Is Your Weight Problem Really Due to a Thyroid Problem?
I often hear people say that their weight problem is due to a thyroid issue. Do you think this about your weight?
This may however not be as much as you think – at least not directly.
I know, people say it all the time and in many cases, your doctor might have even told you that your thyroid is causing your weight issues. There is however hope in knowing that it might not be true.
On the other hand, if you think you are simply gaining weight because you are getting older, you can give that one up as well as it is likely also a myth.
The truth is that there is no correlation between the thyroid hormone (T3) and metabolic rate. This was a shocker for me when I found out. This is definitely not what is taught in medical school or elsewhere.
While we are active and moving, our metabolic rate is determined by a number of factors of which the most important is muscle mass or Fat-Free Mass (FFM).
- 63% of the energy released from our metabolic rate goes to maintaining muscle.
- 7% goes to fat (mainly Brown fat)
- 26% is unknown.
- 2.3% testing error (subject variance)
- 1.7% aging
Resting Energy Expenditure (REE) and how that affects your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) is a whole different rabbit hole that I’ll discuss in another post.
If you have a weight issue or a metabolic issue, then you have a hormone issue. It may however not be your thyroid that is at the center of this. Neither is cortisol (stress), or estrogen (menopause), or testosterone (low T).
The hormone that is in control of your weight, or at least your fat, is also the hormone that determines if you get your energy from burning fat or sugar. That hormone is Insulin.
Insulin is the bully on the playground and it pushes and shoves all the other 400 hormones around when it is on the scene in too strong a force or over too long a time.
Insulin works inversely (opposite) to the Human Growth Hormone (HGH) by suppressing it. This hormone controls the main driving force for our metabolism and our muscle mass.
Before you decide to start playing with your hormones as if it is a chemistry set by taking hormone replacements such as Thyroid, Estrogen, HGH, Testosterone, Melatonin, or any others, look at Insulin FIRST.
If you can get insulin to play nice, the entire playground with all the various hormonal players will start to balance out and play nice together again, or at least much better.
You can’t really know if any hormonal issue is simply an effect of insulin issues, or if it is a true problem until you have your insulin in check.
An insulin-friendly lifestyle, diet, exercise, sleep, stress, and neurological tone are the main fundamentals to taming the potential bully effect of insulin.
Keep following, this is what we are all about.
We can do better my friends!
