Health fitness and my thyroid. Since the beginning of 2016, we’ve talked about eating healthy and getting fit. We’ve made diet resolutions and have simplified our fitness routines so that being fit is a no-brainer. All of this is very well and good, but what if you are doing everything right (or pretty close) and you are still having some issues like not being able to lose weight and feeling tired all the time? It could be that your thyroid is getting in the way. Now, I am not a doctor and in no way am I offering any medical advice, but if you are having some difficulties I want to let you know that there might be options. With the ever growing rise in thyroid disorders, I think this is an issue we need to discuss.

HEALTH FITNESS AND MY THYROID

My story. My story began quite a few years ago. I was relatively healthy, I ate pretty well and worked out a lot (I was dancing full time at that point) and I was quite thin. I had just moved, gotten married and was living a pretty good life. In fact, I even opened my first Pilates studio and was making a difference in people’s lives. I had put on a bit of weight, but nothing too drastic and I reasoned that it was because I was really busy running my own business. It was during this busy period that I started feeling tired all the time and more than just the “I didn’t get enough sleep last night” kind of sleepiness. It was full on exhaustion from morning until night. Also, no matter how much I ate or rather didn’t eat and no matter how much I exercised, the weight started piling on. I went to the doctor and was told that I was fine. This continued for several years where I was using every ounce of my being to help motivate others and myself every day. It was only after a major move (to a new country) forcing me to find a new doctor that I was finally diagnosed with an under-active thyroid. Finally, my life started making some sense.

How I’m dealing with my diet. At first I thought that it was an easy fix. I would simply take a pill in the morning and it would be okay. Not so. What I discovered is that soy based products (some days it seems like there is soy in just about everything I want to eat) react badly with the thyroid pill and in fact, they can get in the way of its absorption. So, no soy, got it. The same goes for coffee and calcium (if ingested less than an hour after taking the pill).  Even so, I was still having a lot of stomach and digestive issues. Without getting into specifics, I realized that gluten was aggravating my system. Now, I can still have a piece of bread on occasion without anything major happening, but when I stay away from it I feel much better. Since nothing is written in stone and everyone and their system is different, I was in a way left to my own devices. Don’t get me wrong, my doctors have been great, but there is a lot of fine tuning that I’ve needed to do. I don’t snack as I’ve never been able to regulate it very well. I’d much rather have a meal and than walk away from more food until the next one. I’m slowly realizing that this needs to change. Right now, my system can only handle a little bit of food at a time, so that means instead of eating 3 real meals I have to eat 5-6 small ones. For more read: Underactive Thyroid And Weight Loss

How I’m dealing with my workouts. One symptom of having an under-active thyroid is that my joints hurt more than they would normally after a workout. So quite often, I’m in a lot of pain (basically I feel like I’m 100) and I still have to force myself to move. I’m also more injury prone. What I’ve learned is to take it slow, steady and to really listen to my body. If it says I need a day off, I take it and try my best not to feel guilty or beat myself up over it.

What now? I’ve also started looking at the bigger picture. How did this start? We already know that thyroid dysfunction is a growing epidemic around the world, so it stands to reason that there has to be a cause for it. I lead a relatively healthy and active lifestyle in Vancouver, but still it happened. I’m still working on this part because there’s probably no one answer and it’s much easier to just treat symptoms.

Why am I telling you this story? Well, because like I said, some of you might be feeling like you are reading all these rules and tips over and over again, but they aren’t helping. This doesn’t give you a license to fall back on excuses and in fact, you’ll find that you have to be even more aware of what you eat and how much you workout. What it does do is give you, however, is permission to understand that this can be hard. If you are doing everything right and it’s still not working than a visit to your doctor might just be in order. Bottom line is that you and your system are unique. You need to understand your particular situation and then possibly make some allowances.

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