*******These are my notes below- this is not a transcript*********
Hi Stephanie
Thank you for all your email. I really appreciate what you do to help people like me who suffer the same disease as you. I have been listening to your podcast lately in Spotify which is very helpful.
Currently I have been prescribed levothyroxine of 75 mg which I take everyday in the morning. I have tried to ask my doctors several times about the kind of diet I should be following. My family doctor told me to avoid Soy but nothing else while my endocrinologist said my thyroid is not even working to begin with and that there is nothing I can do to reverse it. He just advised me to eat less calorie and work out.
After I listened to yours and other podcasts, I have been trying to follow gluten free diet while also doing keto. I have been trying to eat lot of green vegetables which is really difficult for me. For fat I am consuming olive oil, coconut oil, ghee and grass fed butter. I also eat avocado for fat. I haven’t stopped eating dairy products or eggs though. I don’t feel bloated or bad when I consume them or may be I am unable to say how I feel after I consume them.
Do you still recommend not eating eggs or dairy products ?
I have substituted bread and rice with gluten free organic almond and coconut flour using which I bake my own bread. Do you recommend using almond flour ?
I would really appreciate your response to my questions.
Thank you again for taking our your time to send constant emails and podcasts
Regards ,
asked that name be withheld
Thank you for listening and for your kind words.
Soy- good to avoid.
GMO and can compete with receptors on your cells for estrogen. This is called a xenoestrogen which mimics the effects of estrogen in the body and can lead to estrogen dominance as well as affecting your immune system, adrenal glands and how well your thyroid works.
inhibits T4 to T3 conversion by blocking the enzyme activity that does the conversion. It is the TPO enzyme.
If you have hypothyroidism and/or hashimoto’s avoid soy.
Millet also keeps your body from converting T4 to T3.
You may not be able to reverse the damage done to thyroid by autoimmune attack but you can reverse symptoms.
Eat less and workout is not the answer.
Ask doctor for a full thyroid panel - TSH, Free T4, Free T3, Reverse T3 and TPO and TgAb antibodies. If they won’t do it, order it yourself from somewhere like Direct Labs and then find help interpreting the results from a thyroid book or a holistic practitioner.
If your T3 is low you will want to ask why? Always ask why.
Maybe your body is not converting your Levo very well. Maybe you need a T3 supplement or a different medication.
Why you may want to give up dairy.
Why you may want to give up eggs.
AIP and Nuts
Elimination diet and then reintroductions- why you may not feel bad while eating eggs and dairy right now— dopamine hit foods that harm us.
Eliminate for a minimum of three weeks. I recommend a month or two to give body a chance to calm down. You may consider a healing type diet for up to two years if there is a lot of damage done.
Reintroduce 1 food at a time and wait 4 days before introducing another food. Look for digestive reactions, mood issues, sleep issues, joint pain etc. Everyone’s reactions will be different.
Baking your own bread is great. I miss bread. Sometimes to really heal what is going on in the body we need to give up those convenience foods. Because nuts are a top allergen and you have autoimmune disease I would recommend cutting out the nuts too just for awhile to give your body a chance to calm inflammation and have a proper reaction.
There is no perfect diet here. It is trial and error because we are biochemical individuals. You have to do what works for you. In order to heal your body and bring your symptoms in to remission it is something that is wise to do but if the stress of it is too much, then it is not good either. We have to find balance.
Keto is not for everyone. I’m working on a presentation about Keto so when that is done I will talk more about that. Some people do fine on it with autoimmune disease, some do not. Personally I do much better with more plants and a small amount of meat in my diet. I am not a fan of veggies either but I eat them because they make me feel better. Try roasting veggies in olive oil and Redmond Real Salt until they are crisp and golden brown. They are quite delicious that way in my opinion.
Without knowing more about how your blood sugar is, how your adrenals are doing, how your digestion is working it is tough to really say if these foods are causing a problem for you or not.
I get a good picture of this from my clients using a Nutritional Assessment Questionnaire which shows where each persons body is out of balance from your stomach to your immune system and everything in between. Then I look at a food journal and help clients figure out where they can make changes, what they can add and what might need to be taken away.
Thanks for your question. I hope this helps.
Ok, Now I want to talk about functional medicine a bit because my Principles of Functional Medicine class has me really excited to learn and be able to dive deeper with clients.
What is Functional Medicine?
It is evidence based, science based. The estimation is now that your current conventional medical providers are 50 years behind the current science. I had always heard it was 17 years so this was new to me. Either way, that is really behind.
FM is about critical thinking and being open to knew information either supportive of your thinking or not.
It looks at the whole person- body, mind, spirit and how all of those contribute to disease or wellness.
It looks at you as an individual, how your body operates. It removes what is creating and imbalance in your body and adds in what will balance you back out. So it is about finding imbalances and bringing your body back in to balance.
It is a personalized way to work with individuals seeking health concentrating on the person and not the disease.
Things contributing to your body being out of balance are toxins, allergies, infections, bacterias, parasites and other bugs, diet, stress, lifestyle, sleep habits.
What is missing from your life keeping you from feeling your best.
What might feel like normal to you may not be normal. For example, you feel tired a lot or your joints hurt a bit. You don’t remember not feeling that way so it feels normal and you deal with it. Maybe you have forgotten what it really feels like to feel good!?
Functional medicine is great at helping people with chronic diseases like Hashimoto’s but when you have an acute condition like a broken bone or you need surgery or you have a heart attack, your local hospital is the place to be.
Preventing disease is where it’s at. If you have a disease, like autoimmune disease which affects 50 million of us in the US, then you can use functional medicine to put your disease into remission or at least reduce your symptoms.
This is very exciting. I look forward to sharing more as I learn more.