To Help Your Weight Loss, Take Care of Your Thyroid

If you want to give a boost to your weight loss, you must watch your thyroid. I did not, for years I failed to pay attention to what I was doing to it. When I was doing my research, I discovered I was abusing my thyroid to no end. Of all the changes I made, perhaps the ones with the greatest impact were the changes I made for the benefit of my thyroid. Your thyroid gland controls your cellular metabolism for your body. Have a thyroid with low output, your daily caloric output is low, you gain weight easy, have a high output, you gain wait slowly, and a very high output can make it so you cannot gain weight to save your life. Scientists liken it to the body's thermostat, but gas-pedal seems to be a more accurate analogy.

The first discovery I came across was the connection of aspartame to thyroid function, or I should say non-function. Yes, the artificial sweetener aspartame has been shown to negatively impact the production of the T3 hormone, the hormone that sets cellular metabolism. Aspartame is found in virtually all diet sodas and in many diet foods. This sucked for me, because I considered diet sodas like my last vice I could have, and now I found out drinking them was compromising my weight loss efforts. Nonetheless, I decided to experiment on myself. Drinking Splenda-based sodas and increasing water consumption, I eliminated aspartame from my diet. I credit many things for my success, but in reality, it was almost three days after I stopped taking aspartame that I began to drop serious poundage.

Of course aspartame was not the only problem with my thyroid. Your thyroid needs two primary components to produce the T3 hormone; iodine and tyrosine. Iodine is an element, poisonous in its pure form, obtained mostly from seafood. I am not a big seafood fan, actually I hate seafood. Neither do I use salt, so I was not getting any iodized salt. Among my research, I also found out that old school body builders used kelp tablets, thyroid extract, and olive leaves to manage fat while they ate to gain muscle mass. Kelp supplies the iodine, while the thyroid extract and olive leaves are reported to boost thyroid output. So I added those supplements to my diet, and tyrosine as well (at the same time I quit aspartame). Tyrosine is an amino acid, chicken breasts contain huge amounts of tyrosine. Doctors in conventional medicine seem mock anything that does not pad the coffers of pharmaceutical companies, so most will tell you these substances will have no effect at all. My personal experience proves this is wrong. Using well known formulas for metabolism (I will elaborate on those later) along with calculations calories burnt from my training, the absolute best case, if I were 100% faithful to my plan - and I was not - I could only lose 3 pounds per week. If I cheated, I would only at best lose 2 pounds per week. I cheated on my plan and I still lost 6, and sustained that loss for six weeks. I find it impossible that I could lose that much per week, feel great, without those supplements having some contribution.

Other tidbits of info I came about thyroid function, but have not verified on myself. Supposedly fruits such as peaches and apricots can affect thyroid function, so too can broccoli. I ate broccoli in moderation, but not a big fan of those fruits. As with anything else, moderation is probably key. Stay tuned as I put together more of my research and share my success with the world.

Taking care of my thyroid was one way I lost my weight, for other ways to lose weight and other weight loss plans, please visit my website.