Hi Dagbin
I’ve been on thyroxine for 21 years and yes losing weight was a real problem. 5:2 for me has allowed me to lose 22lbs in 5 months which is great. On doctor’s advice I did start eating an egg for breakfast and homemade soup for lunch and fish and veg for dinner staying within 500 calories. For me I feel great on 5:2. Take it easy to start and drinks lots of water.

Dagbin
The headaches seem to disappear after a couple of weeks I found. Give yourself 1 coffee and sip it slowly if you need one, you will appreciate every sip.just log it as part of your 500 calories. Today is my fast day and I called in to see a sick friend and her husband made me the best skim cap and I sure enjoyed it and I’ve just logged it.
I swim 40 laps on fast days and it seems to keep me moving. Do you have a fast buddy?
I appreciate my husband even though he leaves all the calorie calculations up to me, even after 5 months!!! But I do appreciate he will make the fast soup if I’m busy. Did I tell you I have a great 28 cal vege fast soup if you want me to post it?

I’ve been taking Thyroxine for about 10 years – I take it in the morning before I get up and before breakfast. I’ve been sticking to the 5:2 diet for 11 weeks now and have lost 16lbs so far. I haven’t noticed any side effects. My husband is also on the diet and has lost a stone so far. We both find this diet much easier to stick to than others that we’ve tried because you eat normally on 5 days of the week. The psychological impact of that is amazing!

Thank you!!!! I was diagnosed in February with hypothyroidism after a a long time of being ill and have found it so hard to lose weight. I even went down to a continuous 700 calories a day and 5 1 hour sessions of hard exercise and lost 1 pound in 7 weeks. I have tried everything but this sounds really promising. Thanks for giving me hope x

I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism 14 years ago and given thyroxin but have still always had trouble keeping my weight under control. A friend of mine recommended 5:2 back in April. I have stuck to the diet without much difficulty (apart from a two week holiday) ever since and have lost 20kg. Needless to say I am very happy about this! I was 124kg when I started and hope to lose around another 12kg before I reach the sort of weight I will feel happy with. Compared to any other diet I have to say 5;2 is SO EASY. It is down to you and there is nobody trying to sell you expensive classes, diet plans, foods or food supplements. I can’t thank my friend enough. Thank you to M & M for helping me ‘take control’.

My thyroid tale is a bit of a sorry one! About 10 years ago I finally managed to get a hypothyroid diagnosis after several years of feeling crappy, and was put on thyroxine. Eight months later after little or no effect I was given a trial of T3 (l-iothyronine) and it was as if I’d been woken from cryogenics!! But unfortunately with it came some form of arthritis which rendered me almost immobile – it was many, many months before I could lift my arms above my head! we tried a couple of times but it was no good.

Anyway realising that it was T3 I needed and not able to persuade my doc to prescribe armour I took to buying the cheapie copy Thyroid-s via the internet. I take a mixture of that and thyroxine, which does make some difference now. Istill go to have my bloods done once a year, and we have the same boring discussion about my readings, which are at the top end of what they regard as acceptable. But I continue to function, whereas before all that started I used to be sleeping 14 hours a day, and could barely function when up.

Thyroid-s, I take 3 tabs a day, and it costs me about £100 a year. A pinprick in comparison to what I am able to earn while well. I have had absolutely no problems with quality or consistency at all – no matter what any doctor has been primed to tell you by Big Pharma

No, don’t start dieting until your thyroid condition is under control.

Being hypothyroid puts your adrenal glands under extra stress as they try to compensate for your poor metabolism. Dieting is stressful, both physically and mentally, so that is yet more load on your poor adrenal glands – and there is only so much they can take before they crumble under the strain.

In any case its almost impossible to lose weight when you are hypothyroid. You will get disheartened and depressed! Going gluten free should be your first step – it often helps a lot with the symptoms.

You’ll find a really helpful and informative group at https://healthunlocked.com/thyroiduk.

Hi ruthi, I second everything you wrote! I agree that anyone hypo will most likely have a great difficult time losing weight or won’t be able to at all, not matter how little they eat, or at least that was my experience.

Interesting also to read your experience from taking T3, ruthi! I’ve been taking it for over a year and healed my adrenals through following Paul Robinson’s ‘Recovery with T3’ method. Due to that method, I was able to wean off the bio-identical cortisol I was taking for my adrenal insufficiency issue.

Thankfully, I’ve never had to take Thyroxine or Synthroid!!! Whew! I did take natural dessicated thyroid for many years (that’s what I was started on when first diagnosed with Hashimotos). However, I just don’t convert T4 into T3 very well, even when my ferritin is optimized and my cortisol levels balanced. I take a lot of co-factor nutrients including Lugol’s iodine. Sorry to read about the arthritic type condition you developed when taking T3 or liothyronine. May I ask how much you took and how you dosed the liothyronine you took? How I dose is that I take 25 mcg. at 3:00 a.m. (that’s my Circadian dose and I set an alarm to take that), 20 mcg. at 10 a.m. and 10 mcg. at 3 p.m.

Hi everyone. Thought I’d share my story so far. Diagnosed with Graves April 2015. Had radioactive Iodine Jan 2016 which killed all of my thyroid and have been on thyroxine replacement ever since. Took almost 15 months to get my T3 and T4 stable at the high end of normal (T3 5.5 and T4 around 25) which is where I feel healthy – any lower and I get severe hypo symptoms. During the time from initial diagnosis to being on the correct dose of thyroxine I gained around 12kg and nothing I did could shift it. I was always a slim build and it was a very noticeable weight gain – despite calorie restriction and training for a half marathon I continued to gain weight. Since my T3&T4 levels have been stable I started the Fast diet and have lost 8kg in the last 14 weeks. It has been an absolutely fantastic diet for me, both psychologically (I know I can have a glass of wine/pizza tomorrow) and physically (I only have 4 more kg to go until I’m back at the correct weight). What I would say is that I tried the fasting diet back in January when I was still clinically mildly hypothyroid and I did not lose any weight – there is probably no point trying any diet until your circulating T3 & T4 are correct but once they are even we hypo people can have significant success with the 5:2 diet so keep it up folks, I know I will!