Do you think you may have a thyroid problem? If so, you may be struggling with weight gain and belly fat. This can be extremely frustrating, especially since it seems like no matter what you do, the weight won’t come off. You may wonder, do you have a thyroid belly shape and what does this mean for losing weight?

The thyroid belly shape is characterized by an overall accumulation of fat. There is added weight in the belly but you may have heavy legs, thighs, and arms too. You may find it impossible to lose weight, even if you hardly eat anything and exercise. Treating your thyroid is key to weight loss.

In this blog post, we will discuss Thyroid belly shape and how to lose weight and belly fat if you suspect you have a Thyroid problem. We will also cover how to tell if you have a Thyroid problem. So, if you are interested in learning more, keep reading!

How to lose weight, thyroid belly shape, and thyroid symptoms

So. Now that you understand more about how the thyroid can cause seemingly unstoppable weight gain it’s time to talk about how to fix it.

As someone who has struggled with my weight due to a failing thyroid, I want to reassure you that it is stoppable and you can fix it. It just takes a bit of time to get to the root of the problem.

1 – Get your thyroid function tested by your doctor.

You need to visit your doctor who will be able to order a thyroid function test. This is a range of simple blood tests which measure the thyroid hormones circulating in your blood.

Make sure that your Doctor orders a Thyroid Panel that includes

1. TSH  – Thyroid-Stimulating Hormone. This hormone, made in the pituitary gland in the brain, tells your thyroid how much thyroid hormone to release.
2. T3  – Triiodothyronine – The most powerful thyroid hormone in your body.
3. T4 – Thyroxine – The base thyroid hormone that powerful T3 is converted from.

TSH on its own doesn’t give you enough information but it’s the default standard test. You need to push for the full panel.

They may also order a thyroid scan to check out what is going on in more detail if they suspect a Thyroid problem. Thyroid surgery is rare and most problems can be treated by supplementation with hormone tablets. I want to repeat. Thyroid cancer is rare so don’t be put off getting your thyroid checked.

You need to make sure your Doctor tests for TSH, T3 and T4 as a minimum.

2 – Take thyroid hormone replacement if suggested

If it turns out you have problems then thyroid hormone treatment for your thyroid will help to reduce the thyroid belly shape and control your weight. A regular dose of thyroid hormone may change your life.

If you are on medication but still struggling with unexplained weight gain, it’s possible that you aren’t getting enough thyroid hormone replacement to supplement all your body tissues.

You need to work with your doctor to find the optimum hormone replacement levels for you.

Weight loss tips for Thyroid Belly Shape

It’s important to understand that it’s quite hard to get a diagnosis of a thyroid problem. Your thyroid can be struggling and limping along but not fall under the threshold levels that will get you an official diagnosis.

For this reason, there are lots of natural and nutrition-based ways to support your Thyroid even if you haven’t been officially diagnosed with a Thyroid problem. These will all help to move your weight in the right direction.

The following weight loss tips will help

1 – Improve your T3 Conversion

T4 to T3 Conversion is a very little-known aspect of your Thyroid Function which has a huge impact on your weight and health.

Your gland releases Thyroid Hormone, otherwise known as T4 However, that is only half of the story. The first part of the process.

Your body must then convert this T4 Hormone into T3 which is the active form of the hormone.

If your conversion of T4 to T3 is poor then you may experience common Hypothyroid symptoms including weight gain.

It’s important to understand that poor conversion can occur even when your TSH levels appear normal and your doctor tells you everything is fine.

4 Simple ways that you can improve T3 conversion…

1. Avoid stress – Stress hormone Cortisol blocks T3 conversion. Turn off the TV news and learn to meditate.
2. Look after your liver – Most T3 conversion occurs in the liver. Don’t overdo the alcohol.
3. Improve your gut health – Conversion takes place in the gut too. Look after your gut health by eating live yogurt and fermented foods like saurkraut or kombucha and taking a probiotic supplement.
4. Avoid low-calorie diets. If you severely restrict your calories over time this can lower your T4 to T3 conversion by up to 50%.

These simple steps will support your overall health and allow you to make the most of the thyroid hormones you have.

Optimized hormones lead to thyroid belly shape weight loss

2 – Fix your hormones

Everything in the body is connected. An imbalance in one hormone has a knock-on effect on all the others.

Thyroid hormones are at the top of this waterfall effect.

Low thyroid function causes other hormone imbalances that lead to weight gain

1. High Insulin levels {Insulin resistance can lead to Weight Gain & Diabetes }
2. High Leptin levels {Leptin resistance can block weight loss and lead to ravenous appetite}
3. Low Testosterone levels {Testosterone is needed by women. Low levels can lead to weight gain}
4. Low Progesterone levels and high Estrogen {Can lead to Estrogen Dominance and Menopause Symptoms}
5. Badly functioning Cortisol levels {The Stress Hormone. Can lead to abdominal weight gain and weight loss resistance}
6. So a poorly functioning Thyroid impacts all your other Hormones and creates Hormone Imbalance.

How to fix your hormones and thyroid belly shape

There is no one-size-fits-all answer to this question, as each person’s hormone imbalance will be different. It can be a tricky thing to untangle and you may need your doctor’s help.

This hormone quiz is helpful in figuring out what may be happening with your hormones.

3 – Cut out sugars

It’s important to cut out sugars from your diet if you have the thyroid belly shape.

There’s lots of research emerging about the effect that sugar has on thyroid function, and it isn’t good news for any of us who have a sweet tooth.

Thyroid disorders are more likely to occur in people with diabetes or obesity, and they have a higher prevalence of metabolic syndrome.

This is because the healthy function of your thyroid depends on keeping blood sugar levels normal, which relies heavily upon how well overall bodily glucose metabolism is working!

Sugary foods can also aggravate the autoimmune condition Hashimoto’s, which is responsible for most people’s thyroid problems. Hashimoto’s slowly destroys the gland and inflammation from sugar plays a big part in this process.

Increased inflammation in the thyroid gland, prevents thyroid hormone production making it harder for your struggling thyroid to do its job properly.

4 – Reduce your stress levels

We are often under a lot of stress with work, relationships, and other things. Chronic stress raises the stress hormone Cortisol. 

This Cortisol production takes the body’s focus away from T4 to T3 Conversion leading to lower active Thyroid Hormone in the system. Remember that lower active hormone means weight gain.

You need to focus on yourself and actively de-stress as much as possible to optimize your thyroid hormones.

5 ways you cab do this is by…

1. Switching off the TV news. The constant diet of disaster and gloom which gets high viewing figures is one of the biggest stressors for many people. Your brain doesn’t understand it’s not happening to you and goes into a subconscious fight or flight state. TV news is also addictive. Try not to watch the nightly news for a week and see how much better you feel.
2. Learn to meditate. Sit quietly for a few minutes every day, focus on your breathing. Don’t try and clear your mind entirely of thought. Instead, notice any thoughts that come into your head and let them pass through like clouds in the sky. Remember you are not these thoughts, you are where they arise from-the stillness between each thought.
3. Get outside in nature. Being in nature is one of the best ways to reduce stress. Connect with the trees, listen to the birds, and feel the sun on your skin. A 20-minute walk in nature can be more relaxing than an hour-long massage.
4. Talk to a friend or family member. When we bottle up our feelings they tend to increase in intensity over time. It’s better to get our feelings out and talk them through with someone we trust.
5. Laugh! As the old saying goes, laughter is the best medicine. Laughter has many stress-relieving benefits and can help boost your immune system, give you a healthier body image, reduce your blood pressure, and more. Watch a funny film or find some comedy cat videos on Tik Tok.

TV News is designed to stress you out to increase their ratings.

Information overload and stress

It’s not just the news that’s addictive, our society is addicted to information overload. We are constantly inundated with messages from all directions-social media, work email, text messages, phone calls, etc. And for many of us, this never-ending stream of information creates a lot of stress and anxiety.

• Try a digital detox for an hour, a day, or even a week! You’ll be surprised at how much more peaceful you will feel.
• Turn off your email notifications so that you are not interrupted every time someone sends you an email. Turn off the automatic pop-ups on your Facebook page to reduce the number of distractions.
• Schedule specific times during the day to check your social media and emails, and stick to those times.
• Disconnect from the internet altogether for a while. Go on a walk in nature, read a book, spend time with friends and family. You’ll be surprised at how refreshing it is to take a break from the digital world.

5 – Improve your gut health

If you have a thyroid belly shape your gut health is likely suboptimal.

A lot of the conversion from T4 to T3 takes place in the gut. If you have Dysbiosis {an imbalance of gut bacteria}, leaky gut, or inflammatory bowel disease this can have negative impacts on your hormone conversion.

You can improve your gut health by

• Eating plenty of fermented foods like sauerkraut and kefir.
• Eating live yogurt containing beneficial bacteria.
• Drinking Kombucha, a fermented drink.
• Taking a good probiotic supplement.
• Cutting out inflammatory foods like sugar.

These changes will improve your overall health and mental state too as the health of your gut has a big influence on your mental state.

6 – Avoid low calorie diets

It’s amazing to know that if you severely restrict your calories for a long time this can lower your T4 to T3 conversion by up to 50%.

When you consistently severely restrict the number of calories you eat your body redirects T4 into something called REVERSE T3 which puts a break on your metabolism

This is a protective mechanism by your amazing body to prolong survival in a time of famine.

By midlife, many of us have spent years on and off low calorie-restricted diets and this may have suppressed the conversion of T4 to T3

You need to focus on nourishing your body with healthy food rather than punishing it with restriction.

The post below talks about these old low calorie low fat myths.

7 – Eat more anti-inflammatory foods

We now know that thyroid disease is strongly linked with autoimmune diseases such as Rheumatoid Arthritis and Lupus as well as Hashimoto’s Thyroid Disease.

A good way to reduce autoimmunity is to remove all the inflammatory foods from your diet and eat an anti-inflammatory thyroid diet. The basic guidelines to do this are

1. Eat plenty of Veggies
2. Eat Wild-caught fish
3. Drink Bone broth regularly
4. Avoid Sugars
5. Avoid or cut down on Grains and Gluten products 
6. Avoid Processed foods
7. Avoid Alcohol

Eating these foods will help to balance your thyroid hormones by reducing inflammation in the body. Reduced inflammation leads to better thyroid function and a greater ability of the body to lose weight and thyroid belly fat.

If you need help cutting down on alcohol I wrote a detailed post about how to do it here. Alcohol and Menopause. How to Cut Down

https://www.meno-power.com/midlife-transformation/alcohol-and-menopause-how-to-cut-down-drinking-at-midlife-15-top-tips/

8 – Avoid processed foods.

Processed foods contain a lot of chemicals and toxins that are harmful to your thyroid and contribute to weight gain and belly fat.

Processed foods generally contain a lot of sugar, unhealthy fats, artificial colors, flavors, and preservatives.

They also often contain gluten which is inflammatory for many people with thyroid problems.

It’s best to avoid processed foods as much as possible and eat a healthy diet based on natural foods.

• If you must eat them, try to choose more natural products that contain less harmful chemicals.
• Invest in a good-quality juicer and make your own fruit juices, smoothies, and soups.
• Make as much food from scratch at home as possible – it’s usually cheaper too!
• Buy organic vegetables and meats where you can afford to.

Some tips for avoiding processed food

• Check the labels on food – if it contains ingredients that wouldn’t be in your grannies store cupboard then don’t buy them.
• Cook from scratch at home as much as possible.
• Save eating out for special occasions. Not all the time

Processed foods are one of the main reasons for ill health and weight gain, so it’s important to avoid them as much as possible.

9 – Make sure you are getting enough iodine

Iodine is an essential element for the production of Thyroid Hormone. If you don’t have enough your Thyroid Hormone Production will fall.

It’s absolutely essential for Thyroid Health. Very low iodine levels can lead to developing a Goitre or swollen gland. This looks like a swelling on the front of your neck.

You can see my goitre before it was removed, a swelling on the front of my neck. I can’t believe how rough I looked here. My weight was rocketing up and my hair was thinning too. I was extremely ill from my Thyroid failing.

The thyroid enlarges as it’s trying to take up more iodine to produce hormones.

Remember – Low levels of thyroid hormones can cause weight gain and thyroid belly fat.

Amounts of iodine in food have fallen over the last few decades due to industrial pollution and changes in production methods, so it’s important now more than ever before to make sure you are getting enough iodine in your diet.

It’s easy to get enough from food if you eat a lot of seafood and seaweed.

Some good natural food sources of iodine include

• Seafood – Cod, Salmon, Sardines, Shrimp, Tuna
• Sea vegetables – Kelp, Nori, Wakame
• Iodized salt. This is salt with extra iodine added.

{ Note – You can also take iodine in supplement form. However, you must speak to your doctor before taking iodine supplements. Too much iodine in supplement form can be dangerous and cause thyroid problems in itself. You will see Lugol’s Iodine recommended on the internet. I highly recommend you DON’T try that. I personally had a very bad experience with it. Don’t go supplementing without speaking to your medical professional first. }

Make sure you are getting enough natural iodine from your diet to keep your thyroid healthy and help you lose weight and thyroid belly fat.

10 – Get enough Vitamin D

Vitamin D is not a vitamin! Crazy I know! It’s actually a hormone.

It seems such a normal thing that many people overlook its importance in your body. Low levels can impact your weight as well as your overall health.

• Low levels of Vitamin D have been associated with the development of Hashimotos Thyroiditis.
• Hashimotos Thyroiditis is an autoimmune disease that gradually destroys the Thyroid.
• It is incredibly common. Up to 90% of Hypothyroidism is caused by Hashimotos Disease.

So, if you have a thyroid weight problem it’s really important to make sure you are getting enough Vitamin D to optimize your Thyroid.

The best way to get your vitamin D is from the sun.

Around 20-30 minutes of exposure to the sun each day should be enough.

If you can’t get outside or live in an area with little sunlight, then you can take a Vitamin D supplement.

Vitamin D3 is the best form of vitamin D to take.