non Scale Victories (nsv) it could be that some clothes seem a little looser or rings/watches swing around more, or just that you don’t get so breathless when walking up stairs.

I hope this has helped and has encouraged to you carry on. Or “keep on, keeping on” as Sunshinegirl always says!

Good luck.

Nonna Mary
xxx

Thanks for your extensive reply it is much appreciated and I note what you say about joining more active threads.

I had overt hypothyroidism. My TSH was about 50 and T4 and T3 scraping into range. But I hear what you say about patients having hypothyroidism and their blood tests not reflecting this. Currently on NDT as Levothyroxine made me severely depressed for the two months I was prescribed it. What has basically happened to me is that since diagnosis and treatment my T4 level has tanked and is way below range, whereas T3 is over range. I’m lucky to not have any other symptoms other than excess weight as some people have such a rough ride. My own thyroid gland appears to have stopped working all together hence the low T4 blood results or I cannot tolerate T4 in any form.

I’ve lost another two pounds since I posted 😁 so feeling happier!!

I have monthly blood tests that I do myself so will keep an eye on the levels in view of what you have mentioned regarding less hormone replacement required.

Thanks very much

Hi MsMelanie, I have heard from a number of sources that the NHS definition of a normal range came out of a research project on the data on thyroid levels in blood gathered from hospital patients. So there are questions often raised about where the cut off point for where the point is between needing supplement/healthy range. – There’s a website and campaign group made up of people who fall into the gap between the two, but because I have been a vegetarian all my life and stuck to a low fat diet, I presumed that my increase in resting temp since this Way of Eating came from the change to burning fat as a fuel source, it didn’t occur to me to look into the link between IR and thyroid system until I saw this article the other day.

I watched an interesting youtube presentation by Dr Bikman the other week which covers fine tuning the mix of protein and fat to maximise fat burning/weight loss, and the role of a trace element that a lot of people who are Insulin Resistant benefit from taking as a supplement. I posted a link to the presentation on the Take a look at this thread. You may find that interesting Nonna Mary as I seem to have broken through the habit of long plateau’s since I started taking it.

Thank you JGwen. I always look at your attachments. I am a meat eater so I was presuming I got enough Carnitine. However, I may try supplements if I hit any more plateaus.

Thanks again.

Nonna Mary
xxx

@joesnonna Ahh but you really have done amazingly well to lose six stones in that length of time but I hear you that if it wasn’t for your thyroid issues you’d have lost a lot more.

My body really dislikes synthetic T4. I’m on dessicated Thyroid T3 and T4 – 3 grains which (allegedly) is equivalent to 300 mcg of T4 😱 I swear my body doesn’t utilise the T4 and just uses the T3 as my blood tests do not make any sense to any professional or fellow sufferer so I am left to monitor and perform blood tests myself.

My shape has definitely changed though – my hour glass waist is back (and I last saw that pre-pregnancy in 2012) at only six pounds loss which seems impossible so maybe this is due to losing internal fat and storing water as you say.

As we are hypothyroid maybe some of our fat is not just water retention but mucin?

.

Thank you!

@jgwen

The NHS guidelines are really poor for hypothyroidism so I am having to manage my own condition. I definitely needed hormone replacement as my TSH was 50 and the range was 1-4. My hypothyroidism is caused by an autoimmune disease (Hashimotos) so antibodies are destroying my thyroid gland:90% of people suffering from hypothyroidism have the autoimmune version.

I actually came across this site when googling for diets and insulin resistance. My blood sugar levels are good, but I have sufficient thyroid hormone replacement now, so trying to crack the code as to why I was eating no more than your regular person, exercising and still overweight.

I used to be obsessed and crave seafood. Could not get enough. It must have been my body craving iodine. I can’t bare eating it now 😂 But yes apparently increase in iodine seafood and seaweed has been shown to reduce weight as it speeds up the thyroid gland which then impacts metabolism.