If you’re barely getting through the day, too exhausted to keep up with your kids, and every attempt to lose weight with hypothyroidism feels like a losing battle, it’s time to learn what the usual advice isn’t telling you that actually helps to get your energy back and lose weight.
Imagine following your doctors orders…
…. Taking their meds.
…. Getting their labs.
… Seeking out thyroid support supplements.
… Learning what foods to eat for hypothyroidism.
… Learning what foods to avoid.
… Even going without eating.
… and still have the scale go up!!
That’s exactly what I went through… I could not lose weight no matter what and felt defeated. This was me before:
I want to share with you what helped me to finally lose weight for good and how I got into the best shape of my life:
How to Lose Weight if You Have an Underactive Thyroid
One of my biggest epiphanies came when I learned that the body protects itself from toxins by stuffing toxins into fat cells. This is very different than the typical advice you hear like “eat less, exercise more”.
The question I started to ask then was, where are these toxins coming from?
The first thing to look at is the food you are eating. I don’t mean whether you are eating keto, paleo, vegan, carnivore or any diet. I’m talking about the source of your food. Where does it come from, how is it grown?
… because if the food you eat lacks nutrients, then two things will happen:
#1 – when you lack nutrients, you will be hungry and tend to overeat as a result. Sugar cravings or salt cravings is a sign that the food you are eating lacks the minerals your body needs
#2 – when you eat food that lacks nutrients, the probiotics in your gut won’t digest the food. Instead, bad bacteria will break down the food and this is the number one source of toxins for most people!
I want to make sure this doesn’t go over your head like it did for me for the longest time. I used to think I was eating healthy. I was eating organic, lean meats & veggies… I had tried doing paleo, keto, vegan, carnivore… just about every diet.
… but none of that matters if you have bad bacteria in your gut that’s active because that means your gut is toxic.
So even if you are eating “clean”, the food you eat goes into a toxic environment and the bad bacteria creates more toxins.
That’s why I would eat a salad and a few minutes later have gas and feel bloated. Bad bacteria was eating the food I was eating, it was producing toxins and those toxins kept making me fat.
So what you eat doesn’t matter if you have bad bacteria overgrowth in your gut.
Do you have gas, bloating or constipation?
This is the easiest way to know if you have bad bacteria overgrowth. Probiotics don’t produce gas. Bad bacteria does and that’s one reason they are considered bad. It’s the root of poor digestion.
When you have poor digestion, your body produces toxins (which drain your energy), and you can’t transfer food energy into your body, which is why most people feel tired all the time.
That’s why the number one thing you can do to lose weight with hypothyroidism is to improve your digestion. I learned about this from brewing beer… I know that’ weird, but stick with me here.
When brewing beer, I used to add water with minerals to digest starch in barley grain into sugars. That’s when it dawned on me that I was adding water and minerals to kickstart the digestive process.
So, I decided to test drinking water with minerals to see if it would improve my digestion… and sure enough, it did!!!
I would drink 2-3 of these throughout the day:
1 Quart of Clean Water (reverse osmosis)
2 mL Ionic Magnesium
4 mL of SOLE salt
I got pretty excited when I felt an energy boost and my hair stopped falling out!!!
This told me I was on the right track because just having energy meant I could actually work out and recover. The reason why I started getting more energy was because my digestion improved, which meant my body was actually taking food energy and transferring it into my body… that’s what digestion is for!!
Hypothyroidism Diet Plan for Weight Loss
Getting properly hydrated helped me get rid of gas, bloating and constipation. It wasn’t overnight. I noticed my skin go from dry, ashy and itchy to looking clear and radiant first… then my digestion started to improve. Looking back, I can see I was chronically dehydrated.
That alone wasn’t enough to help me lose weight though. I mentioned earlier that I was eating lean meats & veggies. I used to avoid eating fat because I thought I would get fat if I ate fat. What that did instead was to train my body to burn carbs as energy and my body stopped burning fat for energy.
If your body doesn’t burn fat for energy, then it will store fat.
It all started to make sense!!!
… because there are probiotics that rely on fat soluble nutrients (which are only found in fats from certain foods).
One of the most important fat-soluble nutrients your body needs is vitamin D. You would typically find the pre-cursor to this nutrient in fish, and more specifically in fish liver oil like cod liver oil.
The problem, however, was that I still had a broken metabolism and my body was not digesting fat properly. Taking cod liver oil would wreck me. That’s when I had another epiphany around food that I learned from brewing beer.
Fermentation is a continuation of the digestive process. That means that if you ever struggle to digest any type of food, then you should ferment the food because by fermenting food you are digesting food before it goes into your body. Once it goes into your body, it requires no additional digestion.
That’s why when you look at regular cod liver oil, you will see the nutrient label state that you are getting omega-6 and other nutrients, but it doesn’t list vitamin D. If on the other hand, you look up fermented cod liver oil, you will notice it mentions vitamin D as a nutrient.
That’s because probiotics make vitamins through the fermentation process…
There was no way this is how it works!!
Fermented cod liver oil gives you vitamin D, but more importantly, it gives you the probiotics that help you digest fat!!! It kickstarts your fat metabolism!! It kickstarts your ability to burn fat for energy!!
… and you know what else is important for these probiotics to function properly?
You must have adequate amounts of water and minerals in your system because that’s what probiotics need to be strong and healthy.
Once I boosted my vitamin D levels my energy went through the roof and I started burning fat and packing on muscle because my body was more efficient at getting nutrients from food.
We cover how to get rid of thyroid fatigue and how to lose weight in more detail inside the 5-Day Energy Challenge.
How to Get Natural Energy without Restrictive Diets or Supplements
If you are still tired after doing everything that doctors told you to do, maybe even got your labs to “normal”, but you don’t feel normal, then you might be interested in our Energy Blueprint where we walk you through three steps to get your energy back and feel like yourself again without restrictive nutrition plans or supplements…
To learn more about our Energy Blueprint we’ve put together a free 5-Day Energy Challenge that gets you:
- Better sleep so you wake up feeling truly rested… your mind will feel clear and focused… no more dragging through the day, just steady energy and sharp thinking from morning to night.
- Reduced inflammation so you watch the puffiness fade… your belly feel flat and light… your clothes fit better, and you feel at home in your body again.
- Better brain function so you feel the fog finally lift. You follow conversations with ease, words come naturally, and your mind feels quick and clear… like you’re fully present again, not struggling to keep up.
- Hair that starts to feel fuller and softer again, and your skin glowing naturally looking smoother, and firmer.
- Feel your strength return… you’ll move around easily, get things done without needing to rest every few minutes, and by the end of the day, you still feel steady and sure on your feet.
- You’ll feel calm and steady… even when things go wrong… You’ll respond with patience instead of snapping, and the little things won’t ruin your whole day anymore.
- Gas and bloating finally eases… you feel light in your belly, your clothes fit comfortably again, and you start to recognize yourself in the mirror…
Listen to Janae share her hypothyroidism success story after following these three steps:
Tap “continue” below to learn these 3 steps in more detail and start your 5-Day Energy Challenge:
