Successful Weight Loss, Part 3

Your Thyroid Controls Your Metabolism

This series of articles has addressed the possible roadblocks that can interfere with weight loss. The first two articles explained adrenal function, and if you missed them, you can click on these links to read Part 1 or Part 2.

The reason I wrote about adrenal function first, is because if your adrenal glands are over-worked and sluggish, it is more difficult to get your thyroid gland to function properly. So, now that you understand this basic step, the next step is to understand what your thyroid gland does and how to test it.

Your thyroid is located in the front of your body, at the base of your neck. It's the thermostat for your metabolism. If it's functioning properly, you will convert food to energy efficiently. The byproduct of this process is heat, so testing your body temperature is a time-honored way to assess your thyroid function. At the end of this article, I'll explain how to do the temperature testing. 

First, I want you to understand the difference between "sub-optimal" and "sub-clinical", so you can see why the temperature testing is important. Sub means below, optimal means ideal functioning and clinical means (in this example) medically recognized. So, sub-optimal is less than your ideal and sub-clinical means that you would flag out of a normal range on a medical blood test and receive a diagnosis of hypothyroidism.

A good example of this to think with is iron deficiency. If your iron is low, you typically feel tired. If it's low enough, you're diagnosed with anemia. But, even before it's gotten low enough for the diagnosis of anemia, you've felt tired. This would be sub-optimal iron levels, and anemia would be sub-clinical iron levels. Mark Starr, MD, who is an expert regarding sub-optimal thyroid function, estimates that 80% of Americans have some level of low thyroid function! How could this happen?

People have suffered from thyroid dysfunction for centuries, much of it caused by a lack of proper nutrients in the soil. In more modern times, we've added chemical stressors to the list of causes for thyroid dysfunction. Radiation, chlorine and fluoride interfere with your ability to absorb iodine, which is essential to good thyroid function. Before we knew any better, we conducted nuclear testing that spread radiation across our environment. Most of us get x-rays at different times of our lives, too, for dental work, mammograms, lung diagnosis, or to look for broken bones. It's normal to wear a lead shield over reproductive organs when getting x-rays, but we don't commonly protect the thyroid in this way. So, we've all had our share of radiation exposure. Add to this the chlorine in our drinking & shower water and swimming pools, along with fluoride in our water and toothpaste, and we have frequent exposure to these iodine-blockers. Other environmental toxins can also be stored in the thyroid and disrupt it's proper function.

Are you one of the 80% with sub-optimal function? Here's one way to test:

Take your temperature 4 times a day for at least 3 days. Take your basal temperature, which is your first morning temperature, before you even get out of bed. Then, take your temperature again approximately 3 hours, 6 hours and 9 hours after waking. The basal temperature should not be below 97.6 and your daytime temperatures should not be below 98.6. Up to 3 tenths of a degree lower is not a big deal, but if your numbers are mostly lower than that, you are not at your optimal thyroid function.

I would recommend that you have medical blood testing done, too. Most doctors are trained to just look at TSH (thyroid stimulating hormone, which your pituitary produces to tell your thyroid to work harder). But the range of TSH considered normal is very wide, and you could have other factors present that would indicate less than optimal function. Ask your doctor to also run Free T3 and Free T4 (these are the two main thyroid hormones your body uses). The "Free" means that the hormones are not bound to a protein and are available for your use. Also, ask your doctor to test for both kinds of thyroid antibodies. If these are high, it means that your immune system is attacking your thyroid tissue and contributing to your problems. These tests will give you additional information about your thyroid and can be quite valuable in pointing the way to proper support. Because most doctors are trained to only look at TSH, your doctor could refuse to run the tests. If this occurs, you can contact me at debra@nature-heals.com for a referral to a MD who will run the tests for you.

Next week, we'll look at some things you can do if you've discovered you have sub-optimal thyroid function. Bringing your thyroid to optimal function will remove one more roadblock to your weight loss success!

Feel free to forward these articles to anyone who might be interested. They are welcome to subscribe to our newsletters also, whether they are patients at Natural Health Solutions or not.

Wishing you the best, 
Debra MacIntyre, ND
Founder of Natural Health Solutions

Contact Natural Health Solutions today at 770-817-8028  or via email at merle@nature-heals.com to schedule a consultation and begin your path of healing! 

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