Latest / Wits & Weights | Strength & Fat Loss Over 40 / Ep 176: Heal Your Thyroid to Fix Your Metabolism and Lose Fat (Even with Hashimoto's)

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Ep 176: Heal Your Thyroid to Fix Your Metabolism and Lose Fat (Even with Hashimoto's) · Wits & Weights | Strength & Fat Loss Over 40

• 0:00
  Philip Pape: Is your thyroid sabotaging your health and fat loss efforts? If you're dealing with stubborn pounds, relentless fatigue and brain fog that just won't quit. Your thyroid might be the hidden culprit. The good news is you have the power to take control of your thyroid health, and finally feel like yourself again. Today I'm giving you the ultimate evidence based blueprint to nourish your thyroid, balance your hormones and reclaim that vitality.
• 0:22
  Philip Pape: Whether you're battling hypothyroidism, Hashimotos or hyperthyroidism. This episode will give you the tools you need to heal from the inside out and naturally heal and optimize your thyroid, boost your metabolism and get the body you deserve for your efforts. Welcome to the wit's end weights podcast. I'm your host, Philip pape, and this twice a week podcast is dedicated to helping you achieve physical self mastery by getting stronger. Optimizing your nutrition and upgrading your body composition will uncover science backed strategies for movement, metabolism, muscle and mindset with a skeptical eye on the fitness industry so you can look and feel your absolute best. Let's dive right in Whitson weights community Welcome to another solo episode of The Whitson weights podcast in our last episode 175. The big is beautiful movement, obesity and heart health with Dr.
• 1:17
  Philip Pape: Tiffany DiPietro. We discuss some of the myths surrounding heart disease like the idea that it's only a man's disease, or you must have symptoms to have a problem. Tiffany shared her best practices for nutrition and exercise to maintain a healthy heart and effective ways to prevent cardiovascular issues.
• 1:34
  Philip Pape: And we stepped into the minefield of the biggest beautiful movement by asking the question Can big also be healthy. Today for episode 176 Heal your thyroid to boost your metabolism. Even with Hashimotos or hyper or hypothyroidism.
• 1:50
  Philip Pape: We'll discover and explore what your thyroid actually does break down the different types of thyroid dysfunction and dive into the root causes behind thyroid issues. And of course, I'll give you concrete evidence based strategies to support your thyroid through nutrition, lifestyle and targeted supplementation with the right approach, you can definitely get your thyroid functioning at its best, so you can get back to feeling like yourself again. But before we dive into the details, I want to remind you that this information is for educational purposes only and not medical advice. Always consult with your doctor or medical practitioner if you suspect there is an underlying medical or hormonal issue. Now most of this episode was delivered as a live training, where I took questions from the audience and integrated them into the episode, I decided to give away one of the bonuses that I gave to those who attended to thank you you as a podcast listener for following the show. And that bonus is a free heal your thyroid guide that you can download using the link in my show notes. Again, if you want to download your FREE heal your thyroid guide that goes with this episode, go to the episode resources in my show notes. All right, let's get into today's topic, kill your thyroid to boost your metabolism, even with Hashimotos or hyper hypothyroidism. All right, we are talking about healing your thyroid naturally because we know how important the thyroid is for your metabolism and many other things. We also know that many people women especially especially in Peri and post menopause tend to face more thyroid issues or dysfunctions or things that present themselves as thyroid issues.
• 3:27
  Philip Pape: And I think it's really important to understand true dysfunction from symptoms and things that we could actually do something about. So in today's training, we're going to explore what your thyroid actually does, we're gonna break down the different types of thyroid dysfunction, dive into the root causes behind the thyroid issues. And then I'm gonna give you some concrete evidence based strategies to support your thyroid, through nutrition, lifestyle and targeted supplementation. So if you have the right approach, you can definitely get your thyroid functioning at its best and get back to feeling like yourself.
• 3:57
  Philip Pape: Again, let's jump into it.
• 4:02
  Philip Pape: Starting with what the thyroid is, okay, the thyroid gland is pretty small, but it's very critical to everything. It is a butterfly shaped gland in your neck that produces hormones that regulate metabolism, energy levels, body temperature, and some other functions. So when your thyroid is under functioning, it can then lead to lots of other frustrating symptoms that we're going to talk about in a bit. But things like fatigue, brain fog, what many of you are concerned about which is either weight gain or frustrating inability to lose weight and a lot more symptoms than that? And maybe you're struggling with some of these issues yourself or you're suspecting that your thyroid could be the culprit. And the reality is that the thyroid disorders are incredibly common, whether they are the root cause or they are caused by the lifestyle choices, especially things like hypothyroidism and Hashimotos, which is the auto immune In a form of hypothyroidism, but so many people go undiagnosed, so many people struggle to manage their symptoms, even with medication.
• 5:07
  Philip Pape: I've worked with many a client who has had one of these conditions. And once we start to fix or change just a few key areas of their behaviors, their lifestyle, oftentimes they, the issues either get resolved, or they're able to significantly reduce any sort of treatment or medications for them. So that's what I want to do today, I want to power you with the information and action steps to optimize your thyroid health, whether it is a diagnosed condition, or you just want to give your thyroid some love. So what does the thyroid actually do? Well, it produces two hormones, you've probably heard of these T four, and T three, I'm going to try to pronounce them it's thyroxin. That's T four and T three is tri iodothyronine. So try to say that three times fast. T four is the inactive form has to be converted to T three, which is the active form to do its job.
• 5:57
  Philip Pape: So you've probably heard of T four to T three, or Yeah, T four to T three conversion. So these hormones, think of them like the master controllers of your metabolism. They regulate how fast or slow your cells use energy. And then that affects all the other things downstream like your weight, your body temperature, your heart rate, your digestion, your mood, your brain function, that's why it can cause so many different symptoms. So when your thyroid is under functioning, right, we call that sluggish thyroid, we call it hypo thyroidism, the extreme autoimmune form of that being Hashimotos. Which by the way, I'm not going to get into too much into Hashimotos in detail, but typically Hashimotos from a from a medical standpoint means you have an inflamed, physically inflamed thyroid, but there can be a spectrum of symptoms and bloodwork and things that tell you that you have Hashimotos. So common symptoms of hypothyroidism. If you have a decent amount of the symptoms working together, right, or one or more of the symptoms, you may have an issue with your thyroid, but I don't want anybody to kind of freak out that any of these in and of themselves means you have a sluggish thyroid, but things like fatigue and sluggishness, brain fog, difficulty concentrating the big one weight gain or difficulty losing weight, you feel like even when you go into a diet or in a calorie deficit, the weight just stops going down eat despite cutting, cutting, cutting calories in tolerance to cold, dry skin and hair, hair loss, constipation, muscle aches, weakness, depressed mood, a whole bunch of things. And for those of you watching the video actually have a long list here.
• 7:35
  Philip Pape: This is what I use, sometimes with clients just to see if symptomatically thyroid might be something to look at, which would then lead to other things like blood, blood and lab work.
• 7:46
  Philip Pape: So those are the symptoms of hypothyroidism, hyperthyroidism, that's your overactive thyroid has a shorter list of symptoms, but still important. Anxiety, rapid heartbeat, weight loss, and diarrhea would be some of those most of what we're talking to today, generally is with Hypo thyroidism. And so when we talk about the dysfunction of the thyroid, and what causes it, the most common cause is Hashimotos.
• 8:17
  Philip Pape: It's an autoimmune condition, where the immune system mistakenly attacks the thyroid gland, and then you get some inflammation as well. And over time, this can cause the thyroid to under function. Other potential causes are nutrient deficiencies, potentially low iodine, low selenium, we'll get into some of those specifically, certain medications. Of course, pregnancy and postpartum changes can cause temporary dysfunction in the thyroid, and then if you're getting treatment for hyperthyroidism, and it's it may be because of the dosage it can cause, you know, the opposite reaction to occur. So no matter what's causing it, what we want to focus on here, what I focus on with with clients all the time is, how can we give our thyroid some love in a natural way, so that we kind of take out all of the factors of lifestyle, and then whatever's left may lead you to go down other routes of investigation, working with a medical practitioner or functional medical practitioner or, or what have you. So the three are, number one, reducing inflammation and immune dysfunction. Number two is providing the raw materials to produce thyroid hormones. And then number three is supporting conversion of T four to active T three, and none of these are going to be complicated. The idea here is that the lifestyle changes we talk about will support these, you don't have to worry about necessarily getting super specific on any one of these per se. Let's break down the first one, which is identifying and addressing your personal root causes or triggers of dysfunction because this is very individualized. And everyone's different things that cause potential thyroid dysfunction or underperformance are different, but going down the list food sensitivities, so if you are in such a sensitive or intolerant to anything really, you know, gluten, dairy, soy, those tend to be the big culprits. But there are women who have thyroid dysfunction that can eat gluten just fine, right? So don't assume that these are quote unquote, inflammatory, it's really going to depend on your individual response, nutrient deficiencies, the Big Four iodine, selenium, zinc, and iron. But there are others on the list, such as vitamin D, that could come into play gut issues. And this is mainly with people who have made, they may not have a very diverse diet, they may not have much fiber, they may not have many plants in their diet, things like that. All the same things that lead to poor micro microbiome diversity in the first place, which everybody should be concerned about.
• 10:40
  Philip Pape: Anyway, given how important the gut is. But again, I don't want to go down the controversial routes like leaky gut and stuff like that, we're just talking about supporting your digestive system in a healthy way. Chronic stress, of course, is a culprit behind lots of issues when we talk about health and fitness, environmental toxins, again, I'm not going to get into too much detail on that. But there's, there's plenty of evidence out there that certain exposure to things both in the food and the environment can definitely have an impact on your endocrine system and your hormones and your various glands. Certain medications, of course, again, I'm not going to get into details on those and then pregnancy and post partum changes to actually pinpoint root causes is very difficult, right. And so we focus on the activities that support your thyroid, if you want to go that next step, and you work with a coach, again, or a doctor or functional practitioner, those are different ways to get down to the root cause. All right, continuing on here. So now we get to the fun stuff. What do we what can we do about it? That's, that's what I'm here to talk about. What can we do with your nutrition and lifestyle to start, you know, supporting that thyroid, some of the most powerful dietary changes are going to be removing any food that's just not working for you.
• 11:54
  Philip Pape: And the word inflammatory can get can get dicey. It can get dicey when we use language, I'm using it in the context of you eat it, and you have some sort of negative response in terms of biofeedback or thyroid function or your metabolic rate or something. And you know, from tracking, and looking at the before, and after that it has some negative effects that you don't like. And it might help you to exclude that food. We're not talking about restrictive dieting, we're talking about individualizing your diet, and still having everything else in there that you know you enjoy, and that supports you. So these could include gluten, dairy, soy sugar, whatever. My suggestion is, either eliminate one that you suspect to be the issue for a few weeks and track and document how you feel and your biofeedback and everything else.
• 12:41
  Philip Pape: And and see if that indeed was a culprit. The other slightly more extreme approach is do an elimination diet, right? Cut out a whole list of things, which is very difficult, I will admit it's very difficult, it's not fun. And you do that for again, like a month or a few weeks, and then you start reintroducing one at a time to see if one thing just causes your symptoms to get worse. And again, we're talking about symptoms, all the symptoms we talked about earlier if symptoms go away, because you remove a food, that's a good sign.
• 13:13
  Philip Pape: Hey, this is Philip and I hope you're enjoying this episode of Whitson weights. I started with some weights to help ambitious individuals in their 30s 40s and beyond, who want to build muscle lose fat and finally look like they lift. I noticed that when people transform their physique, they not only look and feel better, but they also experienced incredible changes in their health, confidence and overall quality of life. If you're listening to this podcast, I assume you want the same thing to build your ultimate physique and unlock your full potential whether you're just starting out or looking to take your progress to the next level. That's why I created wit's end weights physique University, a semi private group coaching experience designed to help you achieve your best physique ever, with a personalized done for you nutrition plan, custom designed courses, new workout programs each month, live coaching calls, and the supportive community, you'll have access to everything you need to succeed. If you're ready to shatter your plateaus and transform your body and life, head over to Whitson weights.com/physique or click the link in the show notes to enroll today. Again, that's Whitson weights.com/physique. I can't wait to welcome you to the community and help you become the strongest leanest and healthiest version of yourself.
• 14:29
  Philip Pape: Now back to the show.
• 14:34
  Philip Pape: The second thing is eating nutrient dense Whole Foods, right? We always talk about 8020 At least 80% of your foods are nutrient dense foods. But for thyroid specifically there are certain nutrients we want to just be aware of. And we can take two approaches here. One approach is you just have a very diverse diet full of animal and plant products or if you're not, you know if you're not an omnivore plant products but It's diverse. And by diverse I mean not just different types of foods, but oftentimes even multiple types of the same food, for example, multiple types of apples. So you get different pectin compounds and the different skins of the apple, you know, kind of eating like we would have naturally back in the day when you had a lot more diversity in your diet. So, if we specifically dial in on nutrients that come up with thyroid, the first one is Iodine, that would include things like dairy products and eggs. Also fish especially white fish, cod, tuna, haddock, things like that. And seaweed. So I recently spoke to somebody who who mentioned there's a like a powdered seaweed you can get, but of course there's different forms of seaweed you can purchase in the store but if for convenience, there is a powdered form you can like sprinkle on food, so kelp Nori, will kami things like that. Selenium, we're talking Brazil nuts. I mean, just a couple of Brazil nuts a day is probably sufficient. Seafood like shrimp sardines, salmon, you know, meat, beef, turkey, chicken has selenium and whole grains as well. Brown rice and oats have selenium. So there are a lot of foods that have selenium, zinc, oysters is the big one people talk about but I know a lot of people don't regularly consume oysters, but they are high in zinc, shellfish, like crab and lobster. Various types of meat have zinc, pumpkin seeds are high in zinc, and then legumes, like chickpeas, lentils and beans. You gotta get the theme here. Let's let's have diversity. Let's Let's eat a lot of different things, especially plants in there. And then iron, you got red meat, of course poultry and fish and a lot of iron, especially sardines and mackerel, spinach, legumes like lentils, and beans. Okay, so I just gave you a whole bunch of ideas for food. And by the way, I have the guide that you're gonna get for this. I believe I include all those food sources in there. But if not, I'm going to take a note to beef that up.
• 16:52
  Philip Pape: Pun intended. Alright, number three, prioritizing your gut health. So I mentioned before having diverse sources of fiber, that's really where I want you to focus. Yeah, bone broth. And all these other things are nice, but I think having like fermented foods, a variety of fruits and vegetables, different types of the same, for example, not just yellow squash, but also zucchini, not just red delicious apples, but you know, Granny Smith, and all of whatever types there are, you know, go and have fun in the grocery store and find things you've never had before buy them and throw them in your food, really have a diverse source, have adequate amount of fiber, and that can go a long way toward helping with your gut health and digestion.
• 17:35
  Philip Pape: All right, protein is a huge one for everyone. I mean, this would have this on every list.
• 17:39
  Philip Pape: Basically, if you know you're building muscle, you're trying to support your hormones, you're trying to stabilize your blood sugar, you're trying to feel for whatever the reason improve your body composition. Protein tends to help in all those realms. And we're aiming for about point seven to one gram per pound of body weight, you know, the one gram per pound is on the high end, if you can at least get to that point seven years pretty good shape most of the time. So that's what I would aim for. And then finally, don't fear carbs, right? complex carbs are great, but but really any carbs, but complex carbs from whole foods like sweet potatoes, fruit, rice, they tend to support your hormones. I mean, there's some evidence that links these foods to T four to T three conversion.
• 18:19
  Philip Pape: Again, I don't put too much stock into that because now we're trying to get so biohacking to that level. I think just including all of these things on a regular basis is a practical way to do this. I want to talk about intermittent fasting, because I know there's a lot of curiosity about it.
• 18:35
  Philip Pape: There's a lot of controversy.
• 18:35
  Philip Pape: The truth is, there's a mixed bag when it comes to intermittent fasting. There are experts who make claims like it reduces inflammation improves insulin sensitivity, stimulates cellular cleanup, and all of these could benefit the thyroid, but the evidence is mixed on whether you can actually tease out these results from intermittent fasting and prolong fasting can be a stressor, right? So we really have to make our choices when it comes to fasting work for us. Not necessarily because it's going to help the thyroid because it could backfire. And actually, you know, cause more issues than it helps. You know, fasting can disrupt things your HPA access your cortisol, all that those things, maybe right, and maybe interfere with the conversion of T four to T three. So I just would recommend avoiding aggressive fasting protocols if you have a thyroid condition and just eating in a way that works for you. And if you want to experiment with fasting, go right ahead. I'm a big fan of experimentation. Now, the reality of fasting is well I already mentioned as a stressor it could help with, you know, if you're in a fat loss phase and calories are tight or low. It can help you tighten that feeding window so it's more practical to get into calories with fewer meals. It could help with your lifestyle. If you have an schedule that lines up better that way. Just pay attention to your body signals right. Pay attention to fatigue due to cold sensitivity, hair loss, like any, any of the symptoms of thyroid that come into that either go up or down depending on what actions you're taking.
• 20:09
  Philip Pape: And as always, you know, once you've, once you've done these things, and you still have symptoms, you can always go down the route of working with, with a doctor or medical practitioner. Yeah, so my basic, my basic thing with intermittent fasting is it depends depends on if works for you don't buy into the hype or the claims. There's always truth somewhere in the middle. All right, the next thing is lifestyle. Again, you're not going to be surprised, but a lot of the lifestyle factors are the same lifestyle factors that anybody would want to incorporate for a healthy lifestyle, you know, getting enough sleep managing your stress, regular exercise movement training, you know, high cortisol from chronic stress can wreak havoc across the board, including with t 43.
• 20:50
  Philip Pape: Conversion with your thyroid, as it does help down regulate many hormones when you don't get enough sleep or you have too much stress. So aim for that seven or nine hours of sleep focused on high quality, know that a lack of sleep has been shown to cause additional storage in the belly, right?
• 21:07
  Philip Pape: visceral fat storage has been shown to worsen body composition outcomes, meaning if you ate the same amount of calories, a group that was sleep deprived might gain more fat and lose some muscle relative to a group that has sufficient sleep. Safe, super powerful, stress, reducing stress with practices that work for you, whether it's breathing, meditation, yoga, being in nature, doing stuff you enjoy.
• 21:30
  Philip Pape: And then for movement, of course, a mix of strength training and low intensity cardio, like walking tends to be ideal. Many of my clients who have had hormonal issues, they're just doing too much, they are doing too much cardio chronic cardio, right? It's excessive, and it was stressing your body out. So you've got a lot going on, you're in your life, most likely, when you're now trying to squeeze every ounce of time out for some form of exercise that can be a stressor. So lifting weights three, at least three days a week, and then walking a bunch is a decent mix. If you want to add more cardio in there just doing strategically, okay, supplements now this is the one I was very hesitant to, to get too much into on because there's a lot of snake oil out there.
• 22:15
  Philip Pape: And, you know, my opinion, when it comes to supplements is you're just trying to fill in the gaps. I mean, other than performance supplements for like lifting, we're going to keep that off the table right now, for thyroid support, we're really just saying supporting your nutrients where you might have gaps, that you're not getting through food or what have you. And especially the ones that we know are associated with thyroid health. So selenium, these are things that you could supplement. And again, work with a practitioner because something like zinc, if you have too much zinc and not enough copper, there can be an imbalance there. There's all sorts of dependencies between different supplements. So I'm not recommending these, I'm just saying consider do your research, talk to a qualified professional and really figure out based on testing and based on you whether you need any of these right, vitamin D thymi, B 12. Magnesium, I recommend to most people anyway, because I think we're generally deficient.
• 23:11
  Philip Pape: And it helps with things like sleep and a little bit with stress as well. And then Hashimotos there's this other there's something called Myo inositol, which is and I did some research into this, it does seem to reduce some of the antibodies associated with the thyroid condition, you know, the autoimmune condition, and stabilizes the TS TSH. So again, you have Hashimotos, I assume you're working with a practitioner on that anyway. So that's it for supplements, again, I would focus on getting it from food and then test for deficiencies and then potentially look into supplementation. So the bottom line here is it didn't take as long as I thought is nourishing your thyroid is as important as nourishing any of your other parts of your body when it comes to hormones. But it particularly affects could affect your weight, your energy, your mood, your brain, all of these things.
• 24:01
  Philip Pape: And I think these are simple changes. And if there are any opportunities here, I would take the time, my suggestion is identify one opportunity on this list, and I'm gonna send you the guide and I'm gonna send you this replay so you can review it again, just one opportunity to improve your nutrition or your lifestyle from what I share today. Second thing is get bloodwork and other testing possibly through a functional medical practitioner, potentially a full thyroid panel, you know, TPO and TG antibodies, micronutrient testing, gi map, things like that, whatever you feel like you need to go to that next level.
• 24:39
  Philip Pape: And then of course, the other option is join our Whitson weights physique university, you know, I would say this. It's a semi private group coaching program where you can get some support and accountability to work on some of these issues.
• 24:50
  Philip Pape: Adding a VA right So Camille says adding a variety of fiber.
• 24:53
  Philip Pape: Yeah, it's huge, right? Because we think of fiber as this one thing, but it's actually very diverse. You know, type of carbohydrate with different types. And then there's fermented and there's the different. There's lectins, and pectins. And all these compounds. There's a whole variety out there. I always want to plug macro factor for you guys. Because if you're not already tracking your food, and you want to track not only your macros and calories, but you want to track fiber and micronutrients, they have a way to do that in the app, it's more than a food blogger, right, it also tracks your metabolism. So it's a good way to see if your thyroid is responding as well.
• 25:28
  Philip Pape: For example, if you're in a fat loss phase, and you now your metabolism is a bit more responsive, it doesn't, it doesn't tank as much as what I often see with individuals with thyroid conditions, it tends to adapt faster. You know, you can use that before and after to compare and see if what you're doing is working for you. I'm going to throw a video in the chat. It's a YouTube video you guys can take with you. That explains how to download and set it up. Alright, I hope you enjoyed that training about how to heal your thyroid naturally.
• 25:59
  Philip Pape: And don't forget to download your FREE heal your thyroid guide using the link in my show notes or by going to Whitson weights.com/free That's Whitson weights.com/free or use the link in my show notes to download the detailed companion guide to this episode. No matter where you are on your thyroid journey.
• 26:18
  Philip Pape: Remember, you have the power to take control of your health.
• 26:22
  Philip Pape: Always advocate for yourself, educate yourself and never give up on feeling your best. Okay in our next episode 177 How anatomy impacts your gut muscle mass hormones and health with Justin Caudill. Justin shares how understanding our digestive systems anatomy can lead to better nutrient absorption and overall health and also how our bodies physically adapt to training. We explore the impacts of understanding your anatomy on your personal health and fitness. We get into a lot of interesting side areas things I know you haven't heard before, practical advice to go along with it to optimize your nutrition and training. So as always, please make sure to hit follow right now in your podcast app or subscribe here to the YouTube channel to get notified when that episode comes out and to support the show. As always, stay strong. And I'll talk to you next time here on The Whitson weights podcast.
• 27:20
  Philip Pape: Thank you for tuning in to another episode of wit's end weights. If you found value in today's episode, and know someone else who's looking to level up their wits or weights.
• 27:29
  Philip Pape: Please take a moment to share this episode with them. And make sure to hit the Follow button in your podcast platform right now to catch the next episode. Until then, stay strong