I haven’t been on here for 3 years now but the reason we are all members of this site is because we want help with our thyroid issues, so I decided to log back on and share my progress with you.
I took up intermittent fasting a few years ago and was blown away with the results as I was at the point of believing no diet/ food plan would work.
I actually did have moderate success with Slimming World but I only lost a few pounds and knew I couldn’t keep that sort of food plan up forever.
However, I find intermittent fasting no trouble at all and am 2 stone lighter and several inches smaller since taking it up and feel pretty damn good about it I must admit
I know that feeling of despair when you think you’ll never get back to your pre thyroid weight ( i felt like that for years), so my whole purpose of coming back on this site is to show that there is hope out there.
You can go onto YouTube to research this topic and you’ll find so much helpful advice. I wish you so much success if you decide to give it a try.
Another tip I can pass on if you have bloating is to get yourself some good Castor oil and massage it onto your stomach then leave it on overnight. This also, to my great surprise, worked! I’ve had a swollen stomach all my adult life so just thought it was part of me, but after a few nights of doing this I couldn’t believe it when I saw my permanently bloated stomach had decreased in size somewhat and without it creating a laxative effect! It might not work for everyone, but it has for me, and I’m a great believer in giving things a try if it won’t do you any harm.
I do tend to research ‘Dr Google’ a lot ….which medical folk despair of 😂, but I don’t want to waste more time being told by doctors and endocrinologists that my ‘levels are fine’.
So I’ll continue to do my own research for ideas and tips and so far I’m finding it’s working pretty well for me.
Thanks for reading my post and good luck to everyone on your own personal thyroid journey xx
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Revsie
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Thanks for sharing your story ! Well done and good job at advocating for your health. I too suffer from bloating, so I will definitely try the castor oil. That’s why I appreciate this forum so much, we can learn from each other.🙏🏻
Thank you for your update it’s encouraging to hear about the progress you have made. Did the fasting affect your thyroid or medication in any way. How did you feel doing it?
Hi Blu-cat11. I’m at the hospital next week for my first thyroid check in a long time (Covid and cancellations to blame) so am excited to speak to my endo to show him the success I have had with fasting and hope my thyroid results might also show an improvement? I’ve carried on taking the same medication throughout 100 Levo, 20 liothyronine (I’m told to take 150 levo and 20 lio but dropped my levo to 100 a long time ago)
However, if the results don’t show on my levels I’m not too worried because I feel so much better. How I feel is my main goal rather than my numbers changing, but obviously it would be a bonus if it shows an improvement in my blood test as well.
How wonderful to hear a positive result. I’m so happy for you 🤗
If you are feeling fabulous directly challenge any attempt to change your medication. Only doctors would try to fix something that ‘ain’t broken’. If you need anything on low TSH being fine there is a pinned post compiled by tattybogle . You can also do a general search on ‘TSH’ too that will bring up related posts. I know there has been a recent post on the down regulation of TSH in people with hypothyroidism discussed recently.
Don’t let them treat the lab work- they should be treating you. 😘👍
Yes I’ll point that out to my endo that I’m feeling good, however I am a little breathless, so maybe my meds are a bit on the high side now and so I would be willing to drop a bit if this is suggested? Luckily my most recent endo actually listens to me (seen loads who didn’t!)
That is truly wonderful and if you have lost a significant amount of weight since last checked, then yes, but make sure to go slow and if they are a listening endo you have a valuable unicorn there. 🥳 Congratulations 👏
Hi Marx, when I started I tried 16/8 but increased to 18/6 which seems to be what my body responds to well. After losing 2 stone I now do around 12/12, but if I feel like I would like to lose a few pounds for something like a holiday I would go back to 18/6 for a few weeks.
Hi arTistapple, yes 18 hours fasting ( I have water or black coffee during this time but am also sleeping 7-8 hrs during this period), then a 6 hour eating window. When you first eat you need to break your fast with the right food. I have eggs or avocado or salad with oil and vinegar as I’ve read that if you break your fast with the wrong food, then it destroys all the beneficial effects that have happened to your body during fasting. This isn’t difficult to do and I still eat the same meals as my husband after that.
Sounds pretty much what I have been doing for a while, except for the sleeping bit. Back to about five hours per night if I am lucky. I am thinking about the caster oil too. Difficult getting my head around that one. Still give anything a go. Thank you Revsie.
Castor oil is also supposed to help you sleep better! It’s a natural product so won’t do you any harm that i know of, but of course it could depend on what medication you’re on, so please keep that in mind?
I buy organic, cold pressed castor oil.
Also, don’t forget that anything breaks your fast ie a drop of milk in your tea/coffee, and if that’s the case then the fast is broken and you’ve begun your eating window.
Oh thanks Revsie for the extra info. I know caster oil internally is very disruptive and I would imagine even worse for people who are hypo, although it’s an old fashioned remedy for constipation. I have never seen organic, cold pressed castor oil. Last time I bought it, it was for softening leather shoes, I think, which were too tight. I was given the third degree about why I wanted it! So changed days from a dose of castor oil!
I'm interested in trying IF but am not sure what foods I can break my fast with. Also can I drink fruit teas whilst I'm fasting ? I'm thinking Pukka teas which don't have any sugar ? Thanks.
Fruit teas would break your fast as the fruits used contain sugar. You can have black coffee, black tea or water during your fast ….it sounds hard but it’s really not if you commit to it. When I’ve tried dieting in the past all I could think about is what food I could have next and felt permanently hungry, but with fasting it feels really different and you don’t have the same hunger pangs, so it’s much easier.
Take a look on YouTube, there’s loads of experts on there to guide you through. Good luck x
I got the best results for me doing 18/6 but we’re all different so you might be able to get away with 16/8, or your body might need more of a jumpstart and you might have to do 20/4 to get things going? My first 2 weeks I lost nothing, but I didn’t give up and eventually I started to respond. Once the weight loss started I could see my body changing and even then I had the odd week with no weight loss, but that didn’t matter too much as I knew I was still improving my health.
You can go full on and do a low carb eating plan alongside the fasting and that really shifts the weight, but I just eat normally now on 12/12 and seem to keep the weight off so I’m happy with that.
They weren’t able to elucidate the exact mechanism for its effectiveness but seems to have a short term effect (as long as applications are maintained) on the immune system, possibly by activation of prostaglandins, and also improve liver enzymes and cholesterol.
Personally I’ll have forgotten all this by next week but thought it was really interesting, hopefully usefully for others
Thanks asidist, I’ve had a read, very interesting. I have dry eyes and have been putting this on my eyelids, so it’s good that it states it helps dry eyes.
I too have dry eyes and have been doing so off and on as well! There’s a YouTuber named Jennifer Myers who’s been using castor oil on her lids for ages and has the longest eyelashes I’ve ever seen, so that was extra motivation.
What I’ve found to have the biggest impact on my dry eyes though is the warm compresses and blinking exercises I’ve been told for years that I should be doing but had rarely put aside time to do. Recently started doing them again after some worsening of the condition —warm compress for 10 mins /day followed by blinking exercises for another min or so—and the difference has been amazing. Hard to make the time consistently but Im trying harder now!
I’ve bought the warm compress but only used it once so far (lazy)!
Currently use Optase TTO Blephawipes daily along with the castor oil ……and I’m not sure if it’s my imagination but I feel as if my huge eye bags are decreasing?
Now that I’m aware of that I’ll keep an eye on things (no pun intended haha), however, I know the warm compress is in my cupboard if I feel i might also need that for my dry eyes.
Good grief, it’s a full time job trying to keep on top of everything eh? 😅
Revsie, do you ever feel like the castor oil is irritating /drying to your eyes? I use USP edible grade oil but nevertheless sometimes find my eyes feel worse with it, though I do use other products higher up on my lids (have crepey lids) and can’t tell if the the castor oil itself is the culprit or if the problem is that the oil is inadvertently mixing with my eye cream. (The cream doesn’t have any known dry-eye aggravating ingredients, but nevertheless seems to make my eyes feel more dry if it gets near my lash line.)
For a while I used nothing but food-grade cold pressed grapeseed oil on my lids (no cream) and found that too worsened my dry eyes—so my eyes may just be particularly sensitive.
Hi asidist, no it doesn’t irritate my eyes at all. Castor oil is a great moisturiser for the skin and also helps with dry eye, so I personally wouldn’t put anything else on at the same time. You could try it on its own without your other product for 2 or 3 nights and see how you get on?
I use my TTO Blephawipes in the afternoon and then castor oil at night.
Thanks Revsie, yes I’ve done a couple days trial in the past and may just do a longer one at some point, though I need the moisturizer for my lids more than the castor oil for eyes (the oil itself unfortunately isn’t hydrating enough for my strangely crepey lids!) so can’t give that up regardless. Thankfully the doc recommendations - compresses etc- seem to be working for me and hopefully 🤞 will keep the remaining functional meibomian glands healthy and producing their own oils!
hi all, further update. Now 8 months on and have kept the weight off! However, I haven’t been very strict with my intermittent fasting this last 3 months, but have been very, very busy moving my aunt from care home to care home trying to get her into the best place for her. Am now selling her house to pay for care home fees so have been ultra stressed and extremely busy, so would expect to keep my weight down with my current lifestyle haha?
The biggest thing I’ve recently noticed though with not doing IF is I’m starting to get the old aches and pains back that I’d forgotten I had, so I absolutely need to get back onto time restricted eating (intermittent fasting) as this has proved to me that this made my body healthier and weight loss is just a bonus! Please give it a try, it’s the easiest thing I’ve ever done and shown the best results since being diagnosed with thyroid issues. Xx
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