Diet

[sidalfie]

Hi can anyone recommend a diet that works for people with underactive thyroid. I've gained a stone in weight over the last year as my levels were fluctuating and now it is settled but I am now 3 stone overweight and desperate to shift it. Just been on holiday and felt like a beached whale! Don't want to feel like this anymore I've always been naturally slim in fact as a child my mum tried everything to get some flesh on me I was all skin and bone!

[SeasideSusie Remembering]

sidalfie Dieting is not the answer, optimal medication and thyroid levels, particularly FT3, is. You won't lose weight until you are optimally medicated.

What are your latest test results? Any older ones for comparison would be very useful too especially as you say your levels were fluctuating as that suggests you may have autoimmune thyroid disease aka Hashimoto's.

We really need to see

TSH

FT4

FT3

TPO antibodies

TG antibodies

Ask your surgery for a print out of your results, you are legally entitled to these under the Data Protection Act 1998 here in the UK although there may be a small charge for printing.

If these tests haven't been done you can get them done privately with a fingerprick blood test at home through Blue Horizon bluehorizonmedicals.co.uk/T... - the additional vitamin and mineral tests will be useful because thyroid hormone can't work properly if they're not optimal.

When you have the results come back and make a new thread, post the results, including the important reference ranges, and members can comment.

[sidalfie in reply to SeasideSusie]

Thanks for responding so quickly! I've never actually seen my results I've always jsut gone with what the doctor says. I read about vit D deficiency and started to take optimal dose a year or so ago and felt it made a difference to how I feel. I was last tested a couple of months ago. I'm due at the doctor on Friday for something else so i will ask whilst I'm there if I can have a re-test and get the results. In the meantime i intend to do more walking eat healthily and stay of the vino!

Thanks for your advice

[greygoose in reply to sidalfie]

It's not the wine making you fat. And you've got to have some pleasures in life!

Don't ask your doctor if you can have your results, tell him you want them. It's your legal right to have them under the 1998 Data Protection Act. So, just say 'I would like a print-out of my last test results, please'. In a voice that bridges no argument.

[SlowDragon Administrator]

Ask for recent results for B12, folate and ferritin. As well as the ones SeasideSusie lists. You also need the ranges (figures in brackets after results) all labs around country have slightly different ranges

You are entitled to copies of your own results. Some surgeries make nominal charge for printing out.

If they have not been checked, then ask politely if they can be.

If you can not get GP to do these tests, then like many of us, you can get them done privately

thyroiduk.org.uk/tuk/testin...

Blue Horizon - Thyroid plus eleven tests all these.

This is an easy to do fingerprick test you do at home, post back and they email results to you couple of days later.

Usual advice on ALL thyroid tests, (home one or on NHS) is to do early in morning, ideally before 9am. No food or drink beforehand (other than water) don't take Levo in 24 hours before (take straight after). This way your tests are always consistent, and it will show highest TSH, and as this is mainly all the medics decide dose on, best idea is to keep result as high as possible.

[CBann]

The Atkins diet works for me and my thyroid levels have been pretty unstable. My consultant recommended that I stay on the induction phase. It wasn't due to a weight problem tho, he says it's quite a clean diet and allows for us to have a clear picture of what's going on I terms of blood test etc. If your interested read Atkins the new you. He says generally most people will struggle on high carb diets. Even without a thyroid problem.

[Joyia]

Cutting out starches particularly potatoes, bread and any products using flour and sugar worked for me, I lost one and a half stones, sadly I fell off the bandwagon this year and put weight on again, it has proved to me starches are the answer to weight loss and I am trying to get into the mindset once again of following this regime.