No More Diets

How Do You Lose Weight with Hypothyroidism?

Hypothyroidism is a medical condition caused by insufficient production of thyroid hormone by the thyroid gland.

About 1 in 7 women (and a large number of men) will suffer a thyroid condition at some point in their lives which will cause them to rapidly gain weight (without eating any more or exercising less than usual) and make it pretty much impossible to lose weight.

These conditions tend to go undiagnosed for years as many of the symptoms are those found in the general public - putting on weight, feeling tired and so on.

Although I’m not a medical doctor - so I am not able to provide 1-2-1 advice or treat your symptoms and I’m not an expert on thyroid conditions, I have come across a couple of excellent resources recently which may help you.

Just make sure that you involve your doctor if you decide to make any changes which may affect your health as a result of what you read.

The first resource is a good general overview of hypothyroidism at wikipedia which clearly explains the causes, symptoms, diagnosis and treatment although it does not focus that much on the weight gain associated with an under-active thyroid gland.

For the weight management issue there is an excellent book which I think will help you a lot - I read it a while ago to improve my understanding of the condition and it is extremely comprehensive.

If you have really tried to lose weight and you’re finding it impossible despite eating a limited number of calories and taking exercise then take a look at the Thyroid Diet by Mary L. Shomon. She has a thyroid condition herself and explains in clear English and in great depth all about the condition and the various ways to manage it.

Unfortunately it’s not a simple case of taking a medication for your condition to resolve the problem with your weight but Mary explains all the strategies which will help as well as those which won’t.

The version of the book version I read is available at Amazon.co.uk or there’s a version under a different cover on Amazon.com (see below)