Hormonal balance is essential for good health. Unfortunately, there are many medical issues that stem from certain imbalances in how hormones are produced in the body. One of them is hypothyroidism.
What is hypothyroidism? It is a disease that is also known under the names such as underactive thyroid or low thyroid. In short, this disease means that thyroid gland doesn’t secrete enough thyroxine and other tyrosine-based hormones. Nowadays, it is surprisingly common disease, though many people struggle with understanding as to why the occurrence of hypothyroidism skyrocketed in the past decades. Amongst most obvious symptoms of underactive thyroid are issues with tolerating cold, severe depression, tiredness and weight gain.
The latter symptom is one of the hardest to combat. As many other hormones, those that are produced by thyroid have huge effect on metabolism. Metabolism on the other hand is what regulates the way food and energy from it is stored in the body. In hypothyroidism metabolism is very slow, thus it is very easy to gain immense amounts of weight. What is even more dangerous is that this weight is very hard to lose. Again, slow metabolism means that even with a very active lifestyle and healthy diet, shedding additional pounds is a long process and more often than not, despite best efforts, the weight refuses to budge.
But there are some ways of dealing with this issue. So, how to lose weight with hypothyroidism? In many ways, the best solution is to follow the widely known tricks for any diet. Most obvious of them is to cut down on any food that contains a lot of sugar and fat. Thyroid hormones are partially responsible for how proteins and carbs are stored or processed in the body. So when it comes to hypothyroidism, the entire process is out of balance because there isn’t enough hormone produced to make sure that everything runs smoothly.
Another solution for the problem of how to lose weight with hypothyroidism is to include certain types of food in daily diet. The best ones are those that possess anti-inflammatory properties. Surprisingly enough, there are plenty of such products known and many of them are widely used. For example, tomatoes or leafy vegetables like kale and spinach. All of them help to fight inflammation which is one of the many issues with hypothyroidism.
Yet another trick when it comes to losing weight with hypothyroidism is to eat small but regular meals. For that, a food diary might prove helpful. Food diary is a commonly used method to ensure that diet is regulated and everything is kept in check. It also helps to develop healthy diet habits because it forces someone to pay attention to what they eat, in what amount and at what time of the day. It allows to see how many calories are absorbed per day and makes it easy to see where it might be possible to cut down on their intake.
With hypothyroidism, aside from several dietary restrictions, changes in daily routine should also include physical activity. No matter how slow metabolism is, regular exercise will always help to get rid of additional pounds. Not to mention that exercise is a great way to battle several symptoms of hypothyroidism. One of them is depression, which often makes it very hard to even begin to work on one’s health. As most people know by now, physical activity leads to release of endorphins and they are natural antidepressants. Not to mention that increase in activity does have an effect on metabolism, speeding it up significantly. Thus, regular workout is one of the most important steps when it comes to losing weight for someone who is suffering from thyroid problems. The last and the most essential step though, will always be to take prescribed thyroid medication. Without it, battling hypothyroidism can be impossible.
So, if anyone wonders how to lose weight with hypothyroidism, they will definitely find out many ideas for that problem. While it is not an easy process, it can be done. All that is needed is plenty of self-discipline and strong desire to fight for good health.
