If you have trouble maintaining a healthy weight range, are putting on weight, or trying to lose it and you can’t, then this email may help you find some answers.
Hormones that are out of balance really impact our weight goals, and often people end up restricting calories so much that they create a raft of future health complications – including damaging their thyroid hormones further and creating a really unbalanced picture.
Today we will look at thyroid testing, the good, bad and the ugly 😉 I’ll also share with the specific thyroid tests you need to assess your metabolism.
Why can’t I lose weight???
People with a slower metabolism typically burn 500 calories less a day. If you were to eat 2,500 which is a maintenance value, you will put on weight. If you eat the lower amount of calories, you will maintain weight. If you eat less again, you set yourself up for issues which I will discuss below.
This occurs even with a suboptimal thyroid that does not get picked up in standard testing.
Check your symptoms
These symptoms can be due to other factors, but if you have 5 or more, that indicates that your thyroid hormones may be behind it.
- Heavy irregular periods
- Premenstrual tension
- Perimenopause symptoms
- Tiredness & Sluggishness
- Dryer Hair or Skin
- Sleep More Than Usual
- Weaker Muscles
- Constant Feeling of cold
- Poorer Memory – brain fog
- Puffier Eyes
- Difficulty with Math
- Weigh gain easily
- Outer third of eyebrows sparse
- Clumsy – unsteady gait
- Irregular periods
- Carpel Tunnel
- Heart rate fluctuations
- Overly stressed
- Waking up tired
- Skin issues such as psoriasis, eczema, rashes and allergies
- Mid afternoon fatigue or napping
- Sleep issues
Not Eating Enough
One of the most paradoxical symptoms of someone who is under-eating is weight gain!
One of our senior retired clients discovered this first hand when she followed her Detox Food Program to the letter. She was eating 3 times as much as she had for years, and while it felt really contradictory, she lost 8kg in the 3 week program!
Her food program was full of high quality proteins, lots of vegetables, and had no grains or processed foods in it.
>>> Long term calorie reduction induces changes in your body’s metabolism in order to keep your body in a homeostatic balance. Your body does not like major, drastic changes, and it will make modifications to your thyroid, adrenal, and sex hormones in order to slow down metabolic process in response to the low calorie diet.
The Blood Sugar Dance
Under-eating over a long period of time can cause hypoglycemia, especially when combined with exercise. When this hits, you feel better fast eating sugary foods, but this often creates a cycle of high and low blood sugar swings that leads to overeating or binging on junk foods.
Thyroid Hormone conversion issue
In a study done on 15 obese (113 kg) women over an 18-week period, they discovered that rT3, the inactive thyroid hormone, increased by as much as 27 percent in the group put on a very, very low calorie diet.
RT3 – or reverse T3, occurs when the thyroid hormone T4 (thyroxine) converts down the inactive pathway instead of the activating pathway that makes T3.
If rT3 builds up in the blood to elevated levels it causes a heap of complications, and the body finds it very hard to clear out the excess hormones.
RT3 binds to T3 receptors blocking the action of T3 and thus acting as a metabolic break. If rT3 levels are high, and other thyroid hormone markers are in range, this indicates rT3 dominance.
Other causes of reverse T3 dominance include: leptin resistance, inflammation (NF kappa-B), nutrient deficiencies such as low iron, selenium, zinc, chromium, Vit B6 and B12, Vit D and iodine, low testosterone, low human growth hormone, insulin dependent diabetes, pain, stress, environmental toxins, free radical load, hemorrhagic shock, liver disease, kidney disease, severe or systemic illness, severe injury, surgery, and toxic metal exposure.
Our thorough testing packages cover these factors to get to the root problem and help you optimise your hormones and biological functions using natural therapies, detoxification programs, nutrient replacement therapy, and scientifically validated traditional herbal medicine.
Below is a comparison of the most run thyroid tests done by doctors, and what we always run in The Lucy Rose Clinic:
And this is JUST the THYROID PANEL!
If you have signs that other hormones are out of whack, then pathology can pickup the grade of imbalance, the root cause and guide a practitioner to treat the problem correctly, ensuring that you get better in a fraction of the time of other approaches.
So lets check in and see if you may be exhibiting other endocrine (hormone) system issues:
Adrenal symptoms:
- Rapid Heart Beat
- Have eczema, Skin Allergies
- Wake Up Tired
- Tired around 3pm
- Can’t tolerate loud noises anymore
- Easily irritated
- More anxious or depressed
Pre-diabetes symptoms:
- Crave sugar or carbs
- Get irritable when due to eat
- Feel faint or weak if you miss a meal
- Get headaches
- Increased thirst
- Frequent urination.
Food Intolerance symptoms:
- Bloating
- Abdominal pain
- Diarrhea or constipation
- Headaches
- Fatigue
- Joint pain
- Skin rash
- Depression or anxiety
If you are ticking a lot of these boxes, the best thing is to speak with one of our Lucy Rose experts. We are experienced in helping people with complex health issues that are presenting in all areas of their life. We also offer comprehensive testing packages that are discounted and available on payment plans, so you can finally get the answers you need so you can start feeling better.
Like Valerie below!
Weight loss can seem complicated, but when you work with practitioners who are trained to understand the way the body works at a functional level, the confusion is taken out and replaced with an individualised plan to get you feeling great again!
Book your first appointment valued at $97 at no cost and no obligation! We can’t wait to speak with you 🙂 Click here