I’ve worked with a lot of people who’ve suffered from hypothyroidism and have wanted to lose weight. In fact, my mom has an underactive thyroid.
The difficulty with a sluggish thyroid and your ability to lose weight is that the thyroid gland controls your metabolism. Specifically, if you have an underactive thyroid (ie. not enough T3 and T4 produced and secreted) your metabolism will slow down. Thus, making it more difficult to lose weight.
In general, hypothyroidism tends to affect more women than men and can be attributed to, among other factors, a mineral-deficient diet, adrenal fatigue, or having a more endomorph-like body.
Having said though, it is definitely possible to lose weight with a slow thyroid. You just need to work a bit harder and smarter when it comes to your diet and exercise regime.
Dietary Recommendations for Hypothyroidism
In this article, we’ll examine some specific nutritional steps you can take to improve your thyroid function.
1. Eat more sea vegetables!
Seaweeds like nori, dulse, kelp, and others have more mineral content than any other food on the food. Specifically, most sea vegetables contain up to 2000% of your daily recommended intake for one of the most important minerals used to form the thyroid hormones – iodine!
If your body is deficient in iodine – which is the case with most people living in the Western world – then it will not be able to produce sufficient amounts of T3 and T4 hormones from the thyroid.
Furthermore, iodine is a mineral which is needed by the adrenal glands for the production of some of its hormones. Thus, there’s a tug of war between the adrenals and thyroid over who gets iodine.
In order to improve your glandular function, iodine-rich foods such as kelp, dulse, nori, wakame, and arame should be included into your diet on a daily basis.
2. 1-2 brasil nuts each day!
Brasil nuts are one of the highest sources of the other critical mineral for thyroid function – selenium.
The good news is that you only need 1-2 of these nuts each day to meet your requirements.
The goal is to support your thyroid (and thus your other glands as well) through mineral-rich foods. Over time, these minerals will improve the functioning of your thyroid.
As this begins to happen, your metabolism should begin to increase, which will help you burn more calories, thus helping you lose weight.
But remember that these recommendations are not going to produce miraculous results. Instead, adding these nutrient-rich foods into a healthy diet alongside daily exercise are the key to long-term weight loss.
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