Underactive thyroid and weight issues

I am 5'1". I have hypothyroidism. I am post-menopausal. I have several chronic medical conditions that leave me in pain all the time.

I have lost 90 pounds and I exercise daily.

Weight loss is not materially different for everyone no matter what you might have been led to believe.

It might be slower than you'd hope, and those silly hormonal scale fluctuations can be frustrating, but if you come to understand how it truly works through creating a calorie deficit and trust the math, you will see an overall downward trend over time.

You can drop your weight, but you need to take ownership of it to do that. You need to own ever calorie and own the reality of your age and body size and activity level meaning that you burn only so many calories a day and having that equate to a certain calorie budget. From that budget, you can create a deficit.

You can give yourself a bigger budget by increasing the amount of physical activity you do. Even with chronic pain conditions, you can start out small and make gradual increases in what you do. I started out walking with a cane and am now a daily runner and get over 20K steps most days. I also do resistance training 3 days a week.

Start by tracking your food accurately. Get a food scale and weigh all solid foods and measure all liquids. I found this to be key to my loss. I also found cross-checking which data base entries I used to be important. Reading the forum stickies was a great way to find out how to go about doing all of this and why it's so important.

Read. Learn. Absorb from those who have succeeded. And stop giving up without even starting.

I feel you. I struggled for so many years to lose the weight with hypothyroidism...until I decided enough is enough I have finally lost 13kg in 8 months by doing the following: Reducing my portions by half of what I would normally eat and filling the other half of my plate with a simple salad of tomatoes, cucumber and green apple(almost zero calories, but filling). This helped me not feel hungry. I eat the same thing for breakfast every week day...meusli with greek yoghurt. For exercise, I just walk in a quiet part of my neighbourhood - no music, no phone, no traffic. I found it easier to maintain walking as opposed to running which can be exhausting. Sometimes the scale does not budge for weeks but I celebrate my non-scale victories, like clothes fitting better, feeling stronger and skin looking clearer. Just tell yourself you want to be healthIy and strong, and weight loss is an added bonus. Be patient with yourself and don't give up. Like theledger says, keep plodding on...

I am 53 years old, female, short. Am on thryoxine supplements after having hemithyroidectomy due to a tumour.

I lost weight and have since maintained for nearly 4 years.

Yes, Untreated hypothyroidism will make weight loss difficult - but once you are on adequate supplementation CICO will apply to you just as to everyone else.
Treated thyroid issues do not interfere with weight loss - and that is everyone, since treatment is cheap and straightforward.

paperpudding wrote: »

I am 53 years old, female, short. Am on thryoxine supplements after having hemithyroidectomy due to a tumour.

I lost weight and have since maintained for nearly 4 years.

Yes, Untreated hypothyroidism will make weight loss difficult - but once you are on adequate supplementation CICO will apply to you just as to everyone else.
Treated thyroid issues do not interfere with weight loss - and that is everyone, since treatment is cheap and straightforward.

or even treated if your numbers aren't right - there is a HUGE range for thyroid bloodwork for "normal" but its about knowing your body - working with my doc, we know to keep mine at the TSH low end (TSH .8) and T4 higher because I function better - but it took a while for doctors to understand that, because when I was at 3.2 (still in the normal range) I felt like crap

I have been on thyroid medication for 28 years. I have been my heaviest on this meds, and currently, I am at my lightest on this meds, having lost 115 lbs since Oct 2015. If you are on the right medication and dosage, you can lose weight like anyone else. Dont use your condition as an excuse not to try your hardest.

what a miserable way to look at things... i am hypothyroid, have PCOS, suffer from chronic migraines, as well as anxiety and have successfully lost almost 70lbs. anything is possible if you want it bad enough.