Weight Gain and Vitamin D Deficiency

Nope - Vitamin D deficiency doesn't cause weight gain. The vitamin really doesn't have any metabolic function to it at all. It's primary function is to help calcium get in to your bones, and it also aids in coronary health. A deficiency can change your mood (slightly) which may make you more predisposed to binge eating, or making unhealthy choices, though.

I've been taking 5,000 IUs per day for about 6 months (finally getting my levels checked this summer so I can stop). It's more a correlation, than a causative relationship. Like...I got fat because I was eating crappy food with very low nutrient density - which also happened to cause a Vitamin D deficiency. But I didn't get fat BECAUSE of that deficiency, they just went hand-in-hand.

I will watch this thread with interest as, despite logging my food and exercise daily for over a year, my weight has still increased gradually. An underactive thyroid was diagnosed and I am now on thyoxine which I thought would turn my life around. However, the joint pains and chronic fatigue continue and I have now been diagnosed as being severely deficient in vitamin D . I, too, have googled this and have seen suggestions that it might be responsible for weight gain.......

you can take as many vitamin d supplements as you want, but it isn't absorbed / activated unless you get daily sun exposure..

Also Target brand UP&up vitamin D3 helped me. Others did not. I gained 12 pounds in 2 weeks with others. But not this one. I lost

10 pounds. Make sure whatever you take suits you. If you are gaining weight and it is not helping.. that is not the right brand for you.

Get something that is oil based. My suggestion: DO NOT MIX IT WITH CALCIUM.

you can take as many vitamin d supplements as you want, but it isn't absorbed / activated unless you get daily sun exposure..

Not true.

There are full-body sunlamps available now (not cheap) that you can use to get your Vitamin D naturally. But beware tanning parlors as the type of lamps that they typically use put out ultraviolet A rather than ultraviolet B (the one you need in order to manufacture Vitamin D).

Also, if you are going to go the supplement route, understand that, if you don't eat your greens (spinach, kale, etc.) you will need to take a K2 supplement. But if you eat a greens product and one serving of some kind of a source of K2 (pumpkin seeds are a great source), you should have no worries. Also, you need to know that when you cut back on your Vitamin D supplementation in anticipation of the spring or on a sunny vacation, your levels of Vitamin D can drop like a stone if you don't cut back gradually.

Just wanted to chime in as a data point and say I too had a Vit. D deficiency when I was checked earlier in the year. After supplementation I just FEEL better and more motivated, which definitely helps weight loss/exercise efforts. I wouldn't say it's a magic bullet but through different reasons (energy level, mood, "motivation") it does have a huge effect how you're losing/gaining weight.

This is my experience also.

I am on prescription Vitamin D3, for what it's worth. After a period of taking 5,ooo IUI a day for a month (to pull me out of the deficiency pit) I am on 12,000 a week for maintenance. I begin feeling very rundown and just "off" if I slack off on taking it.

I've been deficient for years (number stubbornly at a 21), and I was thin while deficient, overweight while deficient and thin again, while still deficient. For me it doesn't seem to have any effect on my weight.

Thyroid, diabetes and all the genetic and chronic diseases are the outcome of lack of exposure to sun. Lethargy leads to mal function of the organs.

I have been borderline deficient for several years and now officially severely deficient. However, I disagree with the exposure to sun causing the deficiency. In the summer, I spend several hours a day in the sun -- sometimes all day long at the water park, etc.. In the evenings during the winter, I spend time in the sun each evenign doing yard work, going for walks, before the sun sets. Research indicates for many, the primary source of Vit. D is through sunlight exposure, but deficiencies for many, are not due to lack of exposure. I am also fair skinned and a redhead - so the dark skin (more prone to deficiencies) does not apply either. According to my dr., I'm probably dealing with an absorption issue plus the fact I am overweight.

I do believe, however, that lethargy and laying around, not being active, etc, does lead to malfunction of our bodies - through lack of activity.

There are actually lots of articles associating Vit D deficiency with weight gain. After being put on thyroxine for an underactive thyroid I still didn't feel right and was still very slowly gaining weight and after my bloods were retested for auto-immune illnesses they came back with a massive Vit D deficiency. I now take prescribed supplements daily and, interestingly, even though I still eat the same diet as before my weight is very slowly decreasing. This obviously isn't hard evidence but it's interesting.....PS I am also outside for about 3 hours a day throughout all seasons dog walking so get lots of natural daylight.

I was diagnosed as vitamin D deficient by an endocrinologist. I thought I was fine because I was taking a multi vitamin and thought my hypothyroidism was causing my symptoms. My doc told me this:

1. For the vitamin D to be absorbed by the body in the over the counter vitamin form, take it with food and no other vitamins. Something about it bonds with the vitamin calcium and the body is unable to use it. Any sort of multi vitamin or something that also has calcium, the D will not be absorbed by the body. However I can take my vitamin D with milk or yogurt with no issues. I use 5000 iu of D3 in cholecalciferol form.
2. While a D deficiency does not cause weight gain, it will prevent weight loss even though all the proper weight loss steps have been taken.
3. The normal D range is wide, I would have to take 50,000 iu daily for 5 years to get "too" much D.
4. I will have to take my D for several months before I start feeling better. Even longer to start losing weight.

I take my D3 every morn with breakfast and still take my multi vitamin every eve. I think my deficiency is related to my thyroid as I have noticed many people with thyroid issues have similar D problems. I have been taking it for 6 months now and started losing weight about 3 months ago. Very slow and steady, but progress.

I just found out my vitamin d level is excessively low. I have gained weight over the last few months despite the fact that I have been exercising and some what eating right (had real bad sugar cravings). I have started taking 2000IU a day for the last two weeks along with getting outside in the sun and I have started feeling better. I am no where near 100% but I no longer have to force myself to work out nor am I aching and tired all the time. I am hoping that as my levels become normal then I will begin to lose weight again.

When I was diagnosed with a thyroid condition (Hashi's) and insulin resistance, my doctor also found severe deficiencies in vitamin D and magnesium. He told me that both could have contributed to the difficulty I was having losing weight (as well as Hashi's and insulin resistance). I got both my deficiencies on track along with medication for Hashi's and insulin resistance (Nature-throid and metformin), and I've finally been able to lose weight like a "normal" person. I can't say what part the vitamin D specifically played in my issues, but it was definitely part of the overall equation.

I have a major deficiency so I take supplements and have to spend a considerable amount of time outside when ether permits or moderate time in a tanning bed to supplement.

I do not know much about this. All I do know is that about a year ago I started getting very tired, muscle cramps and aces in joints. gained 25 lbs in a year. I am now to the point that it is keeping me from enjoying life! I am always extremely fatigue and want to sleep when ever I can. I feel like my legs have weights on them when I am at work. I have been through cardiac tests, sleep study everything. finally they found the my vitamin D is very low. I do not know it the fatigue cancause your high sex drive to come to an hault, but i have no sex drive anymore. I am only 36yrs old. i am to take 50,000 a week for 12 weeks then take 2,000 a day after.