I’m not here to fat-bash or anything, I am just honestly puzzled by how the math works with this.
Starting from the fact that one pound of fat contains about 3500 calories worth of energy, that means of course that if one expends 3500 calories more than one consumes, a weight loss of a pound of body fat will occur.
So, I’m reading some posts on a weightloss forum and come across this statement from a morbidly obese woman:
***I have serious thyroid problems. I am limited to 1,000 calories a day. Anything more that that and I gain weight.
For exercise, I do a 30 minute circuit on the weight machines, 30 minutes walking on the treadmill and 45 minutes on the stationary bicycle everyday. Although, about every 3rd day I switch out the walking for swimming.***
So by my rough calculations, she probably needs to eat about 3000 calories just to maintain her weight (which is around 350 lbs I believe). Eating only 1000 puts her at a deficit of 2000 calories per day. Then add in all that exercise…almost 2 hours per day of weight lifting and cardio. I’d estimate that with the huge effort it must take to propel a 350 lb body through these exercises, she is burning about 400 calories per day. That leaves her with only 600 calories per day. Which is pretty much a starvation regime. She should be losing almost 5 pounds a week, which is a dangerously rapid weightloss.
Yet, she claims that, due to this serious thyroid problem that “any more than 1000 calories and I gain weight”.
The key is this: That first figure you quoted, “about 3000 calories just to maintain her weight”, depends on the functioning of her thyroid. The thyroid regulates the metabolism rate, in essence it regulates the rate at which calories are used up while we are resting.
That’s pretty much it right there. There are primarily two thyroid problems that can affect weight in drastic ways.
Hyperthyroidism.
This is when the thyroid is overactive, one of the effects is to greatly increase the metabolism. I worked with a woman with this condition, she ate at least every two hours and often more, took no less than 6 aspirin (or other headache pill) at a time and weighed maybe 105 pounds at a height of around 5’9". Her self description was that if she didn’t eat nearly constantly she would lose weight.
Hypothyroidism.
This is possibly the condition your friend has. It has the effect of greatly slowing the metabolism to the point where burning calories off becomes extremely difficult.
But the part that the OP seems to find puzzling (I know I do) is whether it’s possible to do 30 minutes on weights, 30 minutes walking, and 45 minutes on a stationary bike, in addition to all the rest of one’s daily routine, without burning more than 1000 calories a day, no matter what one’s metabolism is.
Ok, but how does that work exactly? It takes a certain amount of energy to run the human body, keep it at 98.6 degrees and perform all the necessary functions of life.
So, let’s say my 180 lb body needs 500 calories a day just to maintain my body temperature. Are you saying that a person the exact same size, age, weight as me with a “thyroid problem” needs fewer than 500 calories a day to keep their body at 98.6 degrees?
Lower body temperature is one of the possible effects of hypothyroidism.
I’m not saying that is the condition that she has, but it’s possible. For one example, my normal body temp is about 97.3. I have to watch my calorie intake because at the 2000 per day that many docs seem to recommend, I balloon up. I have a lower temp so does that mean that I need less calories than you who has to maintain at 98.6?
Well, 2000 calories a day is just a very rough estimate. If you’re trying to adjust your body weight, you must figure out exactly how many calories you need. There are plenty of online calculators out there, you enter your age, height, weight, gender, activity level etc and it gives you a pretty accurate number of calories you need to consume per day.
So, people with thyroid problems maintain their bodies at a lower temperature then?
Among other things. And not by choice. (You make it sound like we just nudge the thermostat down a bit.)
It’s a challenge to convince doctors that your normal body temp is 97.7, and that 98.6 is a fever.
Being hypothyroid doesn’t make it impossible to lose weight, and it doesn’t guarantee that you will gain weight, but it does certainly increase the difficulty of maintaining one’s weight. It also dinks around with one’s cholesterol and blood pressure.
The thyroid produces several hormones that are largely responsible for the regulation of a body’s metabolism. If your thyroid is producing massive amounts of these hormones, your metabolism will increase dramatically and you will burn off calories at a much higher rate than the normal person.
If your thyroid is not producing enough of them, then your metabolism will slow to a crawl and you will not burn the calories. (please note, this is a very simplistic description of a very involved process. Consider it a high level overview)
Without the hormones produced by the thyroid, your body doesn’t really know what to do with the energy(calories) that you put into it aside from storing it up.
IANAD. Compare the body’s burning the energy it receives through food to a car burning the energy it receives through gasoline. Assume that the car has an expandable gas tank analogous to a human’s fat. If your car is a huge SUV, or has an 8-cylinder supercharged engine, it is going to burn up lots of gas just standing still, just like one of those people who stay thin even if they don’t do anything at all. On the other hand, if the car is very efficient, getting 40 or 50 mpg, and you keep putting ten gallons of gas in it every day anyway, our hypothetical expandable gas tank will keep getting larger and larger. Just like the muffin-tops and supersized butts that some of us have. In order to shrink that “gas tank,” we have to rev the engine, drive around at high speeds, and stop putting in 10 gallons of gas per day.
The point is this: There are three things that can be done with the energy taken in, in the form of food:
It can be used for work.
It can be used to keep us warm.
It can be stored away, eventually making us fat if done enough.
The thyroid regulates this split. Not everybody is exactly at 98.6 degrees. In some people, the thyroid takes some energy from heat production and puts it into storage, or vice versa. Also,the thyroid makes some people hyperactive, putting more energy into work.
I’ve been charting my Basal Body Temperature for the last couple of months, as we’ve been trying to conceive. You take your BBT first thing in the morning, after getting at least three hours sleep and before getting out of bed or moving around much, which should be your lowest metabolic rate. (The point of this, by the way, is that a woman’s basal temperature rises slightly after ovulation, so you can track when it happens using this method.)
I’ve been kind of shocked to discover that my base temp is in the low 96 degree range, and often plunges down into the 95s. (By mid-afternoon, I’m generally back into the mid-98s - I checked out of curiousity.) My highest ever reading was 97.50 degrees on 8/18 (post-ovulation), and my lowest was 95.30 on 7/30 and 8/21 (pre-).
I’m quite fat, by the way, but I’ve been tested and apparently my thyroid is fine. I shudder to think how close I’d get to hypothermia if it were malfunctioning on me.
Indeed. My wife has Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis and has a normal body temp of about 96.8. “Normal” for her is a moderate fever. 101 is about when we consider going to the ER.
Bingo…when my Graves Disease was at it’s worst, I found the middle of winter the middle of winter comfortable – I could actually go outside in a light, long-sleeved shirt and not sweat a few gallons away.
Hashimoto’s is in my family and this is definitely true. Both my sister and cousin struggle with it, and they report being freezing all the time. They are both convinced I have it too, because my normal temp is 97.8 just like theirs. I tested negative, but I’m keeping an eye on things.
It is definitely possible to maintain a healthy weight with hypothyroidism, it just involves a LOT of working out. My sister is a belly dancer and keeps her weight very healthy, but she says if she isn’t constantly vigilant it can really leap up with even a healthy diet and low exercise. It’s frustrating and a life-long struggle against one’s own body.
In the OP’s example, we have a 350 pound woman claiming to gain weight if she eats more than 600 calories per day (1000 eaten minus 400 burned off). I understand from the posts in this thread that the thyroid can influence metabolism. But to this extreme? I find that very hard to believe.
From the OP, I think “over 1000 calories and I gain weight” was her situation before she started the exercise regimen.
The thyroid is a remarkable thing… when I was hyperthyroid, I went from 220 to 185 in about three months while eating a ton and getting virtually no exercise. I also felt horrible.
