Sorry isnt a question or anything but have to let this out. I messaged a friend about the cost of weight watchers etc. Told her id lost a stone but have worked hard for it because of my stupid thyroid ( and with the help of Armour)
She replied, bearing in mind she has no medical qualifications and after telling me prices etc
"The thyroid will get much better when u loose more and get into the diet xx hope that helps"
I really want to respond but am trying to be a calm person. My partner says im an angry person and shouldnt let these things bother me. Be more zen. But how dare she!!!!!!
I have worked so god damn hard. Exercising and not calculating the exercise into my diet. Eating 1800 cal diet and on average losing a pound a week. And i know many of you have worked harder.
Yes i am angry angry angry
can anyone think of a good reply?
pseudoscience claptrap
Written by
BexyLS
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Hear you Bexy - with understanding judgmental friends like that who needs enemies!!! When you have gone without, followed no extra treats and done an extra eighty thousand steps a day registering on their stupid pedometer weighing portions to get point value on expensive scales and stuck religiously to their quick start first week programme with less choice but enough severity to start losing normally (you hope) and then find you've lost a pound or maintained. How insulting!
I lost quite a bit once thanks to my career and consequent level of exercise but then 'friends' would say things like "don't you think you are taking it too far? You should stop now!" Or "You were more fun fat!" Yet I went out more and felt I socialised more when slimmer. But you have to work twice as hard eat half that of the others avoid certain foods which seem to be immediately deposited as fat and exercise through extreme fatigue to a degree that would put Olympians to shame and that is just to maintain your weight!
Well that's my experience and it makes me so angry and incredibly hurt!
Well done on your achievement so far and work out the anger on a punching bag so it doesn't fester!
I think there should be a group that is specifically for thyroid patients that is reasonably priced includes a proper balanced healthy lifestyle both in diet and exercise support groups it would improve socialising too could have a lot of fun!
I only have one thing I could say to that "f!*# o#*". I guess I am an angry person too, but let's face it feeling like pants the majority of the time isn't going to make you little miss happy is it? I eat only one meal a day in order to maintain my 2stone over weight figure! I went a week only eating fruit and raw vegetables and lost 3pounds. I was starving the whole time and grumpy beyond belief for 3pounds! If someone had said that to me I think I would have driven my car into their front room grrr!
Donna x
Yep - how many have reported a sluggish Thyroid = weight gain? - we've been brain-washed into thinking it's all about calories and exercise - but metabolic problems ignored. It could even be we're not able to absorb the right stuff and actually malnourished - so the body's just trying to hibernate after all! (sorry more pseudoscience - with a Thyroid twist).
I gained 2 stone right after my Thyroid op - no difference in diet or exercise. However I suppose I'm odd as will lose weight on holiday when I eat more! (more energy?) conversely don't eat much on a working day and gain! - SO - I eat what I fancy now, no appetite much anyway as no sense of smell/taste either - not tempted - but folks will still say don't snack, your portion is too big.. eh? what portion! - no cakes, biscuits, chocolate, bread etc, not bothered - I just cook meat and veg from scratch, that's what I need, and managing to keep around the same - well, no gain anyway! hugs J
Hi spare ribs - you mention smell and taste? After my heart attack + cardiac arrest on Christmas eve I lost my taste and smell. Bits returning 5 months on but still can't enjoy coffee or red wine and other favourites.... Is this the thyroid? I've put it down to heart meds ......Kate x
Yes other folks report losing their sense of smell/taste (I am not on meds after a partial thyroid op). Sorry I can't find a post at the moment 'tho - but it can also be low Zinc, but I've tried zinc capsules on and off and it's not back yet!
May I ask if you think your cardiac arrest was associated with Thyroid problems? J
The more I read the more I do- as there is nothing in the family re heart. However my tsh level was ok /border in February and then zoomed up between then and April, whereas my heart attack was 24 dec... It could of course just be a vile coincidence and rotten luck....
I don't believe in co-incidence, esp after my GP suggested CFS/ME after my PT op! I have had palps for 10 years and have strange ECGs with panicky docs (more panicky than me!) yet nothing is done, must have been a strange anomaly - yeh right!
I dread to think how many of us have the same warning signs - did you have these? we do know untreated Thyroid probs can impact on the heart, I've been told this many times but not by docs! I've recently had defib training and perhaps just connecting up too many dots J x
No, Spareribs, you are not odd, that is normal for hypos! And a lot of hypos struggle with weight because they don't eat enough, either because they have no appetite or because they think they have to 'diet' because of their increasing weight.
We need enough calories - and how much is enough is highly personal - to maintain body systems, such as convertion. If we don't eat enough calories the hypo body very quickly goes into starvation mode and hangs on to the few calories you give it, convertion suffers and we get more hypo. And therefore fatter.
Same thing goes for exercising. If you do too much exercise (for your own individual body) the exercising will use up the calories (and the hormones you haven't got enough of) and there won't be enough left for convertion. So, you get more hypo and thus fatter. We read this on here so many times, people saying oh, I go to the gym every day, run twenty miles every morning and I feel terrible! Of course they do, they've exercised themselves hypo.And in the same way you can diet yourself fat.
The hypo body has its own rules and we have to learn to live with them. Sad but true.
Agree GG - I rarely eat before noon, which I know is bad whereas on holiday I have a full english (or danish) breakfast = energy & weight loss.
Trouble is at work they're all diet mad, yet are cake crazy! I've never dieted, but my weight has always gone up and down for no particular reason (except the extra 2 stone after op reason). J
I just can't face breakfast, even if I'm up early enough! - I used to make sure the kids had theirs 'tho! I do have half a glass of milk (or OJ) now with my vit D! - does that count?
Yet in France I will happily scoff a nice fresh croissant with butter, mmm.
See I AM odd, not liking like cake or chocolate any more, (despite not actually tasting it, things seem too sweet) I never used to be this fussy! but I'm sure I'd be alright living on the French coast somewhere
Ummm... you do know that the French eat their croissants just as they are, don't you? No butter, no jam, just dip it in your coffee until it goes soggy then slurp it up into your mouth. That's the French way! lol And, I must say I've quite taken to it.
I've gone off chocolate, too, but I still love most cakes - as long as they're not too dry. Can't swallow it if it's dry. Could dunk it in my tea, I suppose, but cake crumbles more than croissants and it tends to get a bit messy. I prefer cakes with lashings of cream, they go down easily! lol
I could say I meant they're made with proper buerre (not plastic marg) I know this but, yes, I add extra mmm, and maybe un peu ginger confiture - sadly only once a year! (last time for 3 weeks tho!) we have a camper and mooch around the French coast and I love to practice my pigeon French! il doit être fait! I don't care if I get it wrong at least I'm trying and it takes a bit to make the French laugh! (sauf si c'est la mienne bien sûr!) J
I haven't come across any ginger jam. Maybe it's a regional thing.
So you actually try to speak the lingo and don't just shout at Johnny Foreigner? Goodness! lol
Last night I went to get my supper from McDonalds (yes, I know, I know, I was just too knackered!) and I hate speaking into those stupid things anyway where you give your order, and it was extra stupid because there wasn't another car in site so I had to give my order into that squeaky microphone thing and then drive round the corner and give my money to the same girl!
Anyway, she swore she couldn't understand a word I was saying (make note of that 'understand', not 'hear') until I screamed at her at the top of my lungs. Then she understood. lol By then I was beginning to think it would have been easier to stay at home and cook anyway. Sigh. And it was horrible when I got it and I gave it to the dog...
Do you think i should let up on myself a bit? I exercise everyday but i have to. I have vertigo and it helps me get my balance. But recently my fitness app said to go down to 1650 cal a day. Horrific! Ive put t back up to 1800 cals now, but thinking of the 5:2 diet now
I would give her the benefit of the doubt... So many ' helpful ' but oh so ignorant words we get.... But you know they don't mean to be as clumsy as they are - lol- just maybe don't know when to just stop!
I am getting - you look so much better with the extra weight- and just want to just hide in a corner and cry........NO I DON'T .....x
I know she wasn't being malicious but people really don't think sometimes and that annoys me. I still get looks from people when i say i put the weight on BECAUSE OF MY THYROID. Even my partners family didn't get it even though i changed my diet and was relatively healthy anyway. When i was on levo i did the same as i'm doing now and didn't lose a bit now on Armour and its slowly coming off. But there's these looks like they dont believe you and its withering it really is
Be straight with her and ask how she knows the thyroid will get much better with weight loss, tell her you'd be very interested to see where she got this information because it s wonderful news and you would like to share it with other thyroid sufferers, - only you need to quote the source of the information.
At the very least she will go quiet, so you can then press her for the source, or she may come up with some valuable piece of research, never before seen by any of us, woohoo!!!
She obviously meant well. I would just thank her for trying to be supportive but suggest she learn more about thyroid problems and how it relates to weight issues if she truly wants to be a supportive friend. Comments like the one she made, however well meaning, show ignorance and can be really hurtful.
I so sympathise with you! They just do not understand do they?
Your friend probably thought she was being supportive with her comments and would be upset if she knew how these comments affected you and how wrong she was.
Could you give her some leaflets or print outs from the net about thyroid problems? Tell her you need her to understand so that she can give you the support that you need from her.
What a terrible illness this is! What worries me is that there is not much public awareness about it.
Thank goodness we have this site to turn to and the wonderful people here.
Oh if life was only that simple for us thyroid sufferers... your friend obviously hasn't got a clue!!
It's a nightmare journey and mega draining as we all know. Go along to W W class and perhaps you might meet up with other thyroid folk and be able to share experiences with them.
Good Luck BexyLS, I hope you feel better after the rant, lol.
I'm a retired teacher, and for me such a reply would be a challenge to educate an ignoramus - VERY gently, of course! See it as an opportunity to spread propaganda about our thyroid problems, instead of getting angry with her.
WhenI was still workimg the supervisor used to say 'Oh my friend did this that and the other blah blah blah' Then it was a few jibes about the tablets I have to take to live and that it might affect my driving ( I can;t drive anymore following a stroke) but I got my own back when she sent me to an exhibition in the staff canteen with the police, social services etc showing the effects of drink and drugs on your system I brought back a chart showing she drank too much wine un the evenings and didn't giveit enough time to exit her system! She left me alone after that.
It is so good to read through everyone's responses! For me it is such a sore point because my Mother and Grandmother have always blamed everything on excess weight and yet I was the only slim one in the family! All three of us had thyroid trouble but if I have too much energy too little or am anxious and depressed it is always because of food according to them! Drives me crazy!!! LOL
I did once find a doctor who said I was pre-diabetic and very malnourished and that was when I was about a stone overweight! Looking back I really appreciate that 'diagnosis' just wish he had actually given me advice on how to remedy the fact and listened to the fact that my temperature was constantly extremely low and had a childhood diagnosis of Hashimotos and although blood work said I was borderline for underactive at that time and he wouldn't treat, did not advise re-diabetes or nutrition and as I was working four jobs twenty hour days at the time and no easy access to computers in those days I just soldiered on! Makes me wonder if I would be less of a burden on the NHS now if someone had taken time to enlighten me and link me with a self-help group to encourage education on all the disorders that now plague me!
I think you might tell your friend that she is incorrect and that she really should not be givng that information out to people. Then tell her that in your opinion Weight Watchers is an organization that takes advantage of overweight people by tying up the calorie and fat content of food into litte secret codes that you have to pay for to work out and that you can count your own caloriies anf fat for FREE, see if she likes that. If she doesn't like it and tells you that that is incorrect, you can gently tell her that that is how insulted you felt when she gave you the other incorrect information!
Before being diagnosed I went to weightwatchers and was told that I must be cheating as I was not losing weight. (Not very bright individual.)
A relative was always saying that I would lose weight if I ate less and that was all there was to it...I ate 800-1000 calories/day and put on 3 stones!
I have now been doing the 5:2 diet and lost 19lbs since beg. Feb.. Yippeee!
Do you have a link to this. As well as being hypothyroid, I also have coeliac disease so think the 5:2 diet might suit me better. I suddenly lost 10kg a few weeks ago and then put it back on in two weeks although I am on a low fat, low salt, no sugar, obviously no gluten and no alcohol diet as my BP is sky high.
I don't have a link but there is a vast amount of information on the internet about the 5:2 fast diet. (The fast bit relates to restricting calories on 2 days per week.)
It does not really matter what you eat, although if you are dieting it seems silly not to try and eat well. The idea is to eat only 500 calories on 2 days per week and eat whatever you like on the other 5 days. I have not given up cream or cakes on the other days.
I get a bit cranky on the diet days but not as cranky as being fat made me.
Before I was diagnosed I also (to my shame) didn't understand when my mum used to say she found it really difficult to lose weight because of her under active thyroid. I used to think she was making excuses and I remember many years ago saying it can't all be dpwn to her thyroid!
I've now ended up on more thyroxine than her and can't believe I was so insensitive. I've been paid back many a time for my thoughtless and uneducated comment as my husband reacts just like I used to do when I moan about not fitting in my clothes. I've gone up another size AGAIN recently and none of last years holiday clothes will be used this year! He tries to support me but tells me I need to stick harder at the diet and I don't even argue with him as I understand the ignorance if you haven't got the condition. I've learnt to only talk about my weight problems to people who I know can empathise.
Your friend probably didn't realise she was upsetting you so much but she was still a bit of an uninformed know it all saying what she did. You must realise she knows absolutely nothing about our condition (like me before I was diagnosed - so ignorant to think that you do) so her opinion isn't worth the breath from her mouth.
You deserve a medal for losing a stone by the way - well done!
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