Many people with hypothyroidism and autoimmune Hashimoto’s disease struggle with weight gain and have difficulties in losing weight. They know from experience that no matter how hard you exercise and how clean you eat, getting a bikini body becomes impossible when your thyroid is off.
But what exactly happens to your body that makes you gain weight?
Table of Contents
How Hypothyroidism Can Ruin Your Metabolism And Cause Weight Gain
1.Hypothyroidism slows down your metabolism.
When your hypothyroidism treatment and thyroid levels are not optimal you could easily gain more weight, struggle to lose weight and unable to keep it off. This happens because your thyroid affects not only functions of all organs and systems in your body but also has a huge impact on your metabolism or how efficiently your body burns food for energy.
A properly working thyroid produces T4 and T3 thyroid hormones in the ratio of 14:1. Then T4 has to be converted into an active T3 form in order to perform its metabolic action.
This means that your metabolic function is not going to be optimal if:
- Your thyroid doesn’t produce adequate amounts of T4 or you don’t get enough T4 with thyroid replacement therapy.
- Your T3 levels are low because not enough T4 is being converted to T3 or is converted into competing reverse T3 that blocks T3 receptors preventing active T3 from getting into your cells.
- You need some type of T3 medication to compensate for the missing T3 that is not produced by your compromised thyroid gland or if you had a partial or full thyroidectomy, RAI treatment or a non-functioning thyroid as a result of Hashimoto’s disease.
In general, higher T3 levels increase your metabolism and help you to lose weight while lower T3 slows down your metabolism and it can result in weight gain.
2.Water retention.
The cause of the weight gain in people with hypothyroidism is complex and not all weight gain is body fat.
Edema or water retention is one of the signs of hypothyroidism when the build up of fluids is a direct result of low thyroid function on kidneys. Excess of water not only makes you look puffy and swollen but it makes the scale go up.
The good news is that the improvement of thyroid function will help to reduce water retention in hypothyroidism, regulate water balance in the body and lose an excess amount of water that makes you look puffy and increases your weight and waistline.
3.Maldigestion and malabsorption of dietary proteins.
Having your macronutrients (carbs, proteins and fats) wrong and not getting enough protein when you are hypothyroid can prevent you from recovery and healing but also hinder your weight loss efforts.
An adequate amount of protein in your diet helps to reduce body fat, increase lean muscle mass and affects body composition in both men and women. Due to its thermic effect protein increases metabolic rate by 25% compared to less than 10% increase caused by carbs and fats.
According to a research study conducted by the Performance and Physique Enhancement Laboratory, women who consumed 1.1 grams of protein per pound of body weight gained 4.5 pounds of muscle at the end of the 8 week study compared to only 1.5 pound muscle mass increase in women who consumed a half of the protein amount while performing the same workouts 4 days per week.
In addition, despite eating nearly 425 calories more, the high-protein group lost 33% more body fat than the low-protein group due to thermic effects of protein that boosted their metabolism and helped to gain more muscle mass.
Studies show that consuming about 0.8 grams of protein per pound of body weight daily seems to be an optimal protein intake for weight loss and eating more protein doesn’t correlate with a better body composition.
However, these numbers may not work for some people with hypothyroidism because they cannot properly use protein that they are getting with their diet. People with low thyroid function often have digestive issues and low stomach acid that are direct consequences of undertreated hypothyroidism.
As a result, they cannot digest and absorb dietary proteins, gain or maintain healthy muscle mass and struggle with their weight.
4.Constipation.
Constipation is a big factor! If you are not eliminating the waste you are not going to see good weight loss results.
There are 2 major factors that contribute to constipation in hypothyroidism:
- Hypothyroidism itself is a huge hormonal contributing factor to constipation that has been overlooked by most doctors. Low levels of thyroid hormones and slow metabolism result in low motility and increased transit time.
- Dysbiosis of gut flora or imbalances in the composition and function of microbiome are associated with gastroenterological, metabolic and mental disorders including constipation and impaired thyroid function.
Instead of using a band-aid like more fibre, over-consuming water or reaching for sleeping pills, the best approach is to focus on fixing your hormonal thyroid problem which is the underlying cause of insomnia in hypothyroidism.
5.Not enough sleep and poor quality of sleep.
Not getting enough sleep can sabotage your weight loss efforts in 2 following ways:
- Insomnia makes you feel hungry and as a result you tend to have an extra meal or snack and consume more calories when you are awake longer hours. This happens due to an increase in the hormone cortisol that regulates appetite making you hungry despite eating enough food during the day.
- Insomnia makes you store more body fat because it affects how you metabolize carbs. As a result, an increase of blood sugar triggers the overproduction of insulin which promotes body fat storage.
Unfortunately, about one third of people with hypothyroidism suffer from insomnia when they cannot fall asleep, wake up in the middle of the night and have difficulty to go back to sleep or wake up in the morning exhausted because they didn’t get a good quality sleep.
Your ability to get a restorative sleep when you suffer from hypothyroidism is affected by adrenaline, cortisol, autoimmune issues and even your microbiome. However, the biggest and most common problem is your ability to store sugar.
Healthy people store an adequate amount of sugar in the form of glycogen in the liver, muscles and brain. The problem is that people with hypothyroidism lose this ability and are prone to a glycogen deficiency which is directly related to insomnia in a way I explain here.
6.Decrease in physical activity.
Another mechanism how hypothyroidism contributes to weight gain is a decreased level of spontaneous physical activity, ability to exercise and move. You feel as if you are in an energy saving mode.
Hypothyroidism affects cardiac function, metabolism of skeletal muscles and how they work, lowers blood pressure and slows down psychomotor skills such as movement, coordination, strength and speed. You may feel tired and sleep between 10 and 12 hours per day yet continue to struggle with fatigue.
All these factors lower levels of physical activity in people with hypothyroidism and their desire to be active. This means that involuntarily you move less and it contributes to some of the body weight changes often observed in this disease.
What can you do?
How To Stop Gaining And Start Losing Weight With Hypothyroidism
1.Optimize your hypothyroidism treatment.
When you have hypothyroidism it is crucial to get proper treatment and optimize your thyroid levels in order to overcome thyroid related insomnia, low stomach acid, constipation and increase your metabolic rate.
Weight gain depends on how severe your hypothyroidism is. The more hypothyroid you are, the more weight you will gain and the more difficult it will become to lose weight. However, treatment with T4-only medication doesn’t necessarily help to lose body fat.
According to research study published in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, the weight loss often observed during hypothyroidism treatment with levothyroxine is mostly due to loss of excess body water accumulated during the state of myxoedema.
To achieve an optimal metabolic rate you need to focus not only on TSH and T4 thyroid hormones but also ensure that your T3 is in the upper part of the normal reference range.
Higher T3 levels are associated with a higher ability to lose weight. A study published in the International Journal of Obesity, demonstrated that people with higher T3 at baseline have better weight loss results and can be one of the reasons why some people lose more weight compared to others.
This means that a T3 or a combination T4 and T3 thyroid replacement therapy is better than T4-only drugs for weight loss with hypothyroidism.
When it comes to weight loss choosing the right type of thyroid medication and optimizing your thyroid hormone levels is just the first step of optimizing your hypothyroidism treatment.
Most hypothyroidism and Hashimoto’s patients and their doctors spend years focusing on adjusting their thyroid medication type, brand and dose but never look into other aspects of hypothyroidism and how they affect weight loss.
That’s why Tom Brimeyer has taken this complete and comprehensive approach and broken it down into a simple step-by-step full program, where he covers everything you need to know in detail. Click here to read more or watch a video presentation
2.Use thermic effects of foods and ensure your intake, digestion and absorption of proteins are adequate.
A higher protein consumption can help reduce body fat. However, if you are hypothyroid and cannot digest and absorb dietary protein adding more protein to your diet may not help you to achieve desired weight loss results.
One of the strategies is to help your body better utilize proteins by enhancing their absorption. If you want to give it a try and experience the benefits for yourself you can get a FREE container of a high-quality premium protein that provides a 10-fold absorption.
This helps to bypass protein maldigestion and absorption issues and ensure that your body gets the amount of protein it needs and is actually able to use it.
3.Add a high-quality probiotic.
Start using probiotics to assist with digestion and absorption of nutrients, T4 to T3 thyroid hormone conversion, constipation, fatigue and sleep issues.
Thyroid medication alone may not solve all your digestive issues especially when your gut flora is compromised. In order to replenish good bacteria and restore your microbiome you may need to repopulate your intestines with specific probiotic strains.
In fact, there are 6 specific strains of probiotics for thyroid health and metabolism that also help with thyroid hormone conversion, constipation and healing of intestinal damage.
Currently you can get a FREE bottle of high-quality potent probiotic (50 billion good bacteria) that is shown through research to provide dramatically more LIVE and effective probiotic cells to your gut than traditional probiotic supplements.
4. Improve quality of your sleep.
Many people with hypothyroidism get enough sleep and actually can sleep 10 to 12 hours per day. The problem is that no amount of sleep can cure the tiredness they feel. They just seem don’t get a good quality of sleep and wake up every morning tired and not rested no matter how long they sleep.
When you have hypothyroidism and your goals are to lose weight and overcome fatigue you absolutely need to focus on the quality of sleep. This means that you need to reset your body’s automatic sleep-wake cycle that will allow you to relax effortlessly and get high quality of sleep your body truly needs.
Here are some tips how to achieve the deepest, most refreshing sleep and wake up rested.
5.Don’t fall into the eat less and exercise more trap.
A very common advice to hypothyroid sufferers who are trying to lose weight is to eat less and exercise more. However, many studies confirmed that eating less and exercising more and especially a combination of both are actually very thyroid suppressive and predispose you for a long-term weight gain.
- Many types of exercise are seen by your body as a form of stress that blocks the T4 to T3 thyroid hormone conversion by your liver making you even more hypothyroid
- Pushing harder and over-exercising depletes your T3 reserves because more T3 is used up for your increased energy needs
- Exercising more lowers your BMR or resting metabolic rate meaning that you burn less calories
- Eating less, skipping meals and going longer without food triggers hypoglycemia and drives stress hormones up to keep your blood sugar from falling too low which further suppresses your thyroid.
The key to long-term weight loss with hypothyroidism is to do the opposite.
You need to have more frequent meals and use exercise to lower stress and avoid thyroid suppression.
Choosing the right form of exercise can actually boost your thyroid function and metabolism and increase your ability to burn more calories. Here is how to make the right choice
P.S. Need help with your thyroid health? Get my FREE thyroid guides and learn about Hypothyroidism treatment that works here
References:
1. Effects of high versus low protein intake on body composition and maximal strength in aspiring female physique athletes engaging in an 8-week resistance training program. International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism, 28(6), 2018, 580-585.
2. Weight Loss after Therapy of Hypothyroidism Is Mainly Caused by Excretion of Excess Body Water Associated with Myxoedema. The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, Volume 96, Issue 1, 1 January 2011, Pages E99–E103
3. Thyroid hormones and changes in body weight and metabolic parameters in response to weight loss diets: the POUNDS LOST trial. International Journal of Obesity, 41(6), 2017, 878-886.