This article is about Hypothyroidism and weight loss….. agh
healthline.com/health/hypot...
To lose weight, do 300 minutes a week of aerobic exercise, like jogging, bike riding, or playing tennis. That works out to about 60 minutes a day, five days a week. If you don’t have a full hour at a time to exercise, break up your routine into 10- or 20-minute segments.
On top of hypothyroidism I’m riddled with Psoriatic arthritis so cardio is out for me so Im feeling pretty hopeless now 😩
It’s barking mad. Especially if you didn’t have a doctor who’d work with you to ensure you had enough thyroid hormone replacement to be able to sustain that much exercise.
We can’t make extra thyroid hormones to respond to extra exercise.
It’s just a variation on victim blaming. “You’re fat because you eat too much and don’t move enough”. If it were that simple I’d have lost weight and kept it off years ago.
From the article :
A daily dose of levothyroxine (Levothroid, Levoxyl, Synthroid) will rev up your thyroid hormone production again, and with it, your metabolism.
That isn't what Levo does. It replaces the output of the thyroid with what comes out of the thyroid hormone pill you are prescribed.
How can the website make such a bizarre error?
It begs the question of what do they think happens to people with no thyroid, whether that occurs due to autoimmune destruction or via surgical removal? There is no thyroid to "rev up" in that situation.
I've just read more of the article. It could have been written by Weight Watchers 50 years ago i.e. it is based on calorie counting and semi-starvation.
It’s healthline an American thing! I pity the Americans 😞
I normally like health line articles but this one just killed me with the 300 minutes a day exercise…. I wish I could exercise just 20 mins a day without hobbling for days afterwards.
trouble is the only time I’ve ever been slim is when I was running four times a week and barely eating.
I am glad I did not come across this article myself. My experience (limited) of meeting face to face with other hypothyroids, shows people as out of shape as myself. Off course there are other hypothyroids who remain slim and stay on the ball. I just don’t personally know any of them. I think their general condition must be so ‘not mine’. Jazzw makes sensible comments. Are we not sick of being ‘gaslit’? Even forty five years ago, when I had previously been very fit before having my children, I found I could no longer run. I just thought it was due to the changes brought about by childbirth. P.S. I can still no longer run.
Completely agree with you. I have bulging discs and arthritis in my lower back and hips and just walking a few yards can be purgatory on a bad day! I used to love walking my dogs and I miss it terribly-I would walk for miles! Now I can only stand at the top of the garden (on the side of a Welsh hill and thankfully very large) and throw a ball for the dog to run himself ragged… When my MRI results came back for my back I was told I could “self-refer” to the local physio department (30 miles away!) for exercises I could try…
Doing 300 minutes of cardio would probably kill me or render me bed-bound for the rest of my days! It’s all very well and good these “fitness gurus” coming up with this bloody nonsense but they never take any physical limitations into account… just makes me want to scream.
I long to exercise again. I just had to give up my walks because they ‘done me in’. The physical pain was excruciating and the exhaustion afterwards took up my whole day. I am still living in squalor truth be known, making food my only employment and I can’t always do that. I have not been in a large supermarket since before the pandemic. Yesterday I thought I would just ‘pop in’ to get a couple of things necessary before the next delivery. What was I thinking? I barely got to the first aisle. My husband had dropped me off at the front door and then he returned (with no shopping bags) and trotted around for me whilst I made my way to the checkout. As he had brought no shopping bag we had to curb what we went for. You can afford to be unthinking when you have all your faculties. It’s tricky when even the hired help can’t think for themselves. And infuriating.
Crazy thing is doctors prescribe to this craziness and somehow if you can’t do it then your lazy …. I be happy with 20 mins of walking without torment.
I’d be happy with just half of that!!!
Don’t feel bad because it’s completely dated advice. The best approach to weight management (for everyone regardless of thyroid status) is pay attention to gut health , to not over eat in general (exercise actually has relatively little impact on weight and can actually increase appetite too) so watch your overall calories without getting on a binge/restrict rollercoaster, and do some form of weight training.
As we become less active for whatever reason. (usually age or illness) muscle mass decreases - it’s really important to do some kind of strength work to combat this. The increase in muscle allows is to maintain a reasonable calorie intake too which lets face it, is more sustainable than dieting all the time. It’s also effective in helping to manage arthritis as it builds the muscles that support the joints.
Finally, LISS (low impact steady state) exercise helps to burn calories too. That basically equates to going for a walk every day!
High intensity cardio is of course important for exercising the heart muscle but we actually can do that by sprinting hard on an exercise bike for just a few seconds, for example. It doesn’t need to be an hour or whatever unless that’s what you want to do!
As someone with an acknowledged heart condition I can say with confidence and experience ‘high intensity cardio’ is unnecessary for exercising heart muscle. LISS improves the heart muscle without the need for high intensity. The problem for me is terrible muscle spasms which are very painful. Dynamic stretching helps but is temporary and would still not allow me to get back to walking because within a very few minutes the body seizes up. I look forward to finding a sweet spot asap so I can get back to exercising.
sorry to hear that - clearly if you have a heart condition that’s a different story!
I wish I could sprint on a stationary bike I did have a moment of stupid when I decided to try and roll out my sore body with a roller that was 2 days ago and Im still in pain from it … agh
There is a lot of "advice" and opinion out there. And even fairly reputable sources get things wrong. I have read on Cleveland and Mayo Clinic websites that fixing the TSH solves all your problems or once your doctor gives you Levo all symptoms disappear. It's magical! (NOT!) Exercise is no magic bullet either. It might work for some, but others have to go a different route. There are as many options as there are people. YOU DO YOU!
It seems Endocrinologist believe this right now if your TSH and levels are in range you shouldn’t have anymore issues …. My own Endo said this to me just last month… I honestly just give up I don’t even back talk to him anymore when he says crap like that because its just useless to combat with him.
There are a great many doctors who do not take kindly to knowledgeable patients. Some deeply resent, if not hate, them. I try to stay away from my doctor as much as possible. Every single time I had to see him he tried to pick a fight and he works himself up into such a rage that I get really scared. Last time I saw him was for a doctor's note to return to work after a knee injury (that he did not treat). That was all good and I thought, "Wow, this is going unexpectedly well." Then he asked, "When is your appointment for X again?.....Oh, you decided against that. Why is that?" So I referred him to an information leaflet by the Cochran Institute but he insisted that I put it into my own words. Thus put on the spot I tried my best, laid out all the pros and cons and why the cons weight more heavily for me. And he cut me off a couple of times and got more and more angry. Then he said that it always surprises him that laypeople believe that they could interpret research when even he as a doctor could not. "You don't have a medical background, do you?" (I guess he missed the "information leaflet" part somehow). Without going into details here, he had a lot to say and I agreed (I really did) with everything he said. But the more I agreed the angrier he got, to the point where he jumped up and stood over me arms crossed and I thought that if he were allowed he would beat me to a pulp now. Finally he must have realized the seriousness of the situation and took a couple of steps back and said, "Well you did not really give me ANY reason at all, why you would decline X." What?!!! I was stunned. He flew out the door, turned around and said, "I don't agree with you." (which had been quite obvious to me). This was one of the most extreme (and frightening) experiences I ever had with a doctor. I have experienced humiliation, condescension, gas lighting, being lied to, doctors taking revenge in some form, but that really took the cake. I went out of that office shaking like a leaf. I was supposed to make an appointment at the front desk for an annual. I never did. Have not been back since and was super fortunate to find a Nurse Practioner who has looked after me very well, but is not very available.
Wow, that was much longer than intended. I guess I got a bit emotional here and now I'm reliving the anxiety of that experience. Dangit!
I would like to add that, once I got to my car, I thought, "I hope he does not beat his wife." I was very worried about her, even though I can not be sure he has one, let alone know her if he does. I still worry about her every time I think about him.
Why don’t you get rid of him?
With the NP I somewhat am. We have a terrible shortage of doctors here and many people don't have a doctor at all (I guess, that's why docs do and can behave the way they do). Next time I have to go (I hope that's far, far off) I will see whether I can bring my son along. Then I a) have a witness (that might put a lid on things) and b) my son is not going to stand by seeing his mom being threatened like this. If nothing else he can get me out of there should there be another escalation like that. But, of course, I will try to avoid seeing that doc at all cost.
As I read it, I thought imagine being married to him!
I do NOT want to imagine that. If he treats his patients like that, I don't want to know how he would treat his wife. I can not imagine that he is a very kind pussycat husband.
On the other hand, if she is sufficiently submissive, things might be just fine.
I hope she wouldn't be fine with that sort of attitude. Letting the side down.
It would be a preview of hell!
If you're levels arnt right no matter what u do u won't lose weight. X
I am hypothyroid and managed to lose over a stone whilst being immobile with hip problems. I wasn't doing any exercise. Here is how I did it....
1. Started with my thyroid levels in a good place.
2. Used an app on my phone - I used MyFitnessPal ( free version), because it linked to my Garmin watch, but there are others. One great thing about this app was that at the end of every day, it told me, 'if every day was like today, in 5 weeks time you will weigh xxx'. I found that incredibly motivating. If you hadn't had enough calories, it wouldn't give you a weight, but tell you to eat more. There was also a very good forum on there where I learnt a lot.
3. I religiously calorie counted - weighed my food, used my phone to scan the food packets etc. Portion size was a bit of an eye opener to me to be honest, and also some foods were more calorific than I expected. I found it so easy with the app to find the calories and once you'd had a food once, it was in your history to click on it again. I never felt that hungry. If I did, I would have a low calorie snack and include the calories in my quota.
4. I weighed myself every day. I know lots of people don't like to do this, but it was a constant reminder to me to keep at it. Yes some days it went up, but the trend was very slowly down.
5. If I had a bad day and went over on calories, I put it behind me and resolved to do better.
6. I learned so much in the process..... for example...
- fats can help you feel satisfied, so reaching for a low fat alternative may mean you end up feeling hungry and snacking more. I tried to stick to good fats.
- if you cut your calorie intake too much, you stop losing weight as your body goes into starvation mode. This happened to me at one point. I couldn't believe it - I actually had to eat a bit more to kick start the weight loss again.
- I probably don't eat enough protein. An ongoing struggle for me.
Anyway, that was 18 months ago and I haven't calorie counted since then. I did go up by a couple of kilos over Christmas, but I still weigh myself most days, and I am now back in check within my ideal range by just being sensible.
I had heard of intermittent fasting, and it's only in recent times that I've realised that in a way I was doing that because I didn't eat between about 7pm and 7am the next day - perhaps that helped too?
Sorry for the long post but if it helps one other person on their journey, that would be great.
You must be exhausted from all that prepping. I definitely know calories in calories out concept and I do definitely do measure and weigh my food but sadly for me thats not enough my weight has piled on between my surgical menopause (got that under control) to only have thyroidectomy and psoriatic arthritis and its medications to unravel everything again and worse because now Im much older and the PSA left me bed/home bound for 2 years.
I expect your other medications may well put a spanner in the works, but I just wanted to point out that I didn't do any exercise as I was immobile too. I'm so sorry about your PSA. That must make life very hard, and at the end of the day, weight loss may not be the most important thing.
It honestly didn't seem that much effort at the time. I just kept the scales on the work surface ( add the plate and zero the scale each time you add a food) and the app made the counting easy. I didn't make any special meals, but I did try and choose healthy options.
Sounds like you had a good regime. Ironically I do worry in a different way. I have been working for the last 10 months on an inpatient eating disorder unit. Seeing the impact these illnesses can have I worry many people with thyroid issues could easily tip into ED thinking (obsessive calorie counting and compulsive exercising) which can consume someone so much.
A fine line for some people that can easily be crossed….
That must be very challenging. I've known several people who have suffered eating disorders and it is very hard to watch - you feel so powerless to help. The people I have known have all been high achievers with incredible (and destructive) self discipline - one went to Oxford.
I think the app was good as it didn't reward under eating. The weight loss was slow, so the calorie restriction not huge. I think that's why I've been able to maintain without too much effort - it just resets your norms for portion sizes and educates you on calorific foods, which I was a bit ignorant of.
it’s a good app. I have used it in the past. Well done for all your hard work
Such an informative post and well done on sticking with it, that’s half the battle. My weight loss journey over the last 12 months sounds exactly like yours (apart from the weighing every day - I had to avoid the scales as much as possible). Good fats are great at keeping you satisfied and not cutting your calories too much helps you to stick with it long term. Slow and steady losses, rather than a quick fix. Wish I’d known this years ago!
Thank you. Yes I had no idea about fats beforehand. There is a very good Zoe podcast about them.
Oh, I might check it out. I watched a documentary called Fat Fiction when I first started and it blew my mind.
@batty1 Both your conditions are autoimmune diseases, and your excess weight may well be part of your body's inflammatory response to a perceived threat. Dietary changes can help, but NOT a reduction in calories per se.
Many people with autoimmune disease find that removing gluten (found in wheat and some other grains) is effective in reducing inflammation, and hence weight. You may also find removing dairy (milk based products) also works well.
And don't replace bread and milk with manufactured products! You can find recipes for bread made with almond flour and seeds and eggs online. Lots of veg, no added sugar, and mainly berries as fruit plus plenty of protein (but not cheese, alas) and I found that I lost lots of weight, though am still heavier than orthodox guidance suggests I should be, which I think is down to the hypothyroidism.
Focus on making sure your nutrition is as good as you can make it, rather than trying simply trying to lose weight.
Good luck!
hello, I never had issues with whole bread products until a year ago for some unknown reason they make me sick to my stomach so I avoid them now and I don’t have issues with white bread surprising but I don’t eat it often and I haven’t had milk products in years I only drink Almond/coconut milk ….. Inflammation is definitely a huge issue for me and it’s gotten worse since I recovered from Covid last October my ESR levels have skyrocketed and I lost 14 pounds in 4 days while sick with covid (eating the same food as I do now) and and gained it all back crazy enough Im more active now then when I had Covid and still gained it back. I believe covid messed with my thyroid level’s which caused the weight loss…..
I was a little taken back by the articles mentioning hypos need to exercise (aerobically) for 300 minutes a day. Crazy.
I thought that exercise thing is crazy! May I ask what age you are? My autoimmune issues started post Menopause, and this is quite common in women I understand. But, critically, I have a family history of autoimmune conditions, affecting skin and/or metabolism especially thyroiditis, also neurological. I feel fortunate I only have about 4! You may or may not have gut issues that you're aware of with wheat, whether or not whole, I certainly didn't, but its removal has proved pivotal for me. Re. The thyroid: do you have antibodies which, if you do, would indicate that your hypo status is definitely autoimmune? If so, it's definitely not addressed by exercise!
Do check vitamins and minerals especially B vits, and D, also selenium and zinc which support the thyroid.
Wow. I got lucky I guess. I lost a lot of weight pre levothyroxine and while on it. I think my reason was due to me unknowingly forcing myself into Ketosis or forcing an immune response when eating gluten. Doing both causes me to lose rapid weight. When I was forcing ketosis, I was only eating between 300-500 calories a day, fasting for 18 hours. Tuna, brats and sauerkraut. Absolutely NO sugars. When eating gluten, I had major night sweats. I still currently play around with both when I want to lose weight. If I do eat gluten, I pay dearly for it "no pain no gain" that becomes a lot of pain. I'm very interested in learning what is going on in my body that causes it. So far, i've learnt that ketosis forces the body to eat up stored fats for energy, but also eats up muscle in the process. When I eat gluten, I get blood tests ran out of curiosity and notice specific white blood cells being elevated.
Dail Mail Article
No diagnosis, yet, but why? 
being low body weight causing secondary hypothyroidism??
Weight gain
