Successful weightloss with an underactive thyroid?

[Lovingitinlockdown]

Has anyone successfully lost weight and kept it off if they have an underactive thyroid? If so, what worked for you? I am optimal with my thyroid meds.

I ballooned when I had an untreated underactive thyroid. I lost the extra weight when treated, I have since slimmed down further by good old fashioned calorie counting. Learning that 2000 cals per day is too much for many women & realising how many calories I was (over)eating & drinking has been life changing.

Work out your tdee tdeecalculator.net
that will give you the amount of calories to stay exactly as you are, you need to reduce that figure by 20% in order to lose weight.

Log on to My Fitness Pal and then weigh and log everything you consume accurately. It’s eye opening how many sneaky calories you can consume without realising it. A cake can have more calories than a roast dinner! So can some sandwiches actually. Once you start realising where you are going wrong it’s easy to make better choices and eat so you don’t go over your calories and can lose weight. It means no food is off limits and if you have something you fancy that’s calorific you just make adjustments the rest of the day or the next couple of days to even it out.

Optimal meds and then 5:2. Lost over 20kg and have kept the weight off.

Thanks both for your replies. Good to hear that the weight can be lost, even if it is a bit more difficult. I shall look up both methods suggested. Thanks again.

The only thing that worked for me was a gastric sleeve. Had it in the NHS 3 years ago as BMI 38 by then and had lots of weight related health issues.. (High BP, Arthritis, Sleep Apnoea- which I didn't even know about until on the programme) Lost 8 stone in the first year and went from size 24 to 12.. have maintained since then.
Have been able to reduce thyroxine from 200 per day to 100. It changed my life.

Wow @disorganisedsecretsquirrel that is an amazing loss - well done. My BMI is 38 too so I'm in a similar situation. Was the sleeve relatively easy to have done via the NHS? Was it because of the related health conditions that they agreed to do it? I know the NHS has become much more reluctant to do these type of procedures in recent years, all due to finances.

Actually Bariatric Surgery is the only reliable ,tested sustainable weight loss method showed to still effective 5 years after the procedure.

The statistics on diet and exercise following a study of 40k people shows that it simply very very rarely works and is even rarer to maintain any loss at the 5 year stage. In fact most people put all back on and more.

The diet industry has gone out of its way to undermine Bariatric surgery.. as 'vane' 'quick fix' .. 'dangerous' because the diet industry relies on you never succeeding and keeping you as a repeat consumer of the next fad diet.

The 'rules' for the NHS are BMI 40 and above. Or 35-40 with a health related illness. (If you snore you almost certainly have sleep apnoea) High BP, Arthritis. Etc.

Go to your GP and ask to be referred to the 'Tier 3 Weight-loss route way. ' which is the 6 month programme you need to go on before surgery. It will assess your mental and physical health, attitudes to diet etc. Then you will be given options usually between sleeve and bypass (bands are rare these days as not successful as people can cheat)

Do your research and go well armed. Actually as part of the obesity programme - surgery has just been given more funding.

Thanks @disorganisedsecretsquirrel that's really useful. I will do some reading.

It has taken me over two months to lose 9lbs through very strict calorie counting and light exercise (all I can manage)
It's possible but frustratingly slow!

Yes @Violabrit, I feel that will be my journey too! Quite annoying when you know you are eating healthily but still struggling to lose the weight.

It’s so hard with an under active thyroid. The only thing that works for me is the Cambridge diet. I lost 3 stone in 3 months - maintaining just now before I do the last stone and a half in September.

It’s easy and works!

Hi all, just chirping in as I was only recently diagnosed with under active thyroid post-pregnancy, I’ve gained 2 stone and none of my old clothes fit me at all :(
I used to have to work hard at maintaining my weight anyway, so this feels so tough! I’ve been trying to track calories but so far haven’t lost a single lb. Think I’ll look up some of the diets mentioned above!

The only thing that’s working for me is cutting out gluten as much as possible (hypothyroid people often have sensitivity to it) and exercising 6 days a week. Luckily I absolutely love exercise now and it’s a trade off as I just cbarsed to obsess about calories.

It’s taken me almost two years to lose 5 stone (lots of big ‘blips’) so it has been painfully slow but well worth it in terms of getting very fit and toned, and not needing blood pressure meds or strong painkillers for the disc degeneration in my back anymore. I’ve also been going through the menopause in this time frame just to slow things down further.

I was over 18 stone when I was finally formally diagnosed as hypothyroid and given levothyroxine. The meds made no difference to my weight in the year I took them before deciding to take up exercise.

i really need to restrict - im talking 1000 calories a day - i am now attempting 5:2 at the moment to see if that helps

@CoronaIsShit I’m exactly the same I just cannot be bothered tracking every calorie, I’m doing it at the moment and it’s soul destroying! I’m slowly getting back to exercise, I’m 6 months post partum but have twins so it’s tough finding the time sometimes haha! I think I may just have to make it routine, make sure I prioritise it on the day’s I do have a window. I’m gonna look in to eliminating gluten too! Any tips there??

Thanks for your replies/suggestions. It's amazing how many of us struggle with our weight but it's often brushed off by health care professionals. I've often considered giving up gluten but know it would be really difficult. Maybe should give it a try!

My thyroid makes losing weight agonisingly slow, I can't eat any more than 1200 calories a day if I don't want to gain weight, so losing weight is even more restrictive. There's no joy in food for me any more. I have an appointment with my doctor soon to increase my levothyroxine dosage but it honestly, truly sucks.

I tried low carbing recently and it worked amazingly well to start with. But then totally came to a standstill. Of course everyone says “oh you must be eating too many calories” or “you need to exercise too” etc but people who aren’t hypothyroid don’t have the same issues.

At one point I was eating under 40g of carbs a day, under 1100 calories and intermittent fasting, so only eating two meals and e.g. a low carb bar, between midday and 8pm. I lost a whole one pound in 5 weeks

I’m so fed up of it tbh. Getting to the point where I’m almost wishing for food poisoning so I can’t eat anything at all for a while, as I’m convinced that’s the only way I’ll lose anything!