plateau help - hypothyroid - I am getting SO frustrated.
drockncrisso
Posts: 49 Member
Can anyone help me figure out if I am doing something wrong here? I weigh my food, count and log everything obsessively. I found out a few weeks ago I have hypothyroid and I am waiting to get my prescription, but in the meantime, I feel like I should still be losing SOMETHING- not sticking at EXACTLY the same weight for months. .. even if I am retaining water, it does not make sense that if I lost some weight, my body would continually compensate by adding the perfect amount of excess water to make my weight appear the same? that makes no sense.
but clearly I am doing SOMETHING wrong.
(history- I have lost weight successfully 3x using calorie counting/MFP- for my wedding I went from 136 to 117- after my first child I went from 145 to 125 and after my second child I went from 170 to 125- so I am very familiar with how my body usually handles exercise and dieting for weight loss- having done this successfully 3 times before.. I am SO frustrated that my usual methods are not working AT ALL)
Can hypothyroid REALLY be putting a COMPLETE STOP to my weight loss when I am only eating 1200??
I have read all about how the "starvation mode" is a myth, but I am always eating right around 1200 cals a day - unless MDF adjusts WAY up for exercise, when I do eat back some of the calories - but even then, I never eat back ALL my exercise cals. I mean.. based on simple math of calories in and calories out, I should be losing SOMETHING, but I have weighed the same for over 2 months now. I screen capped my net calories and attached it at the top of this post (if images work on here) - so is there something off? Should I be eating less than 1200?
I have tried the 2/5 fasting method for a two weeks and had no result (eating 500 cals two days a week and 1200-ish the rest of the week)
I have tried sticking like glue to 1200 for a couple weeks- no result
I have tried reduced salt in my diet and drinking distilled water only for a week- to flush salt from my system - no result
I have tried upping my cals to 1800 for 3 days and then dropping back down to 1200- no result.
I am 5'3" 151lbs. I do strength training and I run 3 mile speed drills once a week and long distance run training once a week (8-12 miles)
what else can I try? is there a specific type of foods I should eat? do I need to eat 800 cals??? Should I just eat "maintenance" until I get my hypothyroid meds? and then start again when my hormones start balancing out? because, right now, weight loss and diet are ALL I can think about. Focusing THIS long on something and not seeing a result is frustrating and depressing.
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Replies
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Well if you have untreated hypothyroid, you need to get on that prescription.
It's five dollars a month even if you have to pay out of pocket...why haven't you started on the medication? Surely if you are diagnosed, your health team has prescribed.4 -
I mean, it doesn't take "weeks" to fill a prescription.
Why haven't you started the pills? That's the first step and it will still take a while until you are stable at a good dose. I've been on levothyroxine for decades and my weight loss and maintenance is about as normal as it could be.
All the rest of your arguing/stressing is just noise until you get medically stable.8 -
It looks like you have a lot of half-filled or even blank days in the screenshot?6
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Yes untreated hypothyroidism can stall weight loss. You also need your vitamin d and ferritin levels checked as well.6
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Redordeadhead wrote: »It looks like you have a lot of half-filled or even blank days in the screenshot?
I noticed this, too. Overeating on these days can wipe out any deficit that OP had going the rest of the week.7 -
Redordeadhead wrote: »It looks like you have a lot of half-filled or even blank days in the screenshot?
Yeah, I'd start with "logging honestly."8 -
Log everything, every day, as accurately as possible.
Also for the record, if you do 5:2, the five non-fasting days are meant to be at maintenance.3 -
A lot of the blank days are days where I have a negative net calories - like may 12, I ran 13.1 miles, burned 3700 for the day, but ate 2200 so I had a 1500 negative net calories according to Fitbit and MFD. So any Sunday (saturday in the case of that race) day would be that type of blank day. There are occasional blank days when I eat the same thing over and over, that I don't log, because I ate that same food the day before and know that it is going to be the same 1200 as the day before. the non-logged days are not over eating days. The only days I went over calorie-wise are logged and you can see how they go above the red line.
note the two images on may 12- you can see I ate plenty of cals- but my net cals are blank:
As for my prescription- it DOES take weeks to get it. I went to the MD weeks ago, got my blood tested, got results and as of today I am still waiting for EXPRESS-SCRIPTs to deliver my prescription- they apparently just shipped it today. They took over a week just to process it. I wish I could have just gone to a pharmacy, but they didn't tell me I could simply pick up my first supply at participating walgreens until the last time I called them frustrated wondering WHY they had not processed it yet.1 -
Open up your diary and have someone review your data. From your graph it seems like your logging is sporadic and inconsistent.
You need to find a plan you can live with and stick to it. Making dramatic changes for a week isn't going to do anything but frustrate you. Focus on the variables that matter and be brutally honest with yourself.
...and no...hypothyroidism has almost no detectable impact on metabolism. Even in clinical cases involving total thyroidectomy patients the decrease to REE was ~5%. That's 80 kcals out of a 1600 kcal/day caloric budget. The weight gain associated with thyroid disorders is water weight which occurs during nearly every hormonal shift.6 -
drockncrisso wrote: »A lot of the blank days are days where I have a negative net calories - like may 12, I ran 13.1 miles, burned 3700 for the day, but ate 2200 so I had a 1500 negative net calories according to Fitbit and MFD.
How did you determine that you burned 3,700 exercise calories? At 151 lbs you'd burn about 1,250 cal running a half marathon (weight x .63 x distance).......I suspect we may have identified the problem.
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If you logged consistently every day, ate only 1200 (or less) even when you exercised, exercised a lot, and got negative net calories a bunch of days (and very few net on others), you're putting your body under tremendous stress. Since you've changed your strategy many times in just two months, that suggests mental stress as well. All of that, plus your untreated hypothyroidism, are a recipe for mad water weight nonsense.
I don't know how old you are, but at your height/weight, your TDEE should be at least 1800 or so. While I'd expect you to have lost fat if your net calorie chart is accurate, I think the possibility of stress-related water weight retention is quite high. The best way to deal with that would be to get the hypothyroidism started on treatment (it will take some time to get to the ideal dose, but improvement should start very soon), and put your eating/exercise on a more calm, stable basis (including sensible net calorie intake of 1200 or more most days). A couple of weeks at net maintenance calories might be a good idea to calm things down, too, before going back to a sensible deficit. Just my opinion, though.
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BrianSharpe wrote: »drockncrisso wrote: »A lot of the blank days are days where I have a negative net calories - like may 12, I ran 13.1 miles, burned 3700 for the day, but ate 2200 so I had a 1500 negative net calories according to Fitbit and MFD.
How did you determine that you burned 3,700 exercise calories? At 151 lbs you'd burn about 1,250 cal running a half marathon (weight x .63 x distance).......I suspect we may have identified the problem.
Yep, just what I was thinking—maybe the calories out part of the equation is too high.1 -
I have hypothyroidism as well and am taking medicine for it. For the past two months I've been gaining about 1-2 lbs per week eating 1600-1700 calories and I am 22. I work out everyday and have been meticulous with calorie counting. I'm convinced that even with the medicine my metabolism has decreased tremendously.5
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I didn’t say 3700 exercise cals- The 3700 cal burn was for the entire day- according to Fitbit, I assume 1600 would have been if I’d done next to nothing, plus I ran 13 miles with hills- that put me around 1600 - so that’s 3200 total- plus I walked all day afterwards- we were visiting a small town, so I was on my feet all day. .. but even with my Fitbit Saying I burned 3700 total that day, I ate 2200. I didn’t eat 3700. So I should still be under- even if Fitbit was wrong and I only burned 3000 total for the day, 2200 would give me an 800 deficit0
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In my opinion you are making this too hard on yourself. Most weight loss comes from diet. I recommend you stop exercising for a week or two and focus solely on accurately logging your food every day. This includes the days you eat the same things3
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emmamcgarity wrote: »In my opinion you are making this too hard on yourself. Most weight loss comes from diet. I recommend you stop exercising for a week or two and focus solely on accurately logging your food every day. This includes the days you eat the same things
If OP is exercising mainly to lose weight, or the exercise were a new thing, this could be excellent advice, and I'd absolutely endorse it.
OTOH, if, like me, she exercises mainly for fun and fitness (or some such other reason - some do it to reduce stress or depression!), this could be counterproductive to good life balance. There's nothing wrong with that level of exercise: It's not a crazy excessive amount of exercise in general objective terms, for a trained person . . . but it definitely needs proper fuel.
I think she may possibly be over-estimating those exercise calories . . . but that's a whole different issue.5 -
I agree. My recommendation is as a strategy to isolate the data for analysis2
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emmamcgarity wrote: »I agree. My recommendation is as a strategy to isolate the data for analysis
Perfectly reasonable, as long as back-burnering the exercise doesn't cause other problems.
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Once the food logging is more steady it will be easier to determine appropriate calorie burn estimates which imo is likely the culprit. But accurate, consistent and complete data is the best way to figure it out0
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I don’t understand why my exercise calorie estimates are the “culprit” in my not losing weight, when I’m not eating back all of the exercise cals. If I eat 1200 cals, regardless of burning an extra 200-300 at the gym, why should that impare my weight loss?? Is my eating 1400 cals total really bad, when my Fitbit says I burned an extra 600-700 for the day? I’m assuming the Fitbit is over estimating- so when it says I’ve burned a total of 2000 (as in TOTAL calories- not just exercise) calories for the day, and I eat 1300- even if the Fitbit is wrong and I’m only at 1700 burned, there is still a deficit, right?
Yes, I eat more on a long run day- if I run 10-13 miles, I’ll eat 1800-2000 cals total for the day. Maybe that means I’m eating Maintance levels of calories that day, but if every other day I’m eating around 1200, I don’t see why a potentially over-estimated exercise calorie count matters at all, unless someone is eating back all of those overestimated cals- which I’m not.0 -
drockncrisso wrote: »A lot of the blank days are days where I have a negative net calories - like may 12, I ran 13.1 miles, burned 3700 for the day, but ate 2200 so I had a 1500 negative net calories according to Fitbit and MFD. So any Sunday (saturday in the case of that race) day would be that type of blank day. There are occasional blank days when I eat the same thing over and over, that I don't log, because I ate that same food the day before and know that it is going to be the same 1200 as the day before. the non-logged days are not over eating days. The only days I went over calorie-wise are logged and you can see how they go above the red line.
note the two images on may 12- you can see I ate plenty of cals- but my net cals are blank:
As for my prescription- it DOES take weeks to get it. I went to the MD weeks ago, got my blood tested, got results and as of today I am still waiting for EXPRESS-SCRIPTs to deliver my prescription- they apparently just shipped it today. They took over a week just to process it. I wish I could have just gone to a pharmacy, but they didn't tell me I could simply pick up my first supply at participating walgreens until the last time I called them frustrated wondering WHY they had not processed it yet.
for the first few months after you get thyroid meds your dosage could be adjusted - your doctor should have put it in for you and local pharmacy (unless your insurance precludes that)
BT - you shouldn't have been Dx as hypothyroid without the bloodwork (so that should have been done prior to getting meds prescribed)...i think i must be missing something2 -
I was not Dx as hypothyroid until I had blood work done. It took a week for MD to get thru to my insurance company - a week for them to process my prescription and a week to ship. I mentioned this before- but basically- I am allowed under my insurance to get my first 90 days of a prescription at a participating pharmacy, but they neglected to tell me this until they were already taking forever(a week) to process the prescription and I could not, at THAT point switch to a brick and mortar pharm. anyhow... I just got the meds in the mail.. so I’m hoping to notice a difference in the next 6 weeks or however long it takes.4
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drockncrisso wrote: »I was not Dx as hypothyroid until I had blood work done. It took a week for MD to get thru to my insurance company - a week for them to process my prescription and a week to ship. I mentioned this before- but basically- I am allowed under my insurance to get my first 90 days of a prescription at a participating pharmacy, but they neglected to tell me this until they were already taking forever(a week) to process the prescription and I could not, at THAT point switch to a brick and mortar pharm. anyhow... I just got the meds in the mail.. so I’m hoping to notice a difference in the next 6 weeks or however long it takes.
it can take awhile my daughter has been taking meds for over a year and she had to have them upped a few times. she may have to have them upped again,or put on something else as her numbers keep going up.she sees an endocrinologist every 3 months and has blood work done.2 -
CharlieBeansmomTracey wrote: »drockncrisso wrote: »I was not Dx as hypothyroid until I had blood work done. It took a week for MD to get thru to my insurance company - a week for them to process my prescription and a week to ship. I mentioned this before- but basically- I am allowed under my insurance to get my first 90 days of a prescription at a participating pharmacy, but they neglected to tell me this until they were already taking forever(a week) to process the prescription and I could not, at THAT point switch to a brick and mortar pharm. anyhow... I just got the meds in the mail.. so I’m hoping to notice a difference in the next 6 weeks or however long it takes.
it can take awhile my daughter has been taking meds for over a year and she had to have them upped a few times. she may have to have them upped again,or put on something else as her numbers keep going up.she sees an endocrinologist every 3 months and has blood work done.
ditto - i've been on thyroid meds for nearly 4.5 years now and my dosage still gets tweaked occasionally0 -
I'm been on them for decades and they still get adjusted.
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I am hypothyroid. Took me at least 4 years to figure out the appropriate dose. Just reading your first post only it sounds like you're not eating enough calories. I would focus on getting your thyroid regulated first. I would also check your adrenal function. Stress, over exercising & not eating enough negatively impacts your adrenals. I used to be an endurance athlete. I noticed when I significantly cut back my mileage from 100 miles per week to 40-60 miles per week it was easier to lose weight (eating clean). I still kept walking my dog and run. Now I ride 2-3x a week, Orange Theory 2x week, and run 2-3 X week but I keep the time to a minimal . While my thyroid was out of whack it was difficult to lose weight. Then I had to change my perspective - that weight loss with thyroid issues takes time & now I'm at the point (since my thyroid is regulated) where I'm working out what works and does not work in terms of diet. I pay attention to what causes me inflammation. I had a food allergy test as well and do my best to avoid those items. Take a step back. Fix your thyroid and adrenal glands. Be kind and be patient. Your body is adjusting to not producing enough thyroid hormone.3
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I became hypothyroid during pregnancy. I gained A TON of weight & the problem wasn’t discovered until 6 months after I’d given birth. I was tracking & weighing accurately & walking miles every day but stayed the same for months until I finally went to the doc with symptoms of extreme tiredness etc. As soon as I began taking medication, the weight began to shift. So I’m guessing it might be the same with you. I don’t think you’re doing anything “wrong” at all. I think that once you start on your tablets, it’ll start to move. Please update later and let us know & good luck! xx2
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Try cold water therapy!! I was told I had hypothyroid, did it and now, no meds and feel so much better. It is SO easy. Please just try it.
Hope this works for you 24 -
ACanadian22 wrote: »Try cold water therapy!! I was told I had hypothyroid, did it and now, no meds and feel so much better. It is SO easy. Please just try it.
Hope this works for you
were you tested for hypothyroid? if someone is tested and it comes out they have a thyroid issue the best thing they can do is see an endocrinologist and go from there. leaving a thyroid issue untreated can result in death down the road. as for cold water therapy the OP should talk to her dr first and see if its something she should do or not5 -
ACanadian22 wrote: »Try cold water therapy!! I was told I had hypothyroid, did it and now, no meds and feel so much better. It is SO easy. Please just try it.
Hope this works for you
Only medication or surgery can help thyroid disorders. If cold water therapy worked for you, then you did not have a thyroid issue. Don't spread this misinformation. This is dangerous advice.11
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