I'm 20 years old. Before I had under active thyroid I had all the common symptoms including weight gain, I had blood tests and it came back with me having underactive thyroid.
I've had underactive thyroid for over a year now, I'm on levothyroxine 100 micrograms (I have blood tests monthly and I'm steady and on the right dose at the moment).
I have been trying to loose weight for the last year now and I seem to keep the weight. I exercise everyday and make sure I eat healthy foods which is hard considering I can't eat a lot of good foods (cauliflower etc)
What sort of diet can I do to help (low carb diets etc)??
Have you had the same problem and how did you loose weight??
Written by
Dizzieejinxx
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My thyroid isn't much of a problem. Most of it's missing, but it copes just fine, however, I started to feel quite ill last October. I started dieting, first with a thyroid friendly diet, then I went sugar-free and finally I ended up low carbs. I have to say the thyroid-friendly diet did nothing for me but low sugar and low carbs has been a huge success, or should I say a slim success!
I have to say I have heard low carbs is not as effective if your thyroid is under-active and it might be worth hunting around on the net to see if there is any evidence it is detrimental to an underactive gland, but there isn't anyone in the world who wouldn't do better without sugar. I hadn't realised how much of a problem sugar had become to me. I've always been big but never binged until August/Sept 2013. I really couldn't stop eating, but when I stopped eating sugar, everything went back to normal and I didn't feel like a human dustbin anymore. Here is some info for you.
These are two excerpts. The links within this may not work as it is an archived site. Always get copies of your blood test results (with the ranges) for your own records and you can also post them if you have a query:-
I’ve described in many places this post-surgery problems that troubles so many patients. Here, I’ll quote a typical passage from a paper I wrote that is published in the open-access journal Thyroid Science:
“. . . in a study of patients made hypothyroid by therapeutic destruction of the thyroid gland, some used TSH-suppressive doses of thyroid hormone and others used T4-replacement. Those on TSH-suppressive dosages did not gain excess weight; those on T4-replacement did. The researchers concluded that T4-replacement was the cause of the excess weight gain.[55]”
[This quote is from an paper that is free to print or download: From page 5, Lowe, J.C.: Four 2003 T4/T3 vs T4 replacement studies. Thyroid Science, 1(1):C1-C21, 2006.]
I will also refer you to a short paper I wrote in which I cited several studies. The authors of the studies report that patients gained when they were restricted to T4 replacement: thyroidscience.com/editoria...
I couldn't lose weight when I had a TSH of 2.23. I've since had an increase of thyroid meds and was able to lose weight at a rate of 2 1b a week. It might be that you need an increase in medication.
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