Looking for dietary advice : I have just joined... - Thyroid UK

Thyroid UK

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Looking for dietary advice

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I have just joined the community as am so disheartened and confused by so much conflicting advice on how to best manage your diet with an underactive thyroid. I was diagnosed 16 years ago with this condition and have struggled with weight gain and managing my weight ever since. Trawling the internet leaves me so confused with the advice it gives so I thought joining this community may help. Can anyone please share a diet plan they have tried that has been successful in losing weight 😁

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5 Replies

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Fruitandnutcase1 year ago

I don’t know about underactive thyroid - I’m in remission from Graves’ disease and I find the only way I can lose weight is to stay off carby foods like bread, biscuits, cakes, sweets although I do have the odd square of 90% dark chocolate.I stick to veg that grow above ground and avoid potatoes / parsnips although I do eat them but in moderation. I tend to eat more veg than fruit, lots of green leafy veg. I used to eat masses of fruit and less veg, now it’s the other way round. I also eat unsalted nuts and seeds.

I don’t know if it would help you but I became pre diabetic a few years ago after taking steroids for rheumatoid arthritis and I discovered a book by Dr David Cavan - think it’s called Reverse Your T2 Diabetes, he advises using a blood sugar meter to find the foods that cause your blood sugar to spike. So I bought one for myself.

It takes a lot of effort recording everything you eat etc but once I stopped my blood sugar spiking I lost weight and lowered my blood sugar and because I had listed all the foods I was eating while I was doing that I knew which foods I needed to avoid.

Not saying I don’t ever eat them but I know what I’m doing now and I know what they’re doing to me.

I also went totally gluten free - I’m not coeliac but it made a massive difference to my IBS for a start and once I did that I noticed that my thyroid antibodies reduced by a massive amount. It could have been being GF or it could just have been time for them to die off - who knows but for me it was worth it. A lot of people with thyroid problems go gluten free. It’s probably sensible to be tested first - I wasn’t but I eat really well without it - good wholesome food and a varied diet so I can’t see any good reason for eating gluten. Saying that I really do miss a nice fluffy sultana scone.

ColdBanana in reply to Fruitandnutcase1 year ago

What steroids and dose were you taking please? Thanks for sharing your diet, that is quite interesting. Going gluten free can be hard but worth it for some people. I guess it depends on how sensitive you are to things like bread etc. The gluten free options are ok sometimes. Did you eat little amounts of sugar? I find it the hardest to quit since it is the only thing that relaxes me when I am stressed, which is all the time due to lifestyle

Fruitandnutcase in reply to ColdBanana1 year ago

Goodness I wrote a reply then lost it.

Start again. I took prednisone for three months. It wasn’t a massive dose and I started to withdraw as soon as I started until at the end of three months I had stopped and was taking hydroxychloroquine.

I don’t really like the GF options, although I like Schar’s seeded bread. A lot of the GF stuff is very sweet but an unpleasant sort of sweet - not like chocolate! .

I have an enormous sweet tooth (hence the name) so I had a massive sugar habit. I’m an all or nothing person so now I avoid sugary foods although saying that I never ate sugary cereals or took sugar in tea etc. on the other hand I could demolish a sharing pack of chocolate buttons in a flash all by myself or a couple of bags of chocolate covered raisins. I just decided to go cold turkey with the chocolate.

I do still eat the odd square of 90% dark chocolate at the end of a meal but I avoid milk chocolate like the plague.

Don’t know about your sleep but I found fixing my sleep so that I get 7.5-8 hours a night helped with the diet. That was hard work but I’ve got it sussed now.

I do a decent walk every day I aim for 10k steps but I’m happy with 8k so are my bones!

Also I drink around 8 glasses of water a day sometimes water other times very weak tea - sleep and adequate hydration are very important as are having all your vitamins and minerals well up in their ranges. I found it almost impossible to get my doctors to test my D3, B12 and all the other things Thyroid U.K. recommend so now I buy home fingerprick tests to check on all that - much easier than begging doctors who didn’t seem to realise the need to have those results optimal.

SeasideSusieRemembering1 year ago

Rozzy123

Welcome to the forum.

Losing weight can be difficult if we are not optimally medicated. The first thing to do is post your current thyroid test results so that we can see if you are optimally medicated. Please post results with reference ranges for TSH, FT4 and FT3. The reference ranges are essential as these vary from lab to lab and we can't interpret results without them.

If you don't already have your results, your surgery may offer online access in which case register for this. If not just ask the receptionist for a print out of your results (never accept verbal or hand written results, mistakes can be made). It is our legal right in the UK to have our test results.

Your profile tells us that you are on 75mcg Levo and that you have weight gain and tiredness. Those are symptoms of underactive thyroid/under medication. 75mcg Levo is only one step up from a starter dose so it could well be that you aren't on a high enough dose.

When having thyroid tests, do you always do them as follows:

* Book the first appointment of the morning, or with private tests at home no later than 9am. This is because TSH is highest early morning and lowers throughout the day.

In fact, 9am is the perfect time, see first graph here, it shows TSH is highest around midnight - 4am (when we can't get a blood draw), then lowers, next high is at 9am then lowers before it starts it's climb again about 9pm:

healthunlocked.com/thyroidu...

If we are looking for a diagnosis of hypothyroidism, or looking for an increase in dose or to avoid a reduction then we need TSH to be as high as possible.

* Nothing to eat or drink except water before the test - have your evening meal/supper as normal the night before but delay breakfast on the day of the test and drink water only until after the blood draw. Certain foods may lower TSH, caffeine containing drinks affect TSH.

* If taking thyroid hormone replacement, last dose of Levo should be 24 hours before blood draw. If taking NDT or T3 then last dose should be 8-12 hours before blood draw, split dose and adjust timing the day before if necessary. This avoids measuring hormone levels at their peak after ingestion of hormone replacement. Take your thyroid meds after the blood draw. Taking your dose too close to the blood draw will give false high results, leaving any longer gap will give false low results.

* If you take Biotin or a B Complex containing Biotin (B7), leave this off for 3-7 days before any blood test. This is because if Biotin is used in the testing procedure it can give false results (most labs use biotin).

These are patient to patient tips which we don't discuss with phlebotomists or doctors.

Also, take your Levo on an empty stomach, one hour before or two hours after food, with a glass of water only, no tea, coffee, milk, etc, and water only for an hour either side, as absorption will be affected. Take any other medication and supplements 2 hours away from Levo, some need 4 hours.