Diet

[Health-care]

Is there a particular diet which help you loose weight when hypothyroid as I’m finding it very hard to loose the weight I’ve gained

[Lalatoot]

Getting optimal thyroid hormone levels for you personally and optimum vitamin levels are the first things for weight loss.You must also eat enough calories and not go on a restrictive diet. We need calories including fats for effective conversion of t4 to t3. If we don't eat enough we can worsen our hypo situation.

[Health-care in reply to Lalatoot]

Thank you very interesting as first thing I would have done would have been to reduce fat

[shaws Administrator in reply to Health-care]

Going 'gluten-free' helped me to lose weight.

[pennyannie]

Hello Health-care :

As diagnosed hypothyroid your metabolism is likely slow.

If metabolism is slow you likely will have trouble extracting nutrients from your food:

Everywhere I've read suggests ferritin needs to be over 70 for any thyroid hormone replacement to work well - and you also need to keep B12, folate, and vitamin D optimal.

T4 - Levothyroxine needs to be converted by your body into T3 - and active hormone that the body runs on and which can help kick start your metabolism.

Weight dos seem to be " a given " when hypothyroid and on T4 only medication but contrary to what you may think, we need fats for optimal thyroid hormone replacement and dieting, along with low vitamins and minerals actually comprises optimal " take up and use of T4 ".

I'm not suggesting you don't watch your weight, but it can become a viscous circle and we need a balanced food in take for good health and well being.

As for a book - might I suggest one written by a doctor who has hypothyroidism ?

Barry Durrant-Peatfield - Your Thyroid and How To Keep It Healthy it is written for patients, and in an easy to understand manner and it helped me in my understanding of what I was dealing with.

Do you have a full set of bloods to include TSH, T3, T4, inflammation, antibodies and the vitamins and minerals detailed above as that is where we generally need to start off and making our own first step back to better health.

The is much to read on the Thyroid UK website who are the charity who support this amazing forum and you can also find there information on companies who will run the appropriate blood tests for you if your doctor isn't able to - then just post the results and ranges there, in a new post, and you will get a complete answer on how to improve your own health, feel better and likely loose some weight in the process.

[SlowDragon Administrator]

T4 level < 3.0 pmol/L

TSH level 97

These current thyroid results show you are dangerously hypothyroid

Your GP inappropriately reduced dose levothyroxine when your results were already too low

On levothyroxine

TSH should be under 2 as an absolute maximum when on levothyroxine

gponline.com/endocrinology-...

Replacement therapy with levothyroxine should be initiated in all patients to achieve a TSH level of 0.5-2.0pmol/L.

NHS England Liothyronine guidelines July 2019 clearly state on page 13 that TSH should be between 0.4-1.5 when OPTIMALLY treated with just Levothyroxine

Note that it says test should be in morning BEFORE taking levothyroxine

Also to test vitamin D, folate, B12 and ferritin

sps.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploa...

Graph showing TSH in healthy population

web.archive.org/web/2004060...

[fuchsia-pink]

In my experience it's just not possible to lose weight until TSH is properly low and BOTH free T4 and free T3 are nice and high in range (you want these a good 2.3 or higher). And that means increasing your levo - as SlowDragon says this is dangerously inadequate at the moment - and then testing free T3, which a lot of GPs (or labs) simply won't do without a fight [but you can do a private test quite cheaply]

Then: avoid soy [you should be doing this anyway] - which rules out diet shakes; eat healthy. A lot of people swear by the 5:2. I lost an easy stone on this - then nothing. I now do the intermittent fasting thing (as a way of life) so for me it's just hot water until mid-day; then nothing after 7pm. I can now eat what I want and weight stays stable, which is half the battle. A number of people here have found the weight fall off on this regime. I can't say that it's been that easy for me, but I'm at my pre-diagnosis weight, which is where I want to be.

Finally, you mat find this helpful:

healthunlocked.com/thyroidu...

Good luck x

[Health-care in reply to fuchsia-pink]

These are the other bloods which were done, as I felt so unwell and by mid afternoon I literally struggle to function at the moment.T4 level < 3.0 pmol/LTSH level 9

Haemoglobin A1c level - IFCC standardised 24 mmol/mol

Non-diabetic HbA1c-IFCC reference range <42 mmol/mol

Interpretation will depend on whether patient is known diabetic

Serum sodium level 138 mmol/L [133.0 - 146.01

Serum potassium level 3.9 mmol/L [3.5 - 5.31

Serum urea level 2.7 mmol/L [2.5 - 7.81

Serum creatinine level 83 umol/L [49.0 - 90.01

Liver function tests

Serum total bilirubin level 13 umol/L [< 21.01

Serum alkaline phosphatase level 62 u/L [30.0 - 130.01

Serum alanine aminotransferase level 25 u/L [< 40.01

Serum total protein level 73 g/L [60.0 - 80.01

Serum albumin level 47 g/L [35.0 - 50.0]

Serum globulin level 26 g/L [20.0 - 35.01

eGFR using creatinine (CKD-EPI) per 1.73 square metres 70

ml/min/1.73m*2

Slight decrease in eGFR.

eGFR calculation by CKD-EPI equation from 6/11/2017

eGFR is not an accurate measure of true GFR in: Acute kidney

injury, acute illness, pregnancy.

LIPIDS INC HDL Refer to NEELI regional lipid guidelines to aid

interpretation of

lipid results.

Serum cholesterol level 6.8 mmol/L

Serum triglyceride levels 2.0 mmol/L

Serum HDL cholesterol level 1.8 mmol/L [> 1.21

Serum cholesterol/HDL ratio 3.8

Serum non high density lipoprotein cholesterol level 5.0 mmol/L

Haemoglobin concentration 144 g/L [115.0 - 165.0]

Total white blood count 6.48 x10*9/L [4.0 - 11.01

Platelet count - observation 360 x10*9/L [140.0 - 400.0]

Mean cell volume 94.1 fL [82.0 - 100.01

Haematocrit 0.410 L/L [0.37 - 0.471

Red blood cell count 4.35 x10*12/L [3.8 - 5.81

Mean cell haemoglobin level 33.0 pg [27.0 - 32.0]

Above high reference limit

Mean cell haemoglobin concentration 350 q/L [320.0 - 360.01

Red blood cell distribution width 15.8 % [12.0 - 15.01

Above high reference limit

Neutrophil count 3.96 x10*9/L 12.0 - 7.51

Lymphocyte count 2.02 x10*9/L [1.5 - 4.01

Monocyte count - observation 0.36 x10*9/L [0.2 - 0.81

Eosinophil count - observation 0.08 x10*9/L [0.0 - 0.41

Basophil count 0.06 x10*9/L I0.0 - 0.11

Nucleated red blood cell count 0.0 x10*9/L

Erythrocyte sedimentation rate < 3 mm/h

ESR REFERENCE RANGE : MALES < AGE/2 FEMALES <

[fuchsia-pink in reply to Health-care]

Well, yes, you will feel AWFUL with such high TSH and low free T4. It's essential to increase your levo - see a different GP if you can.

Bear in mind that under-active thyroids are potentially dangerous: there's a reason you get free prescriptions ... Get an URGENT appointment and new prescription.

And next time you have your bloods one, ask for key nutrients - ferritin, folate, vit D and B12 - to be tested as it's important for your health that these are good. I've had some success ith mine by saying that testing these is recommended by Thyroid UK x

[SlowDragon Administrator in reply to Health-care]

Have you spoken to GP yet

They should have immediately been in touch with you after such high TSH and extremely low Ft4

Low GFR linked to being hypothyroid academic.oup.com/jcem/artic...

High cholesterol linked to being hypothyroid

nhs.uk/conditions/statins/c...

If you have an underactive thyroid (hypothyroidism), treatment may be delayed until this problem is treated. This is because having an underactive thyroid can lead to an increased cholesterol level, and treating hypothyroidism may cause your cholesterol level to decrease, without the need for statins. Statins are also more likely to cause muscle damage in people with an underactive thyroid.

No vitamin D, folate, ferritin and B12 test results

[Health-care in reply to SlowDragon]

Go rung me to up Levo to 100mcg which I’ve done, said 3 month before next set of bloods to be done. Thanks so much for helping x

[SlowDragon Administrator in reply to Health-care]

Essential to get vitamin levels and thyroid antibodies tested

Ring GP and request testing now…or next week

Vitamin D, folate, ferritin and B12

They also owe you an apology

[SlowDragon Administrator]

You almost certainly shouldn’t be driving at moment with such low thyroid levels.