Weight Loss

Hello anyone who might be able to give me advice, encouragement, pleeeeease!

I have been trying to lose since Oct 07 and thusfar, have lost 2 pounds, really makes me crazy, I know how to eat, so no advice please on what I am eating or if I am eating too much. Right now on days I work out, which is 6 days a week, I eat between 1450 and 1600 calories. I am currently working on getting my thyroid to a normal range, so I know this is part of the problem.  I am thinking of trying the South Beach Diet. Does anyone have any advice on how to survive phase 1? or menu ideas? I think I will do fine for breakfast and dinner, but it is lunch I am worried about. I am SO frustrated, I mean, come on, 2 pounds in 4 months....I want to just toss in the towel and go grab an extra large, overstuffed pizza! I mean, why not? Not losing doing what I am doing! Please any suggestions on any of these topics would be greatly appreciated, as you can see I am a bit bitter and depressed.

Thanks for any help in advance!

Gin

I to suffer from under active thyroid. And I was frustrated just as you, so I started researching foods that help and hurt weight lose efforts. Foods that hurt are broccoli,cabbage, and a few others I cna't remember right now. I also found you should restrict your intake of eggs,sugar, red meat, caffine and sodium chloride. Sone of the foods that help are Salamon, bananas, sunflower seeds, asparagus, spinach, carrots, apricots, olive oil, potatoes, parsley, radishes, and oatmeal.  Hope this helps, good luck.

 Shannon

Thanks Shannon

I will take note of the foods you listed.

Take Care

Ginny

How is it that broccoli or cabbage could hinder weight loss? What do they contain that has that effect??? Don't worry, I'm not trying to argue with you!! I'm just super-curious...I can't imagine finding out that stuffing myself with broccoli instead of something yummier could've been a bad idea!

I doubt there is a diet that really works if you have an underactive thyroid, but you might find that keeping blood glucose and insulin low will help.  South Beach is good for that.  Or you can just eat less carbs, make sure that the carbs you eat have a low glycemic index, and always eat carbs with lean protein.  This will keep blood sugars low so there is nothing for your body to store as fat.  It seems to help me when I start having problems losing and it is healthy.

It's hard to know if it's your thyroid, diet, calorie intake, etc. without any of your stats. Are you already at a healthy weight and just trying to go from a size 8 to a size 6 or are you needing to lose a significant amount of weight?

Thyroid issues can certainly affect weight loss.. making sure that is under control should help.. if your hormones are normal than the answer may lie in your calories intake/output.

Editing to add- That I've been hypo for years and years and have had the most success with lower fat diets than low carb diets. In fact, I tried the no carb thing once and after 1 month I had gained 9lbs! Lowered fat and calories seems to work best for me.  Good luck!

Mary

Thanks for the info Mary.  When you were doing low carb were you eating roughly the same amount of calories as when you ate low fat and lost weight? Or were your cals very much increased as a result of all the fat?

smathless- I didn't really count calories but my guess is that the lower fat diets were lower calories simply because fat has more calories than do carbs. Counting calories is kind of new for me this time around.. and seems to be working well! :) I eat low fat because I can eat more with fewer calories.. and in general seems to be the healthiest way to eat.

Original Post by smathless:

How is it that broccoli or cabbage could hinder weight loss? What do they contain that has that effect??? Don't worry, I'm not trying to argue with you!! I'm just super-curious...I can't imagine finding out that stuffing myself with broccoli instead of something yummier could've been a bad idea!

Broccoli, cabbage, brussel sprouts, and others are called "goitrogenic" foods. In raw form, they can hinder thyroid function, which slows your metabolism and contributes to weight gain.

Now, that's just the raw form. If they're cooked (steaming works too), it seems to deactivate it. I think you have to eat a pretty large amount of raw goitrogenic veg in order to get that effect, but for hypothyroid patients, it's something to watch out for. Our thyroids are screwed up as it is... no additional help needed!

As a side note, soy interferes with the thyroid as well. I have no idea how much will cause problems, though. Since I'm on replacement therapy, I tend to avoid it as much as I can. It's in nearly everything (including my vitamins!!!), so it's quite difficult.