I’ve been on a constant diet for the last two decades. I’ve lost a total of 789 pounds. By all accounts, I should be hanging from a charm bracelet.
—ERMA BOMBECK
How do you keep the faith—maintain the hope that you will be able to find the right approach, stick with it, lose the weight, and keep it off? It requires a combination of time, the right attitude, and a bit of forward thinking. I’ve put together some suggestions on how to keep the faith, even when the weight-loss process can seem frustrating.
TROUBLESHOOTING FRUSTRATIONS AND PLATEAUS
One of the key ways you’ll be working with your diet is to adjust your plan to make sure it fits you perfectly and helps you lose weight. For example, you may find that you are losing weight, but extremely slowly. If that’s the case, don’t abandon the plan and start a different one, hoping you’ll lose pounds more quickly! Instead, recognize that you’re on the right track, and consider making some modifications to your plan to see if you respond with slightly increased weight loss.
Keep in mind, though, that it takes time to make adjustments, so give yourself a week or two after you make a modification before you decide to abandon it, adopt it permanently, or try something else. Also, don’t make multiple modifications and adjustments at the same time, because if you do, you won’t know which change is working.
But if the time comes where you hit a plateau, or things just don’t seem to be working, what next?
Here are some foods to consider eliminating from your diet to help you get past a plateau or help trigger successful weight loss. Keep in mind that you don’t have to commit to a lifetime without these items. Rather, you’re doing a trial, typically a few weeks to a month or two, to see if eliminating this food from the diet may be the key to more successful weight loss.
Cut Coffee
If you are still drinking coffee, eliminate it. Some people find that even if they’re eating well, just one cup a day of coffee derails their weight. It’s not clear what mechanism may be in play, but if you are a coffee drinker and your diet is stalled or not working, try eliminating coffee for just a few weeks and see if that gets things moving in the right direction.
Cut Gluten
Some people who still eat wheat or gluten products find that despite their best efforts, they get stalled or are not having success with weight loss. For some of these patients, removing all gluten from the diet seems to be a useful tactic. Even if they do not have celiac disease, some low-level intolerance or sensitivity to gluten may be a factor that is causing inflammation, which then blocks weight loss. Going gluten-free can sometimes be a successful approach.
Even though she wasn’t diagnosed with celiac disease, Ellyn tried eliminating gluten from her diet.
I thought it was the middle-age curse. I had gained about fifteen pounds over a three-year period. I had read about cutting out glutens from my diet, so I tried it. I substituted salads for sandwiches at lunchtime and replaced wheat with other grains like rice. Within a very short time I lost the weight and felt so much better.
Cut All Starchy Carbohydrates
If you are following a plan that allows for some starchy carbohydrates, you may need to cut them out completely in order to lose weight. Thyroid patient Mari said that the biggest mistake in her diet was trying to eat low-fat and low-calorie but with a lot of simple carbohydrates.
This did not work for me, but I didn’t understand why. I gave up sugar, bread, potatoes, and pasta. I find that I can eat more calories in protein, complex carbs, and fat than I can in simple carbs. I notice how my body reacts to what I eat, and avoid foods that give me a hypoglycemic response. By doing this, I avoid the afternoon slump and the extreme hunger I used to get at three in the afternoon.
Reduce Saturated Fat
If you are freely eating animal protein, you may need to cut back on the saturated fat in your diet in order to lose weight. This means passing on the beef, pork, lamb, and full-fat dairy products and eating primarily fish, nuts, chicken, vegetables, and low-fat dairy. Says Dr. Ron Rosedale:
My take on fat is that if I am treating a patient who is generally hyperinsulinemic or overweight, I want them on a diet low in saturated fat. Most of the fat they are storing is saturated fat, and when their insulin goes down and they are able to start releasing triglycerides to burn as fat, what they are going to be releasing mostly is saturated fat. So you don’t want to take any more orally.
Increase Your Water Intake
Up your water intake—your body needs a constant, steady source of water in order to flush out toxins and fat, and to keep metabolism functioning smoothly. So if you’re drinking 64 ounces a day, try adding three to five more 8-ounce glasses, for a total of 88 to 104 ounces of water. And if you’re already drinking more than 100 ounces a day, try working your way up to drinking your body weight (in pounds) in ounces of water.
Cut Calories
If you’re on the calorie-sensitive plan, cut 50 calories daily. It may mean the difference between staying where you are and starting to lose weight.
Drop Snacks
If you’re a regular snacker, consider dropping your snacks. Try focusing on eating a larger breakfast and a slightly larger lunch.
Eliminate Alcohol
Alcohol puts stress on your liver, which not only slows down the ability to clear toxins and burn fat but may also interfere with your body’s ability to convert T4 to T3. Alcohol, at 7 calories per gram, is also entirely empty calories, with no nutritional value. Consider eliminating it.
PUT YOURSELF FIRST
Whatever new way of eating you choose, you are going to have to push yourself up higher on your priority list. I know that I am much more likely to do just about anything—work, favors for friends, answering e-mails, playing with my children—than jump on my treadmill, because everything else seems so much more urgent.
But how much more important and urgent are everyone else’s needs versus your own health and self-esteem? So make time for yourself—time to plan what you’ll eat, shop for healthy foods, cook meals, exercise, reduce your stress. And don’t be so quick to donate your valuable time to everyone and everything else when one of the most worthy causes of all is looking at you in the mirror!
TRUST YOURSELF AND YOUR OWN INSTINCTS
It’s important that, whatever plan you choose to follow, you listen to yourself and trust your own instincts. Health and beauty expert Kat James, in The Truth About Beauty, says:
Relying on cultural or commercial cues for our choices is what causes us to stray from our better instincts in the first place. If you start sentences with “My doctor has me taking this” or “My trainer has me doing that,” stop yourself. Only you have yourself doing whatever it is you choose to do. Stop following and start setting your own course.
DON’T PUT YOUR LIFE ON HOLD
Don’t put your life on hold simply because you want to lose weight. Many of us make weight loss into some sort of oasis in the desert that we are traveling toward.
• When I lose weight, I’ll start going to the beach again.
• When I lose weight, I’ll reunite with my old friend.
• When I lose weight, I’ll make an effort to find a new romance.
• When I lose weight, we’ll finally schedule the wedding.
• When I lose weight, I’ll finally try to get a new job.
And so on . . .
Life is too short to keep putting everyone and everything on hold until some day in the future when you achieve your “perfect” weight. Give yourself permission to live, and do the things you enjoy today!
PRAISE YOURSELF
Even if you’re overweight and frustrated, find a part of your body that you do like and regularly praise yourself. Maybe you have terrific-looking feet, really great eyes, or the best-shaped calves in town. Just pick one part of your body and continually tell yourself how terrific that part is. If you like even one part of yourself, it’s a start.
PHRASE YOUR GOALS POSITIVELY
Think about your goals positively. Phrase them in your mind without using a negative word. In yoga, a resolution is called a shankalpa. In yoga practice, you must always phrase your shankalpa positively in order for success. So instead of “I need to lose weight,” focus on “I will eat more healthfully and get more exercise so that I can get to a better weight for me.”
I don’t know why this works, but it does. Perhaps instead of challenging your body to a duel and telling it you are going to take away something, you are saying that you will be adding good things to it, improving it, and making it better.
Patricia is going into her weight-loss efforts with the right attitude:
I’m working with the diet, and with the changes I’ve made (and even though I’ve made some mistakes), I am feeling more “clear,” and it seems my hunger is more satisfied, if you know what I mean. When I’m hungry, it’s as if I have control over the hunger rather than feeling as if I have to eat now. I’m looking forward to feeling better, even if I don’t lose weight. If the weight—fifty pounds—comes off as well, what a plus that will be!
REALIZE THAT IT’S NOT A DIET—IT’S LIFE!
Don’t view your change in eating habits as a diet that you can go on and off. This is life. This is hypothyroidism. This is not where you lose the extra couple of pounds, then it’ll be easy to keep it off. You’re on a journey and you may arrive at a target weight, but that’s not your destination, because you need to change your way of eating and step up your physical activity—consistently, and for life.
Leanne Ely, a radio host and bestselling author of the book Body Clutter:
I lost over fifty pounds and kept it off. What I learned is that weight loss with a thyroid condition isn’t impossible, it’s just hard. Consistency is what finally made the weight drop off. It was a long process, but I learned a ton about food, supplements, what worked for me, and the amazing power of exercise.
SET SMALL GOALS, AND TAKE IT SLOW
British thyroid advocate and weight-loss coach Ali Jagger went from a size 10 to a size 20 in six months as she endured misdiagnosis by her doctors. Once she was finally correctly diagnosed and treated for her hypothyroidism, she turned her attention to losing the hundred pounds she had gained. Her first step: joining a gym to start swimming.
The bravest thing I ever did was put on a swimming costume and not cry when I saw my reflection! I didn’t recognize that person—she was so huge! I couldn’t work at the time as I was more or less unemployable, got colds, was often ill, so I tried to go to the gym and swim. I lost on average about fourteen pounds a year, but it was a really hard slog. The goal to lose all the weight was so huge I sometimes gave up—it was very slow progress. I set small goals and was determined to get better.
Over time, Ali went on to lose a total of a hundred pounds, and then she turned her energy toward an effort to help others. In addition to speaking as a thyroid advocate in British newspapers and on television programs, Ali trained as a life coach, and now she helps thyroid patients and others struggling with weight problems to have a healthier lifestyle and lose weight. Says Ali:
I made a pact with myself that I would get better and really get my story out there! During my long journey back to good health and my subsequent fight for the correct medication, I was determined to make sure that no one ever went through what I went through. I remember feeling very isolated, lonely, and desperate, and I never wanted anyone else to feel that way if I could help it. I wanted to get back to good health so I could fight for others who were going through what I did. I remember all too well the agony I was in, having gained fifty-five pounds in just a few short months. I kept thinking, “If I could just be thin again, things would be perfect.” I was able to lose the weight, and I think there are several important steps.
First, you must be thyroid-well before you can achieve any weight-loss goals. You need to give your body the time it needs to hormonally heal.
Next, you need to learn your body and where your thyroid hormones need to be for you. Track your symptoms so that you know when your treatment is working its absolute best. If you think you are not being properly treated or if you’re not in thyroid treatment at all, don’t surrender to “I’m just overweight and I don’t feel well.” Get a second opinion.
Finally, once your thyroid is optimized, you can start to regain the energy you need to lose the weight. Go back to the absolute basics of good eating, and make healthy lifestyle changes that will increase your vitality and get you back in shape. It can be done, and you’re worth the time. Take it slow and make it your goal to live thyroid-well and be thin once again.
TRY NEW THINGS
Kathy, a papillary thyroid cancer survivor, had her thyroid completely removed.
I was already overweight from my thyroid not working. I have had my Synthroid changed many times, and working out did not help at all. I was put on the antidepressant Zoloft, which made me gain twenty pounds in two weeks. I had my endocrinologist check my T3 levels, and they were extremely low. We added T3, I was changed from Zoloft to Wellbutrin XL, and I have started eating low-carb. The weight is slowly starting to come off. It seems like a combination of the right medications along with eating things my body can burn is what works better for me. I still have twenty-five pounds to go, but I am a cancer survivor, I feel great, and I know I can lose more weight with the right tools.
DEFEAT NEGATIVE THINKING
Therapist Dr. Dave Junno feels that negative thinking can really put a damper on efforts to lose weight. According to Junno, many of us go around saying, “I can never give up the foods I love,” or “I can’t do an exercise program.” Or if we tried to change our diet or tried to exercise more and were not successful, then we might say, “I tried that and it hasn’t worked,” or “I don’t have the discipline or the willpower.”
According to Junno, this creates a self-defeating cycle. Our negative thinking leads to inaction, which leads to no results, which confirms and reinforces the negative thinking. “It is like we have given ourselves a life sentence without parole,” says Junno. His suggestion is to introduce one word into your vocabulary when you talk about your weight-loss efforts: yet.
• “I haven’t been able to give up the foods I love . . . yet.”
• “I can’t do an exercise program . . . yet.”
• “I tried that and it hasn’t worked . . . yet.”
• “I don’t have the discipline or willpower . . . yet.”
Dr. Junno says it may sound like a small step, but it opens up big possibilities.
It introduces the potential for success, which can help keep us motivated to continue trying. In the future all things are possible. Anyway, how do we know we can never stay with a diet or exercise program? Where is it written that this is impossible? Others have made these changes. Why can’t we? Sure, it may take work, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be done. Just because we haven’t done it so far doesn’t mean we won’t be able to eventually. Many people who succeed at making healthy lifestyle changes at first experienced some failures.
Junno also suggests that we keep in mind the many things we were unsuccessful at doing the first time we tried but were eventually able to master. “Remember riding a bike? Did you ride perfectly the first time? Probably not. Chances are you needed to practice a number of times, or build up your confidence, or just be in the right frame of mind to be willing to try.”
I love the idea of holding on to the power of the word yet. I was a smoker from my late teens until my early thirties, and I must have stopped smoking a dozen times. I finally decided that all my attempts weren’t failures. Instead, I was practicing, and eventually I would get so good at it that I would successfully stop smoking forever. And I did! I didn’t use a smoking cessation program. I just went on straight willpower, along with a number of things I’d learned about myself in all my previous attempts. I have viewed my weight-loss efforts in a similar way. I’m learning what works and what doesn’t work in my own efforts to optimize my thyroid and maintain a healthy weight. And the times that things haven’t worked—well, those weren’t failures, they were practice! Weight loss is a process, and while I may not have everything figured out yet, I will get there eventually. And you can, too!
BELIEVE IT CAN BE DONE!
For more than a decade, the National Weight Control Registry, a collaboration between the University of Colorado and the University of Pittsburgh, has maintained a database of more than two thousand people who have successfully lost at least thirty pounds and kept it off. The registry has found that:
• The most popular form of exercise for people who have successfully taken off weight is walking.
• More than 50 percent of those in the database did not participate in a formal weight-loss program. Instead, they employed a lot of personal discipline.
• The average registrant has lost sixty pounds and kept it off for five years.
Don’t buy into the gloom-and-doom statistics about weight loss or thyroid disease. It’s hard to lose weight, but it’s not impossible. You can do it, and The Thyroid Diet Revolution will help!
Perhaps the best thing is for you to hear the inspirational words of your fellow thyroid patients. Kelli had to call around to interview doctors to find the right one to help her diagnose her thyroid problem.
You were right! It’s tough to find the right one. But I found one in my area. And I think she is learning from the information I have shared with her. I was strong in my approach. The blood tests came back clearly indicating that I was hypothyroid, and I asked to be put on Armour, which is working wonders. I asked for follow-up blood tests just this last week, after being on the medication for only six weeks, and it is working! My joints no longer are painful, I am starting to lose weight, and my depression is lifting. It’s like a miracle.
Until being diagnosed with thyroid cancer, Karenna was, as she describes herself, a “size 6 with bundles of energy.”
I didn’t exercise, but could run up four flights of stairs without missing a beat. After the removal, my weight ballooned from 130 to 175 pounds. It took three years to take off twenty pounds. Currently I have reduced my carb intake. I did not do a full-scale low-carb, high-fat diet. I eat protein for breakfast, salad for lunch, and protein with a light salad or fruit for dinner. I steer clear of all sugar, flour, etc. It seems to work for me. I now weigh around 155 pounds. I have more energy and seem to fit proportionately in my clothes better. People notice that I have lost weight and look healthier. It is a constant struggle. My former thyroid doc told me I was depressed, and I should eat a more balanced diet and exercise more. How to exercise when you can hardly lift your head off the pillow is beyond me. My new thyroid doc (love him!) added Cytomel to my Synthroid and understands that losing weight isn’t easy. He even tells me I look great the way I am!
Some readers have found their own way to weight loss. For example, Mandy has found that Weight Watchers is helping her.
I’ve lost almost twenty pounds in nine weeks, and it has been a very comfortable process. I only needed to lose about fifteen pounds to begin with. It is a very healthy way to lose weight. You can eat anything, so there are no cravings. One simply has to be mindful of healthy choices and proportions.
Susan found the low-glycemic approach helpful:
I have been on a low-glycemic-index diet, and it has been a miracle. Nothing else worked since I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism fifteen years ago, and because I haven’t broken this diet once in three years, my earlier failed attempts were obviously not due to a lack of willpower! I lost sixty pounds over the course of fifteen months, and while I did gain ten pounds back, I have stabilized at a size 12 as opposed to an 18.
Jane said she had tried different eating plans, and nothing had worked.
Until now, that is. I’ve lost ten pounds in about two months since starting your diet. I’m also working out at Curves (for the past six months) and have reduced twenty inches but wasn’t dropping real weight. The weight wouldn’t come off for anything until I started this diet. It’s perfect for my thyroid disorder, which started out as Graves’ disease. I was very sick until I was finally diagnosed. Eventually I took the radioactive iodine and since ’89 I had gained 110 pounds. I am fifty years old now and had been prepared to gain some weight with my age, but that was just too much. Before I couldn’t lose more than eight pounds and always gained it back. Six months ago I was at 240; now I’m 229.5. I know the resistance exercise at Curves has helped me in many ways, but the weight loss is definitely from this diet. Believe me, I’ve learned enough about my own body to know what is and isn’t going to work.
Linda has found the secret to her success:
It seems that if I religiously walk and stretch, watch my diet, take time for myself, I have gone from 200 pounds to 180 pounds. My symptoms seem much better as long as I follow my schedule, which I am happy with. Although I’ve come to accept some days my symptoms will come and go, it’s nothing like it used to be! I still read anything I can get my hands on about thyroid and receive Mary Shomon’s thyroid newsletter every month to keep up with new research. No matter what any doctors tell me, I trust in myself and how I feel, and do my own research. Then I go to the doctors and tell them I want to try something new!
Phyllis is sixty years old, five feet tall, and a comfortable 114 pounds. She exercises five to six times a week. She says that once she got in touch with the emotional reasons why she ate, she was much more conscious about everything. For two years she has maintained her weight on a low-calorie food plan she devised herself that emphasizes lean protein and vegetables.
I feel great at this weight. I have also been told I look great. This motivates me to keep watching what I eat. I am now down to a size 6 and am consistently happy. I might also add, I do fine when I go out to eat. Whether lunch or dinner, I maintain by eating a chicken salad. When I go to McDonald’s, I select a chicken salad, and I even am able to have an ice cream cone. This combination is very satisfying, and I look at it as a treat.
Anna lost thirty-seven pounds when she became hyperthyroid but gained it back, plus some, under treatment.
They gave me radiation and then I quit smoking and got fat, gaining more than fifty pounds. My doctor said no diet would help me. I have tried all the wrong things—till I found The Thyroid Diet. I want to thank you for giving me hope. I feel so good about myself again. I have lost nineteen pounds in seventy-five days—I’ve dropped a few sizes already—and I have to thank you.
Marie went from 185 to 154 pounds and is still dropping more.
I used to be a size 1X and am five feet tall. I now weigh 154 and can wear clothes that I couldn’t wear before, and everyone including neighbors are asking me why I look so good!
Roberta read about and started following my approach to weight loss for thyroid patients six months ago.
After reading your diet guide, I was amazed with the information that my doctors did not tell me regarding hypothyroidism. I wanted to let you know that since I started taking the advice in your book, I have lost thirty-five pounds.
On other diets, Barb would lose five pounds, then hit a permanent plateau.
On the diet you recommend, I’ve lost twelve pounds in three months. I lost a pound a week for the first nine pounds, and then have slowed down to a pound every two weeks or so. I’m five foot three and weighed 138 pounds when I started the diet. I plan to follow the outlines of your diet for the rest of my life.
Jill offers an encouraging success story:
I purchased your book The Thyroid Diet and read it cover to cover several times. The book in and of itself helped relieve the hopeless feeling that there was nothing I could do to change. I learned so much from your book—it certainly was the best purchase I have ever made. Since then I have continued to do much research on my own as well, mostly reading your articles and such. I began by experimenting with the supplements and vitamins you suggested that help thyroid health and metabolism. It has been a very, very long twenty months, with much trial and error and many setbacks. I began the journey at five feet five inches tall and 144 pounds. This morning I weighed 116 pounds, and I cannot thank you enough. In the beginning I used everything you suggested. From there I worked with different combinations as I noticed that I would lose a pound or two or gained weight. Additionally, I started walking on a treadmill once or twice a day for thirty minutes each session. Slowly but steadily I finally began to lose weight. I eat real food but I am conscious of what I eat and how it will affect my thyroid, again thanks to your book. I just want any woman out there who feels as hopeless as I did to know you can do it, and this book is the starting block.
MOLLY’S STORY
I want to leave you with Molly’s story. Molly is a thyroid patient and blogger who spent her teens in great shape, never having to worry about her weight, and even, as she said, wondering how other people could let themselves become overweight. After having radioactive iodine for Graves’ disease, however, Molly’s body seemingly turned on her, and she ended up gaining two hundred pounds.
I was always used to having a perfect body. So once I started gaining weight it was really hard for me. I was in college, and while my family thought I was overeating, I wasn’t. I was eating cereal twice a day and a meal, working out regularly, and the weight was just pouring on. I kept going on diets, and would lose ten to twenty pounds, and then gain it back. Or I’d actually gain weight on a diet.
Over time, I didn’t think about it, until I got the pictures back from my wedding, and I was bawling—it was the most heartbreaking thing. My husband was so sorry to see me crying about pictures of what was supposed to be a happy day. Over the next six months, I gained even more. That was when I realized that I had to make one last effort to lose weight.
That’s when I found out about The Thyroid Diet. And it has been the best thing for me. I jumped in, started doing the diet, and I knew there was something different in the first three days—I was losing weight, about two pounds a day, and I felt good while I was doing it. I loved the foods I was eating, not feeling deprived, my body felt amazing. The foods made me feel good, and I was losing weight at an incredible rate.
After she started working with The Thyroid Diet, Molly also started a blog to chronicle her weight-loss experience. She ended up connecting with hundreds of thyroid patients around the world.
I’d never met anyone with my problems, and now I have people talking to me from India, Australia—everywhere, really. I’ve never felt so normal, so accepted, and so part of something that’s been going on, because no one else I’m friends with has had to deal with this. Hearing their stories are heartbreaking, and I’ve cried with every story, but at the same time, it’s an incredible feeling that there are people who are changing their lives and who are inspired by my blog.
I was so inspired by Molly’s effort and her willingness to share her journey with others that I offered to help Molly with telephone coaching sessions as well. Molly and I talked several times a month to focus on how she could get the most out of the suggestions in The Thyroid Diet. Along the way, I recommended that Molly start the T-Tapp More program, and she found it was a helpful addition.
I don’t have to do T-Tapp every day to really feel the results. I’m working all the parts of my body, and truly, anybody can do it. When you do some workout DVDs, all you see are these good-looking people with rocking bodies, and that’s already a blow to self-esteem. The mix of real people in Teresa’s T-Tapp DVDs tells me that everybody can do it. I have bad balance, and since starting T-Tapp, my balance is much better, and I am definitely building strength in my legs and arms. T-Tapp kicks my butt, but when I finish a session, I still think, “Wow, I’m already done.” That’s what I love about it. And Teresa is so fun on the DVDs! Every time she says, “Yes you can,” I say, “Yeah, I know I can, so let’s go!”
In several months, Molly had already lost over forty pounds and was feeling stronger, healthier, and much more in control of her life and her health.
The thyroid diet was a last chance, a final straw for me. I had so many failures before. Knowing that I have showed doctors they are wrong, shown everyone they’re wrong, that I have taken my life back, has been giving me drive. I’m taking control when everyone else said it was impossible!
Molly says that, like many husbands, hers doesn’t say a lot about her efforts, but she knows he’s proud of her, and he has been supportive of her efforts.
But I have to say, I was just blown away the other day. We were getting dressed to go out to dinner. I put on some new, smaller-size clothes, and he said, “Molly, you need to come over here.” “Why?” I asked. “Because you look incredible, and you need to come look at yourself in the mirror!”
So, like Molly, have faith, don’t give up, and don’t forget—you’re never alone.
I invite you to connect with me, Molly, and hundreds of other thyroid patients at the Thyroid Diet website, ThyroidDietRevolution.com. I predict that someday soon you’ll be sharing the story of your own successful Thyroid Diet Revolution!
You can write to me at mshomon@thyroid-info.com, or by mail at
Mary Shomon
PO Box 565
Kensington, MD 20895-0565