Sometimes the 3500 calories = a pound Rule doesn't apply!

I forgot my thyroid pill for one day. That was enough to knock my metabolism back, and combined with the increase in calories and the lack of fiber in my diet, made for this huge increase. And I could tell it by the fit of my jeans. Unfortunately for those of us with a hypothyroid disorder, it only comes on fast. Taking it off is slow. But it can be done.

I asked my dr about this when I saw her, I see an Endocronologist because I have PCOS and was diagnosed with HypoThyrodism in December. She wanted to test my thyroid a second time after I was on Synthroid for 6 weeks. I was telling her that I missed two days of my medicine and I felt very tired and it seemed as though my thyroid was off.... She told me that the medication is to stablize the thyroid and missing the medication for 1, 2 or even 3 days I would not see an effect on my thyroid. She said that many patients feel that if they miss a dose of their medication they assume that their symptoms are related to missing the dose, but in actuality they are not. That the medication is not a miracle pill which works like a switch. She has said one of the reasons they test for thyroid every 6 weeks is because it takes several weeks for the medication to actually start doing it's job, and it would then take several weeks for it to knock your thyroid off as well. Which makes perfect sense.

That's what I used to think. And my doc said the same thing but then, to settle things, he wanted to do a test. Knowing that I'm a meticulous diary-er of my food, he wanted to experiment with my staying on track but missing one pill. This kind of variance went on over several weeks. After the "testing period" he told me that he was doing this to show me that one pill now and then wouldn't make a difference, and to verify the conventional medical wisdom that it wouldn't. Interestingly, for my and the doctor, it did make a difference. My weight shot up despite no changes to my running schedule (time/distance/pace) and an exact diet. We avoided that time of the month to eliminate that influence, so we could only surmise (not scientifically established of course) that it did make a difference to MY metabolism, for some reason he couldn't explain. And I've seen that variance repeated over the years. In fact, my family jokes when I say I've missed a pill, "Better get your fat jeans out of the closet". All, in humor of course, because this is just one of those things I have to deal with. Real life. But that's okay. I'm good with it.

Clearly the complete negation of the 3500 calories equals a pound rule is thoroughly disrupted by small changes of diet and/or medication, because there is no other explanation for the mathematical variance that I can think of. And how else could one explain a 9.4 pound weight LOSS in the past two weeks when my calorie deficit wasn't nearly that big? It wasn't loss of lean muscle mass because my lean went up during the past two weeks and my fat percentage dropped. It's crazy math that I'd love for someone much more sophisticated than me, my regular doctor, or my endocrinologist, to explain!

Generally, I think the rule you cited is probably accurate. But that's the reason I posted here -- clearly it isn't always true for every one, under all conditions. Knowing that, and knowing that one can get right back on track, is something that I hope will be reassuring for someone out there. It's frustrating but nothing we can't overcome!