5 Things that Helped Me to Lose Weight with Hypothyroid/PCOS

If you suffer from Hypothyroidism and PCOD/PCOS then you know weight loss is not as easy as going to the gym or eating a low-calorie diet. Since the cause of the weight gain is something that is happening inside our body we need to correct it first and unless we do so we are not going to lose the weight. So here are 5 things/methods that I did which helped me to correct my root causes, improve my symptoms, and as a result helped me to lose weight.

Anti-inflammatory diet: No matter what, this should be your first step if you want to lose weight with hypothyroidism and PCOS. Inflammation is the root cause of all diseases and more so with Hypothyroid and PCOS. Most people who are diagnosed with these two diseases have an unhealthy gut to begin with along with too much stress from both life and the diet they are consuming. Unfortunately with these people what they think is healthy is usually not for them. My suggestion and what worked for me was to try all kinds of different anti-inflammatory diets there are, like vegan plant-based diet, mediterranean diet, keto, paleo, (auto-immune paleo) AIP, etc. for a short period. After trying all these diets I was able to figure out what works and doesn't work for my body diet-wise. After that, I just eliminated those foods from my diet that were making me sick. This helped a lot with digestive issues, gut intolerances, and inflammation. The fat loss followed later when I combined this with other methods I listed here. However, I would not recommend any of these diets long term. You should always aim for a well-balanced nutritious meal minus the triggering/inflammatory foods. If you just want a simple list of what I avoided and ate, here you go: I focused on building muscle so animal protein like chicken, lamb/goat, fish, and eggs helped. Healthy fats (olive oil, avocados, nuts, seeds, ghee, and coconut oil) keep you full longer so I ate more of those. I removed all sugary, junk, refined, processed, and deep-fried foods. I ate fresh green vegetables either cooked or as salads. I limited starchy vegetables like potatoes. I rarely ate simple carbs like rice and wheat. I also limited fruits that are too starchy and sweet like bananas. No coffee. No alcohol. I also was allergic/intolerant to dairy, gluten, and soy so I removed those from my diet. I drank 10-12 glasses of water every day. That's more or less everything I did diet-wise. I hope it helps.

Intermittent fasting: I never used to fast. In my opinion, fasting was something that old people did for religious purposes. But oh boy! does it work! However, it's not as simple as doing the regular 16-hour fasting and eating between 12 o' clk noon to 8 o' clk in the evening. You have to use fasting to create metabolic confusion in your body. Like for example, you eat carbs and fast only for 14 hours for about a week, and the next week or so you eat no carbs and fast for 18 hours. So during the first week, your body was metabolizing faster when you had carbs and it is in this state still when you started removing carbs from your diet. By removing carbs in the next week you have reduced the number of calories you have consumed but your body is still metabolizing as fast as it was and burning calories like when you were eating carbs. This way you are losing more weight this week than you did last week. You have to keep confusing your body this way, wake it up from its metabolic coma, and make it work so that you can shed those pounds. This method was taught to me by my trainer and it really worked for me the best compared to doing the same thing every day. The reason why this works is that intermittent fasting has been shown to improve insulin resistance and make our body better equipped to tolerate and digest foods like carbs and fats. When our body has better insulin sensitivity it becomes more flexible metabolically. Fasting for longer hours gives our body time to heal and go into autophagy. This promotes and in the long run, improves our gut health. Improving our gut health means we are able to digest food better, we are able to absorb more nutrition from the food we eat, and our body is getting fuelled with the required energy to move around and do things. This will help us to become more active and burn more calories while eating lesser than we usually do. And once our body starts functioning normally our hormones also get balanced and our symptoms start improving. With PCOS, your periods will get regular with less or almost no PMS, and with Hypothyroid your dependency on medication might be reduced to almost zero. This is then followed by weight loss which is just a symptom of you getting healthier. So intermittent fasting combined with metabolic confusion helps in more ways than one.

Reducing stress: I used to get too focused on things and didn't know when to stop or relax. Does this sound just like you? I bet it does because most of us with Hypothyroid/PCOS have this kind of personality. Because of this, even though my mind/body was stressed out, I never gave it the break it needed, and frequent situations like this caused stress to build up over time. If we keep pushing ourselves over our limit and keep moving on and ignoring the mind/body then it will get inflamed and angry causing us a lot of mind-related issues like anxiety/depression, and physical issues like allergies/fatigue etc. The best way to deal with stress is to shift focus and change it to something else that interests you other than the immediate task at hand. For example, taking your dog for a walk, making a meal, cleaning out your closet, etc. This will release the stress from your mind/body and will also give you some much-needed movement. Also taking a break and going out to get some air, sitting and listening to calming music, or guided meditation can help too. You need some amount of stress in life but not so much that you are burnt out and starting to get sick. Over-stressing your mind and body can cause a lot of diseases including Hypothyroid and PCOS.

Optimizing sleep/resting: With Hypothyroid and PCOS it is important to be very aware of your body and mind. You have to constantly observe and identify when you are tired and what is making you tired and give yourself a break away from those things. You need to slow down, relax and remember to breathe once in a while. If your body is telling you to get an extra hour of sleep then give yourself some extra sleeping hours. If a task is making you tired just stop, go out and get some fresh air or just sit and do nothing till you can recuperate. If someone is causing you to get too tired and make you feel like they are sucking up your energy, tell them to stop or avoid them. Optimizing sleep and rest has really improved my symptoms. It can help reduce inflammation that is being caused by not slowing down and resting. Stop pushing yourself too much and learn to take breaks, sleep more, rest more, and go on vacations once in a while. It's OK to be lazy sometimes because your body needs to rest and heal, once in a while.

Low-intensity/strengthening exercises: Most people with Hypothyroid and PCOS are already stressed out and usually have high cortisol levels. So doing high-intensity activities can cause more stress, especially if you are not used to it. What helped me was low-intensity, easy, doable workouts like walking, light jogging, low-intensity yoga, slow-paced strengthening exercises with dumbells, interval training, etc. Exercising is important but there is no need to overdo it because that can cause more damage than help.

Overall, I recommend not trying anything too aggressive. It's better to start slow and take things one at a time. You have to keep it simple so it can be sustainable in the long run. And once you figure out what works for you, keep doing it consistently. At any point, if you stop and go back to your old ways, your symptoms will come back and you will gain back all the weight you lost. It can be hard to keep doing it consistently but it's better than being sick. Also, nothing is going to completely cure your Hypothyroid or PCOS, you can only manage them, and maybe put them into remission with a healthy diet and lifestyle.