Hypothyroidism makes it harder, but not impossible, to lose weight.
I know, because I worked VERY hard to lose 40 pounds. It took 2 years. Towards the end of that, I was diagnosed with hypothyroid during a pre-surgical physical. At the advice of my surgeon, I didn’t start any medication until after my surgery. When I started on Synthroid, which is supposed to help, I gained 40 pounds back in 4 weeks !
I have since seen an endocrinologist, who took me off Synthroid, and after trying a few things has got me on Armour. Now, I am slowly working off the rest of that extra weight gain.
My doctor is VERY emphatic that hypothyroidism is no excuse to be fat, and he is quite diligent with me and my food choices. (not that they’re perfect, but the better I eat, the easier it is for me to lose weight. ditto the more active I am.)
Something that I think is a major contributor to obesity but seldom comes up in these conversations is the government’s out of control subsidation of high fructose corn syrup, causing it to be in almost everything.
These things also take knowledge and education about nutrition and health, which are sadly lacking, and I’ll bet aren’t taught in schools either. How many adults know how to read and interpret nutrition labels? (This is a separate issue from how many of them bother to try, but again ignorance of the importance of those numbers is rife). In my weight-loss program there is constant stress on education, and how easy it is to be fooled by the large-type content of labels vs. the actual nutrition information. You can blame corporate greed too, when they say they are just giving people what they want. Example: at a fast food place you can get a double cheeseburger for a buck, and one of the salads is over $5.
So a lot of it is the environment, but not in the way Paul of Saudi suggests, but just the overwhelmingly easy availability of huge servings of calorie-dense food and the lack of good information to enable people to make healthy choices. Another part is parental influence. Another example: all four of my cousins are overweight, from moderate to obese. Their mother’s mantra at mealtime, when they were growing up, was “eat your plate”. She would serve the food on their plates, and then they were required to eat it. On the other hand, my mother (her sister) said “eat whatever you take” - i.e. we served ourselves and were not allowed to waste food by taking some and not eating it, but we were not obliged to take more than we wanted. My sister and I are both normal size (although I was hugely overweight between ages 40-55, in the interest of full disclosure). I think we learned what we were taught at home.
I believe that these parents always have the choice to think about their situation and to take steps to alleviate the problem, at least for their children even if it is too hard (right now) to do anything about their own weight.
I’m reading a really good (but frightening) book that talks about this in detail. It’s called The Omnivore’s Dilemma, by Michael Pollan. Highly recommended.
Plus, have you looked at an elementary school lunch? They are full of calories and fat*. I know schools are trying to reform the “school lunch” but it’s being done too little, too late. The pre-fab pizza drips with grease, the nachos are covered in canned cheese sauce, sometimes there is a fruit option (swimming in syrup) plus a cookie or cake, too. The only differences I’ve noticed is that all the little milk cartons are now skim or 2% and the cafeteria no longer sells sodas. Guess what, the kids don’t drink the milk, anyway, and mom sends sodas, candy, and chips from home in their backpacks to go with their fatty school lunch.
*I’ve heard some justifications for this phrased along the lines of “for some of these kids, that may be their only meal of the day, so we need to pack in the calories and fat” I’m not certain I agree with that reasoning, as it sets a bad precedent for what’s considered a meal.
(btw- this is what I observe in my own district, and does not reflect what may or may not be happening nationwide)
I would be careful in judging strangers based on seeing them at a single outing. Sure, it’s quite possible that they got fat by eating so much ice cream, but it’s also possible that there’s more to the story.
And I’ve seen more than one Pit thread go nasty over such an observation.
When I first got into work this morning, the first thing I did was grab a donut. No doubt some people saw that and said “Wow, no wonder he’s fat.” What they don’t see is my fairly healthy eating the rest of the time, nor do they see the 20 pounds I’ve lost over the past month.
I’m wondering what more there could possibly be to this story? Nobody forced them all to get extra larges with multiple candy and crap in it. I can’t see any good excuse for this, sorry. Or are you saying they got fat because of some other reason? I don’t care why they got fat, if I saw a family of 400 pounders all eating extra large mega super ice creams with toppings, I’m going to go with “what a bunch of pigs” rather than “maybe they have hyperthyroidism”.
I’m blessed with genes that allow me to indulge a bit and still keep relatively slim, so I’m a little hesitant to judge other people for having less than perfect food discipline.
But it’s just disheartening to see kids come home and drink a whole two-liter bottle of soda (!!) for an after school snack. What ever happened to carrots and apples?
When I hear “20 pounds in a month”, I don’t think “kicks ass”.
I think “dehydrated”, “fad diet”, “unsustainable” and ultimately “unmaintainable”.
I got heavy after my knee surgery in 2001. When I finally got serious about taking the weight off in 2003, I took off 25 pounds in a YEAR. I haven’t put an ounce back on.
What really drives me nuts about the Maury Povich people (okay, sometimes it’s on when I come home for lunch) is that these people are all “Nobody taught me what to feed my kids! Nobody taught me how to eat healthy!” Bullshit. People know how to eat healthy, they just don’t do it! Remember when they changed the food pyramid because they thought people didn’t get it, and then they did a big survey that indicated that, sure, people know what they’re supposed to be eating - they just eat shit instead. Even these stupid people have got to know that soda is full of fat, that not exercising is bad for you, that pizza for breakfast is freaking stupid. Reminds me of whoever’s feeding those bedridden thousand-pounders - the kid isn’t driving himself to McDonalds, duh.
Soda doesn’t have any fat. It does, however, have sugar, unless it is diet soda, so it is full of calories.
Why, when the issue of kids drinking too much soda comes up, does no one ever mention that there’s a simple and easy solution that doesn’t require much change of lifestyle- drink diet soda instead of regular? That sort of small change is, IMO, much more likely to succeed than recommending a complete overhaul of these people’s diets and lifestyles (beneficial as that might be, it just isn’t going to happen for most of them).
My ever so humble opinion stems from something that has already been brought up: schools. Certainly our society as plummited down to one that depends on quick, unhealthy, unnatural foods, all while most seem to not understand what “healthy” is. That said, a huge problem lies within the schools and what they serve for lunch.
The food served to young kids has already been discussed, so instead look at the high schools. My school had a closed campus, meaning we were not allowed to leave for lunch. I usually packed my own lunch, but on days I didn’t, my options were: the baked potato bar (you get a baked potato and then there is sour cream, cheese, bacon, etc. for it), the salad bar (ice burg lettuce-- no romain or anything in sight- old, yellow tomatos, ham, cheese, and rich ranch dressing), hamburgers, microwaved burritos (700 calories each), cookes, or chips. No joke, that was all there was. Most kids would eat chips wit cheese for lunch. Oh, and it wasn’t a single serving of chips, it was one of those grab bags that have 2.5 servings in it.
Then look around campus. There were two machines that sold water and “juice” (I put juice in quotes because the “juice” they sold had a few hundred calories and was less than 10% real juice). Oh, the machines were almost always out of water.
But there were 10 soda machines, so I guess it’s ok, right? :rolleyes:
And then people wonder why kids are so damned fat. Combine all that above with the fact that we were only required to take two years of PE and voila- everyone was fat.
There’s a bit of difference between a donut and a “gotta have it” with mix-ins. A donut doesn’t have over 1000 calories, doesn’t hit you with near 100% of your daily value of fat and near 200% of your daily value of saturated fat. It’s 14 ounces of super premium ice cream with candy added in.
Purely for research purposes, Mrs. Cheesesteak and I went to Cold Stone today, and shared a “love it” size ice cream (10oz). We didn’t even finish the whole thing, it’s crazy rich ice cream, and the toppings are a killer.
A “gotta have it” sized Cold Stone isn’t a treat for someone who’s eating right, it’s a lifestyle choice for someone who isn’t.
I’ve seen people do it. When I worked at the gym I signed up people who hadn’t been physically active in months or even years. They came in because something lit a fire under their ass and they knew they had to improve their health. One guy found out his cholesterol was through the roof. Another lady learned she had diabetes. There was another guy who had a revelation about what a horrible example he was setting for his kids.
They came in and started working out regularly, replacing the soda and beer with water, and just generally eating better. The guy who was worried about how he appeared to his kids lost 26 pounds in five weeks. It may not be something you see every day, but it’s possible.
Besides, tdn and I have posted in several “fat people” threads here. I remembered him talking about how he wanted to lose weight. It thought some congratulations were in order.
I have about one or two a year. I don’t consider that a lifestyle choice for someone that doesn’t eat right. I eat OK - meaning I don’t pig out and deep fry my oreos, but I don’t always eat my vegetables either. I’m about 15 pounds overweight and have signed up to join a gym. I can just eat a huge amount of food. I try to substitute with diet soda, water, tuna (no mayo), carrot sticks - anything healthy - that I can when I am not eating a meal. (I suspect this has more to do with quitting/slowing down smoking than true hunger.) But yes, it is possible to take down a “gotta have it” without being a total pig. Anyway, didn’t mean to zero in on you, you just struck a nerve with the statement.
I will concede that we shouldn’t have to end every post with “in my case, YMMV, professional on closed course, not that there’s anything wrong with that, please consult a professional”.
Plus - I try to set a good example for my kids (family gym membership, quit smoking) but my oldest’s school has done a wonderful job with helping me. They have craft assignments that center around food pyramids and choosing the healthy food. The school has really done a wonderful job of showing 4 and 5 year olds how to make healthy choices. My son will ask me “is this a healthy food?” when he sees a snack at the grocery store. I had no idea this was such the minority. I’ll have to thank his teacher this afternoon.
Both my children have limited time outside once we get home. They play quite a bit at school, but I live in an apartment building with no backyard on a very busy street. Other than our nightly walk with the dog (which is not that far) they get most of their outside time at school. We do keep busy indoors. Neither of my children is overweight. That tells me that, in my family at least, the limited outdoor activity is not the culprit. Our diet is.
