Thyroid diet

[Guest guest]

Shomon's book is out. Here is some info:

Today is publication day for my new book, The Thyroid Diet: Manage

Your Metabolism for Lasting Weight Loss, and books are finally

available in bookstores and online. The Thyroid Diet tackles the

critical connection between weight gain and thyroid disease, and

offers a plan for lasting weight loss. The book features...

Diet Planning Worksheets

Eating Plans

Food Lists

Gourmet Recipes

Information on Safe & Helpful Supplements and Herbs

More than 25 million Americans have diagnosed -- and undiagnosed --

thyroid conditions, which almost always result in a metabolic

slowdown. The Thyroid Diet will help many previously unsuccessful

dieters get diagnosed and treated -- and proper thyroid treatment may

be all that's needed for you to successfully lose weight.

Even after optimal treatment, however, so many of us have struggled

with weight problems. For those of you who, like me, have battled

extra weight, The Thyroid Diet identifies the many frustrating

impediments to weight loss, and offers solutions--both conventional

and alternative--to help.

You'll find information on optimal dietary changes, including how a

thyroid sufferer should focus on a low-glycemic, high-fiber, lower-

calorie diet, optimal timing of meals for maximum hormonal impact,

thyroid- damaging foods to avoid, helpful herbs and supplements, and

more.

The Thyroid Diet contains several different eating plans, food lists,

and a set of delicious and healthy gourmet recipes, developed by Food

Editor Jim McCauley. With handy worksheets to use in weight loss

tracking, and a special resource section featuring websites, books,

and support groups, you'll find vital help for the millions of

thyroid patients dealing with weight problems.

The book is already in its second printing, due to pre-publication

advance sales, and has been an Amazon.com Top 100 Bestseller for

several weeks. Now you can have your own 400-page copy, jam-packed

with the tools you need to finally lose weight, despite your thyroid

problem.

Read the first chapter of The Thyroid Diet online now, here at the

About.com thyroid site

Book Excerpt: Introduction

Totie Fields once said, " I've been on a diet for two weeks and all

I've lost is two weeks. " When you're trying to lose weight, you may

feel like Totie was talking about you. You may have tried diet after

diet, joined Weight Watchers, tried herbal diet pills, or read dozens

of diet books that tell you to eat all protein, or cabbage soup, or

ice cream, or eat 1000 or less calories per day, only to discover

that you're not only not losing weight, but perhaps even GAINING

weight! That's what happened to me ten years ago, when I joined

Weight Watchers, followed it to the letter, and gained 2 pounds a

week, while everyone else was losing weight.

Or, you may be one of those people who never had a weight problem,

and then all of a sudden, pounds starting piling on, seemingly

defying all the laws of physics. If it takes 3500 excess calories to

gain a pound, how could you possibly gain 10 or 20 pounds in one

month? And yet you did. This is what happened to me, at age 33,

before my 1995 wedding. After going through my 20s as a slender size

8, I quickly started packing on weight – so much so that I bought a

size 12 gown, and in the months before my wedding, I had to have my

wedding dress let out 2 more sizes (is that a horrifying thing for a

bride or what?), and even after I went on a reduced calorie diet with

daily exercise, walked down the aisle as a size 16. And after the

honeymoon, the weight kept piling on.

It happened to Gena, a woman in her late 30s:

I have a 20th school reunion coming up in my little hometown. I was

always a perfect size, I played high school sports, and was a

homecoming queen candidate. Sometime in my senior year I woke up VERY

sick one morning. The doctor told my mom that it was a thyroid

infection. I took a lot of tests, got medication, and finally felt

like my old self...for maybe a year. What I didn't realize was the

damage that was done to my thyroid gland would mess me up for the

rest of my life. I gained weight from about 105-110 when I graduated

from high school to about 205 being my top weight. And I DO NOT eat

anymore than I used to; in fact I'm eating much healthier now. I'm

depressed, because I've turned from a " skinny healthy person " into a

person who just feels awful about her looks and is VERY embarrassed

to go back to my hometown. If I could wear a sign that says " I HAVE A

THYROID DISORDER " around my neck, maybe people wouldn't look at me

and think, " Look at that fat lazy person...she needs to push away

from the table... "

Or maybe you were eating the same way as usual, and getting the same

level of physical activity as always, but are wondering why this past

six months you have managed to put on a pound a week.

In the midst of any one of these situations, you may head in to see

your doctor, saying " I know something is really wrong with me. " And

I'll bet that you were sent home with one of the following:

A. An antidepressant – because after all, depression makes you gain

weight, so that must be it

B. A diet drug – because writing a prescription gives your doctor

something useful and doctor-like to do

C. A shrug of the shoulders, along with one of those vague non-

explanations like " Well, you're getting older, it's to be expected "

or " must be your hormones " or " it's normal in the 6 months/year/2

years/5 years after having a baby " and so on

D. A condescending look, along with some serious medical advice along

the lines of, " Well, you must be eating too much and not getting

enough exercise, so get off the couch, and stop strapping on the

feedbag! "

Gee, doctor, thanks.

You know something is not right, and you know that you are not

sitting around lazily, stuffing your face with bonbons, but you don't

get the feeling that the doctor believes you.

And the sad fact is, he or she probably doesn't. One late 2003 study

showed that not only general practitioners -- but even health

professionals who specialize in treating obesity – have negative

stereotypes about people who are overweight. These clinicians

typically associate the stereotypes " lazy, stupid, and worthless "

with people who are overweight. Most doctors – and the people around

you, to an even greater extent -- have an automatic anti-fat bias.

You know something is wrong, something is not normal, but who

believes you?

I believe you.

Because, while your doctor is busy assuming that you're too lazy to

exercise and don't have enough willpower to stop eating, what he or

she isn't doing is telling you is that you could have a thyroid

problem – a dysfunction in the small, butterfly-shaped gland in your

neck that is crucial to your metabolism. While some narrow-minded

doctors dismiss thyroid disease as just another lame excuse for being

overweight, the reality is that for millions of overweight people,

thyroid disease is a very real reason behind weight problems.

The Thyroid Diet: Manage Your Metabolism for Lasting Weight Loss

And learning about thyroid disease and its symptoms -- beyond weight

problems -- and how to get diagnosed, can be critical steps that

address the underlying cause of your weight gain, help restore your

hope and health, and allow healthy diet and exercise to finally work

the way they should!

Recent studies have conservatively estimated that as many as 20

million people have a thyroid problem, the majority of them

undiagnosed. Some experts believe that the actual number is

substantially higher…and rapidly on the rise. At the same time,

studies have shown that 97 million Americans are overweight or obese.

That's nearly three in five (59.4 %) men, and more than half (50.7 %)

of all women.

This brings up a critical connection: some people struggling with a

weight problem are facing even more of an uphill battle than everyone

else, because they are dealing with an underlying thyroid condition –

one that is both undiagnosed and untreated.

One study found that as many as 40% of overweight people had evidence

of a dysfunctional thyroid, various thyroid conditions that could be

contributing to your weight gain in the first place, and to your

present difficulty losing weight.

In my case, I went in a number of times to complain about a variety

of symptoms. I kept returning, complaining about:

The unexpected weight gain, despite diet and exercise

Fatigue and exhaustion

More hair loss than usual

Moodiness

Muscle and joint pains and aches

Loss of sex drive

My doctor took a " wait and see " approach for a few months, but then

she put together the above list of symptoms and decided she should

test my thyroid. I was surprised when she called to say she'd

discovered I was hypothyroid. I didn't even know what a thyroid was.

Sure, I'd heard people laughingly refer to overweight people as

having " glandular problems, " and I had an aunt who had a goiter once,

but that was the extent to which I knew about what is actually the

master gland of our metabolism.

My doctor put me on thyroid hormone replacement therapy. Blissfully

ignorant, I assumed that all the symptoms – and in particular, the

weight – would just melt off as quickly as it had appeared, now that

I was getting my thyroid back in order.

Surprise! Not so...

Sure, as we tweaked my medicine and dosages, I felt better in some

ways – less exhausted, not so moody and achy – but except for several

pounds, the weight didn't budge.

In my 20s, before my thyroid apparently started to go awry, losing

weight was simple. I just cut out a bag of chips with lunch a few

times a week, and switched to a diet soda instead of regular, and

within a few weeks, the extra pounds would be gone.

But nothing I was doing in the beginning moved the scale an ounce.

This wasn't going to be so easy…

So I set out on a mission. To discover how best to optimize my

thyroid treatment. To learn what -- and how much -- I can and can't

eat in order to lose weight. To find out whether I needed to

exercise, what type of exercise, and how much. To learn how to get

back on track when my weight loss efforts get stalled or even

derailed.

Along the way, I turned my own struggle to find the answers into a

new role as a patient advocate for others with thyroid and autoimmune

diseases. In 1997, I started several websites and newsletters that

focus on thyroid disease and the issues patients face; and the sites

have become the most popular patient-oriented thyroid websites on the

Internet. My first book, Living Well With Hypothyroidism, has gone on

to 20 printings, and a second edition. And my Thyroid Diet Success

Guide, a simple 40-page summary of weight loss tips that was the

inspiration for this book, has inspired many thousands of thyroid

patients to successfully lose weight. And throughout it all have been

the letters, thousands each month, from people all around the world –

describing their symptoms, asking if they could have a thyroid

problem, describing their symptoms, their inexplicable and

frustration weight gain, their misery over not feeling well. Thyroid

patients writing to ask why, despite rigorous diets and exercise

programs, they were still not losing weight. People who said they

crying as they wrote their emails, describing how being overweight

made them feel ugly, old, worthless and unattractive, and nothing was

working in their attempts to get the weight off.

I've been on my own journey, and it's taken me almost ten years to

figure out what I needed to know. And now I'm sharing it here with

you, in The Thyroid Diet.

You don't want to be overweight. I know there are a percentage of

people who are overweight who feel comfortable with themselves, and

don't have any body image issues, and more power to them. But I'm not

one of them, and if you're reading this book, neither are you.

The Thyroid Diet: Manage Your Metabolism for Lasting Weight Loss

When I've been overweight, I'm not " proud to be fat. " Like doctors,

and most of the public, I see being overweight as a failing, as a

sign that I'm less. I don't need to be model-thin, I just want to

feel and look normal…healthy…attractive. And most likely, so do you.

And let's face it, in addition to what's known as " psychosocial

burden " – basically, suffering emotionally or mental health wise

because of the self-esteem and depression issues related to being

overweight – there is also an increased risk of many serious health

conditions, including:

Insulin resistance

Diabetes

High blood pressure

High cholesterol

Cardiovascular disease/heart disease

Stroke

Asthma

Arthritis/degenerative joint disease

Gallbladder disease

Sleep apnea

Fatigue

Complications of pregnancy

Menstrual irregularities

Stress incontinence

Being overweight or obese is also a particular risk for various

cancers. A 16-year study by the American Cancer Society found that

deaths from a wide variety of cancers — including those of the

breast, endometrium, colon, rectum, esophagus, pancreas, kidney,

gallbladder, ovary, cervix, liver and prostate, as well as multiple

myeloma and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma — are linked to excess weight and

obesity. Only a few cancers —lung cancer, bladder cancer, brain

cancer and melanoma were found to have no link to excess weight.

There certainly is enough incentive to lose weight.

But we have to get off the weight loss runaround.

If you read the newspaper and women's magazine articles, watch the

middle-of-the-night infomercials, view the television interviews,

talk to the staff at the supplement stores – you'll hear from experts

galore, and every one of them has the one true answer to our problem,

the one key to weight loss success.

The key is: detoxing the liver The key is: insulin

The key is: too many carbohydrates

The key is: the wrong carbohydrates

The key is: too many calories

The key is: not enough calories

The key is: food combining

The key is: good fats

The key is: low fat

The key is: raw foods

The key is: juicing

The key is: vegetarian

The key is: high-protein

The key is: grazing all day

The key is: eating Mediterranean style

The key is: exercise

The key is: supplements

The key is: weight loss drugs

The key is: cabbage soup

The key is: SlimFast

The key is: surgery

The key is: managing your mind and emotions

The key is: brain chemistry

The key is: using your Ab-Swing

The key is: " figgerin' out why bein' fat is workin' fer ya "

(That last one is courtesy of Dr. Phil.)

Blah blah blah!!!

The bottom line: There is no one answer. What works for YOU is the

right answer. And that may be any one of the above, or far more

likely, a combination of approaches.

The majority of Americans are overweight. And let's face it, while

some have an underlying thyroid problem, some don't. Yet most

overweight people find it very hard to lose weight, because dropping

pounds keeping them off are very plain difficult.

Add to that a thyroid condition, undiagnosed or diagnosed/treated,

and it becomes even more difficult, if that is even possible!

You're not lazy, or lacking willpower. Your weight problem is most

likely not an emotional issue that can be shouted and bullied out of

you by a television personality. You're probably not downing an

entire box of donuts every night when no one else is watching. Your

eating habits are probably not very different than your friend or

family members, who are at a normal weight. Your body may truly

refuse to lose weight on rabbit food, Weight Watchers, or the Atkins

Diet.

Your problem is -- your body doesn't work the way it's supposed to.

And so a challenge that is already hard for most people may be even

harder for you.

That is the most difficult point to get past -- to accept that

fundamentally, your thyroid condition may, especially in the

beginning, and perhaps forever, make weight loss an unfair fight.

What you suspect about your body is true. You very well may gain

weight more easily than others, and you probably won't lose weight as

easily or quickly as others.

In fact, when hypothyroid, for many of us, the metabolism becomes so

efficient at storing every calorie that even the most rigorous diet

and exercise programs may not work. Your friend or spouse could go on

the same diet as you, lose a pound or two – or even more -- a week,

and you might stay the same, or even gain weight. It's NOT FAIR!!

CAN WE SHOUT THAT TOGETHER? IT'S NOT FAIR!!!

Ok, we've established that it's not fair. Now it's time to move on.

That's life – I've got a thyroid problem, you've got a thyroid

problem, and it's not likely to go away.

The Thyroid Diet: Manage Your Metabolism for Lasting Weight Loss

This is something we'll both live with, probably for the rest of our

lives. The question is, are we going to live WELL with it, or it is

going to define us, and make us miserable? Is it going to stop us

from feeling good about ourselves, fitting into clothes we like,

feeling sexy, exercising or playing sports, having energy for work,

family and children?

I can tell you, I made a decision that it wasn't going to stop me,

and I hope you join me in that decision.

That is where The Thyroid Diet comes in. I'm not going to tell you

that you'll find any magic weight loss secrets in this book. No

miracle pill that will make the pounds melt away, or food that will

allow you to eat all you want and lose weight overnight. I wish I had

that to give you. (I wish I had it myself!)

But for those of you whose weight challenges are due to a thyroid

condition that you don't know you have yet, what you will find in The

Thyroid Diet are clear guidelines and straightforward information

about thyroid disease that will help you find out more, and get that

diagnosis!

And, The Thyroid Diet, in a simple, understandable way, offers you

the support, encouragement and information you need to pursue the

right diagnosis and treatment with your doctor. Let me tell you, that

is no easy task in today's environment of rigid diagnostic criteria

and 10-minute managed care visits.

The best news so far? Excitingly, for some of you, just getting

treatment for your previously undiagnosed thyroid problem will be all

that you need to return to a healthy weight, without a rigorous

change in your diet and exercise!

However, for the majority of thyroid patients, treatment alone

doesn't seem to resolve our weight problems. Losing weight then

involves optimizing our thyroid treatment program, because you may

not be able to lose weight until you are on the right brand, mix and

dosage of thyroid medicine. Simply switching brands, or adding an

additional drug, or a slight dosage change may be the minor

adjustment that restores your metabolism to normal and allows you to

lose weight. Again, The Thyroid Diet will help, as we explore the

brands, mixtures and dosage options that may be right for you, along

with other lifestyle issues and supplements to help optimize your

thyroid treatment.

But despite optimal thyroid treatment, some of us are still

struggling. At that point, other approaches become central to losing

weight, including ensuring that metabolism works as best as it can,

resolving underlying nutritional deficiencies, treating depression

and correcting brain chemistry imbalances, reducing stress, combating

insulin resistance, treating food allergies and sensitivities,

exercise, and many other key activities.

The Thyroid Diet will help you understand these factors, and what how

they might be getting in the way of your ability to lose weight. Then

you'll find practical solutions that will really help. Herbs and

supplements, stress reduction techniques, prescription weight loss

drugs, ways to deal with food sensitivities, exercise guidelines,

even innovative new approaches like mesotherapy, that can help you

get on track.

I've interviewed hundreds of doctors, extensively reviewed the latest

research on thyroid disease, metabolism, weight loss and nutrition,

and talked to thousands of thyroid patients over the past seven

years. I've culled through this vast sea of information to share with

you the best tips, ideas, theories, and recommendations – the ones

that are working for me, and for many thousands of other thyroid

patients.

And, perhaps most importantly, are the actual eating plans. In The

Thyroid Diet you'll find several different approaches to choose from,

ranging from the less structured " Freeform " program, to options for

those of you who are calorie and carbohydrate sensitive, to a more

structured approach. You'll find food lists and a host of innovative

suggestions that can help you get to a healthier weight. I know

you'll find ideas that will work for you.

And we even have a set of delicious and healthy gourmet recipes –

consider them incentive! – from pioneering chef Jim McCauley, who, as

a food connoisseur and recently diagnosed diabetic, has made it his

mission to transform mundane healthy eating into a satisfying gourmet

experience!

You'll also find that the Appendix includes a set of handy worksheets

you can use in your weight loss tracking, and a special section

featuring information on books, websites, tools, support groups, and

experts that can help.

Isn't it time you mastered your master gland of metabolism? Let's get

started!

MORE INFORMATION

Click now to compare prices from online vendors for The Thyroid Diet

The Thyroid Diet Website

This excerpt is from the book The Thyroid Diet: Manage Your

Metabolism For Lasting Weight Loss by J. Shomon, published by

Harper, August 2004, and copyright J. Shomon. All rights

reserved.

What the Experts Are Saying

Shomon is a powerful force in educating consumers on how to

optimally manage the pervasive problem of thyroid disease and now she

provides an outstanding extension of her work in her latest book The

Thyroid Diet, which is an amazing collection of useful and practical

tools to help the 2/3 of overweight Americans finally regain control

of their weight.

~ Dr. ph Mercola, founder of www.mercola.com, the world's most

visited natural health website.

Whether you have an unknown thyroid problem that is impeding your

weight loss, or you know your thyroid condition is contributing to

being overweight, The Thyroid Diet is essential reading. Shomon

offers practical and effective solutions that will help millions

finally conquer their weight problems.

~ Langer, MD, Berkeley, CA author of Solved: The Riddle of

Illness and Solved: The Riddle of Weight Loss

And here is the link to her website:

http://www.goodmetabolism.com/