Healthy ways to maintain your weight when hyperthyroid
When your thyroid is overactive, it can lead to unintentional weight loss. But losing too much weight is not a healthy thing – so how can you prevent it?
While it might be tempting to reach for junk food to keep your weight steady, this can have a negative impact on your thyroid function. That’s why we want to look at healthier ways to maintain your weight.
Healthy steps for preventing weight loss when your thyroid is overactive
Address the cause
While it’s important to manage the symptom, we always want to focus on the cause first.
This means looking at what is driving your overactive thyroid and doing what you can to manage the high thyroid hormone levels.
If your thyroid is overactive due to Graves’ disease, you’ll want to look at lifestyle and diet factors that can help bring it into balance (along with any medication you may be using).
If there is another driver such as infection or hormonal fluctuations (pregnancy/perimenopause), you’ll want to work with a practitioner to ease those drivers.
Focus on a nutrient-dense diet
While you might think that eating processed and junk foods might help to get your calories up, they’re not going to support your thyroid. Eating nutrient-dense foods is critical when your thyroid is overactive.
Why? Because you burn through more nutrients thanks to the rapid metabolism. The more depleted you become, the harder it becomes to get your condition back under control.
So what do I mean when I say nutrient-dense foods? Also known as wholefoods, these are foods that are unprocessed or minimally processed and contain more nutrition, including:
Fruit
Vegetables
Herbs & spices
Nuts
Seeds
Beans & legumes
Gluten-free wholegrains
Pseudo-grains
Eggs
Fish & seafood
High-quality meat & poultry (grass-fed/organic is ideal)
The goal is for 80-90% of your diet to consist of these major ingredients. This will help you to maintain your nutrient levels and reduce the risk of further side effects.
Enjoy nutritious calorie-dense foods
Many wholefoods are naturally low in calories compared to processed foods. But there are quite a few that pack in more calories along with plenty of nutrition!
To bump up your calorie intake, you can increase your intake of:
Nuts
Seeds
Nut and seed butters
Healthy oils such as olive oil and coconut oil
Oily fish
You may find it easier to consume more of these in recipes such as a smoothie. Try adding some nut or seed butter and a teaspoon of coconut oil to your favourite smoothie recipe to bump up the calories and nutrition.
Eat more frequently
What if you have an appetite on the lower side? First up, that’s something you might need to investigate, as there could be an underlying cause such as low stomach acid/enzymes or a nutrient deficiency at play.
But in the meantime, you can split your calorie intake up by eating more frequently throughout the day. This could be 3 meals and 2-3 snacks, or ‘mini-meals’ every few hours. Just make sure you eat your final meal or snack 2-3 hours before bed, otherwise it could interrupt your sleep.
Manage your stress levels
Your body is already working overtime when the thyroid is pumping out excess hormones. So the last thing you want to do is add more stress to that picture!
Stress can contribute to low appetite, increased anxiety and greater weight loss in an overactive thyroid picture. So you want to make sure that you are:
Removing as many sources of stress as possible
Supporting your body’s stress tolerance so you can cope better with the stress you can’t avoid
Remember – stress is not just mental. There are physical causes including excess thyroid hormone, nutrient deficiencies, food intolerances, poor sleep… and many of these can occur as a result of an overactive thyroid! So be sure to identify and tackle as many physical sources of stress as possible while you’re at it.
Not sure what you could do to be managing your stress effectively? Start here.
yOU CAN FEEL WELL WITH HYPERTHYROIDISM!
When you receive a diagnosis of hyperthyroidism, it’s common to feel overwhelmed and powerless. In the initial stages, you may not even know what is driving the condition, let alone how to manage it!
But that doesn’t mean you need to suffer the symptoms forever. Your daily habits can make a massive difference – all you need to do is learn about your condition and empower yourself.