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Fat loss with thyroid and hormones


Chloee

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Hi there, need some advice from any ladies who can help!

I have an underactive thyroid which I am on medication for, I also have pcos, no medication specifically for this just the contraceptive to make me "regular".

I have tried numerous times to shed some weight (fat) without success. I even spent 8 months with a trainer last year, following a rather strict eating regime, and structured training programme - yet doing no cardio. My goal was to enter into a "figure" competition, so I thought cardio would be essential? 6 weeks before the competition we were aiming for I pulled out as I had zero change in lower body size and no fat loss.

I am back into training myself (been "gyming" since I was 18) yet there is no structure so find it very hard to stick to anything. I'm contemplating getting some online training and nutrition with Lisa Menzies (Go Figure).

Does anyone have any of the same problems? Or anything similar.

And any advice would be greatly appreciated. :?

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I've dealt with thyroid issues in past female clients and it can be a huge pain. Thyroid wackiness can mean that the usual prescriptions for leaning out don't work as well (or work at all). I don't say that put you off. Just be aware of it.

What exactly is your diagnosis, if you don't mind me asking?

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Hiya, I work in community health with women and I see lots of women with PCOS.

PCOS is often associated with an inability to lose weight. It can also be associated with multiple hormone imbalances including androgens, cortisol, estrogens, insulin, progesterone and thyroid hormone.

Have you tried substituting any foods you are eating that have a high glycemic index with low glycemic index foods?

There is research evidence that following an eating plan based around low glycemic index foods can assist with weight loss in women with PCOS, primarily by improving insulin sensitivity (which is often significantly reduced in PCOS) and/or reducing blood levels of insulin. In particular this reduces abdominal fat.

Eating regular meals of low glycemic index food helps maintain stable blood sugar and also lower blood insulin levels and this, over time, increases insulin sensitivity and also promotes appetite control and reduces carb cravings.

Hyperinsulinemia (high blood insulin levels) produces hyperandrogenism (excessive levels of male hormones such as testosterone) by stimulating ovarian androgen production and by reducing serum sex-hormone binding globulin. This can increase PCOS symptoms like acne and facial hair and irregular periods.

So PCOS leads to difficulties maintaining a healthy weight / losing weight, then increased weight tends to produce increased PCOS symptoms, which tends to facilitate more weight gain etc.

Often the pill is prescribed to help regulate periods (and to decrease some of the effects of excess testosterone in women, like the acne, greasy skin and excess hair) but it can also cause weight gain in some women. Sometimes one type of pill will cause more weight gain than another, so it might be worth looking into if a different pill might work better.

Also, with regard to your thyroid hormones: does your GP tend to work within the lower regions of the normal range or the upper region? Some GPs tend to be more conservative than others and keep their patients right down in the lower levels of normal, which doesn’t help weight issues.

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  • 2 weeks later...
Hi there, need some advice from any ladies who can help!

I have an underactive thyroid which I am on medication for, I also have pcos, no medication specifically for this just the contraceptive to make me "regular".

I have tried numerous times to shed some weight (fat) without success. I even spent 8 months with a trainer last year, following a rather strict eating regime, and structured training programme - yet doing no cardio. My goal was to enter into a "figure" competition, so I thought cardio would be essential? 6 weeks before the competition we were aiming for I pulled out as I had zero change in lower body size and no fat loss.

I am back into training myself (been "gyming" since I was 18) yet there is no structure so find it very hard to stick to anything. I'm contemplating getting some online training and nutrition with Lisa Menzies (Go Figure).

Does anyone have any of the same problems? Or anything similar.

And any advice would be greatly appreciated. :?

Who would pay a trainer to tell them to do cardio? You could have done it by yourself you dont need a PT to tell you how to put one foot in front of the other?

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  • 5 weeks later...
Well actually one of the main things I WAS NOT ALLOWED to do was cardio, she dropped one of her "clients" when she saw her doing some cardio in the gym.

Seriously? Drop the trainer.

Ummm... Assuming there wasn't some serious reason why cardio was forbidden, then any trainer who drops clients when they go against the trainer's advice clearly has too many clients.

I can see the trainer's argument would be "I spent hours developing this programme to get you the results you asked me to get for you....how can i gauge how it's working if you freelance all the time"...

But cardio's almost inevitably an essential part of any weight loss plan, so it's hard to see why a trainer would forbid it. And, if the client WANTS to do cardio, adjust the calorie load to suit....

All of this is, of course, way off track smiley-signs108.gif - did you get any better advice and make some progress ?

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Oh hell yes I dropped the trainer - all of the clients she had (very few as she trained them in her own time) never did cardio, I specifically wanted to do figure, she had physique in mind - which is a big no for me - and she seemed to tailor the training for growth, and really was only interested in physique for everyone.

Took me a while to get my confidence back as I felt like a failure, and felt stupid as I knew to drop any fat cardio is kind of essential, but when you trust someone and think they know what they are doing you tend to do what they say.

So I'm on the right track now :)

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Well actually one of the main things I WAS NOT ALLOWED to do was cardio, she dropped one of her "clients" when she saw her doing some cardio in the gym.

True?

So is the trainer paying you or are you paying her?

? Don't quite know what you're getting at with that.

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Oh hell yes I dropped the trainer - all of the clients she had (very few as she trained them in her own time) never did cardio, I specifically wanted to do figure, she had physique in mind - which is a big no for me - and she seemed to tailor the training for growth, and really was only interested in physique for everyone.

Took me a while to get my confidence back as I felt like a failure, and felt stupid as I knew to drop any fat cardio is kind of essential, but when you trust someone and think they know what they are doing you tend to do what they say.

So I'm on the right track now :)

I've had a trainer like that too. She saw cardio as detrimental to muscle gain and she may have had a point. But I felt very uncomfortable missing cardio and felt my fitness decreasing so decided it wasn't for me. As TFB says above, while she may have had a specific way of training that could have been successful, cardio is necessary to weight loss, fitness and health. Sounds like you're on the right track now though.

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Well actually one of the main things I WAS NOT ALLOWED to do was cardio, she dropped one of her "clients" when she saw her doing some cardio in the gym.

True?

So is the trainer paying you or are you paying her?

? Don't quite know what you're getting at with that.

Well, you're paying her for her services, not the other way around.

If you choose do some other type of exercise I dont see what the f*ck it has to do with your trainer.

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  • 2 weeks later...
Well, you're paying her for her services, not the other way around.

If you choose do some other type of exercise I dont see what the f*ck it has to do with your trainer.

Exactly. The quick diploma types tend to provide mass produced shit anyway, without factoring the individual into it.

I have always changed their plans, as they don't know my body like I do. One asked me why I changed, and when I told him, he asked for me to feed back to him my results. He was interested in how the changes where going to effect my goals. Others should learn from that.

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