Living with Hashimoto's Thyroiditis as a Vegan . I don’t even play one on TV. Below you will read about my experience with Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis as a vegan, advice my doctors gave to me, and an idea of how I manage. Veganism is both the practice of abstaining from the use of animal products, particularly in diet, and an associated philosophy that rejects the commodity status of. Here is how I prep and plan my meals for the week. My 21 Day Fix Extreme arrived early this week, and I Raw Till 4 is a lifestyle rather than a diet. A vegan program that focuses on eating A LOT of raw fruits (especially bananas!) and vegetables, no. Do not take any of this as medical advice. It is not meant as such. Please read and if you’re inclined, share your story too in the comments section. You can also join our Facebook Group for Vegans with Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis. MY HASHIMOTO’S JOURNEYLast year, up until around September, I was not feeling so hot. I had the following symptoms: extreme fatiguefoggy brain (inability to remember what I was doing 2 minutes beforehand and general lack of sharpness)inability to concentrateeasily overwhelmedsocial anxiety and uncomfortablenessdepressioninability to get warm after being cold (my teeth would chatter for hours and nothing I did could get me warm again)weight gain despite all my efforts to exercise and eat healthfullyoverall achyness and walking around holding my lower back like and old ladyuncomfortable non- stop bloatingconstipation (sorry if that’s TMI)swollen, puffy face (I couldn’t speak on my phone without my cheek hanging up on people)greyish, yellow bags under my eyesdry and brittle hair. I’d had all of these symptoms in the past at various points in my life, but they’d always gone away after a month or so. This time, it started around January, shortly after my grandmother passed and I thought I was just depressed, but it never let up. It seemed to keep getting worse. I went to the doctor and blood tests revealed that I had vitamin D deficiency and that my blood sugar was also a little on the low side. My doctor told me to begin taking a vitamin D supplement and referred me to an endocrinologist to discuss my blood sugar. I met with the endocrinologist and she noted that my TSH (a hormone sent from the pituitary gland to the thyroid to stimluate thryoid hormones) level was a little on the high side but still within normal range. She also discovered that one side of my thyroid was larger than the other. She told me to take the vitamin D for six weeks and then return after having another blood test and a thyroid ultrasound. During those 6 weeks, I gained 1. I had a bit more energy, not much else was improving. My endocrinologist called me in the same day she got the results. My TSH levels had skyrocketed by 2. Also, according to the ultrasounds, I had several lumps on my thyroid but none were large enough yet to be concerned. At this point, she said I had hypothyroidism and prescribed thyroid hormones for me to try for another 6 weeks. It took a couple of weeks before the medication began to work but once they did I began to lose a little weight and I actually began to feel like myself again. I didn’t realize how uncomfortable and socially- anxious I’d become, and how being moody and overwhelmed had became “normal” to me. My focus improved and I overall felt more on top of things. I wasn’t feeling 1. There was a down- side, though. I went from sleeping like it was my job to being unable to fall asleep at night. My hair had been dry and brittle before but now it was falling out by the handful. I eventually ended up cutting my hair to my shoulders because it became really hard (and depressing) to manage (not to mention, I had become very self- conscious about my hair). My back began hurting daily and headaches became a nearly daily occurrence. One of the things that has surprised me the most with vegan cuisine is how I Disclaimer: I am not a doctor. Below you will read about my experience with Hashimoto Luckily, when I first got the diagnosis, I contacted a friend of mine who I knew had hypothyroidism. She told me I absolutely had to go see her doctor, that she was the absolute best. This doctor’s office was 1 1/2 hours away from my house, but I decided I owed it to myself to check her out. I made an appointment for right after my 6- week check- up with my current endocrinologist. My TSH levels had dropped but not enough. My first doctor told me that I needed to increase my dosage. When I talked to her about my other symptoms, she either told me they were unrelated or in the case of the headaches, that I should take two Advil a day for two weeks, then 1 a day for a week, then one every other day for another week. Obviously, this didn’t jive with me. The new doctor, after going over all of my symptoms, showed me my blood test results and we went over each item together. The main number she was concerned with was my Thyroid Perioxidase Autoantibodies. In a normal person, the level would be less than . This, she explained, indicated that I have an autoimmune disease called Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis (an autoimmune disease that causes your body to attack your thyroid) and apparently, I was in the middle of a pretty intense flare- up. The other doctor didn’t even test for this. As we went over my test, she told me she wasn’t going to increase my dosage yet (but I still need to be on them), but instead she showed me which vitamins, minerals, and supplements I should take to battle the symptoms I was dealing with and help to heal my thyroid. What’s even better is that she told me what to look for so I could get vegan versions of them and instead of questioning my vegan diet like most doctors do, she applauded it. 100% Guaranteed Results The 90 Day Bikini Transformation plan is known as the worlds leading female specific plans, with 1000 You were always beautiful, but I am glad you. My goal is to, one day, be completely at peace with myself and my body. Since I already avoid sugar most of the time, she told me there was only one change to my diet that I should definitely make: I needed to give up gluten. From what I have gathered, in laymen’s terms, the molecular structure of gluten matches that of the thyroid so when your body senses gluten in your blood stream, it releases more autoantibodies to attack your thyroid. By not injesting gluten, you decrease the amount of thyroid- attacking autoantibodies. I have now been gluten- free for about 6 months and I haven’t even “cheated” yet as I originally mentioned that I might (update 7/2. I’ve “cheated” a few times and each time, I’ve noticed the fatigue and fogginess return for a day or two after). It’s been pretty easy for the most part. I’ve also been continuing to take all of the vitamins and supplements the new doctor recommended but I haven’t been back to see her. Unfortunately, she wasn’t covered by my insurance and that little visit was very costly, not to mention that she was located in Ventura and the drive there and back is just not practical. I’ve been looking for a local naturopath that I can afford to visit (out of my own pocket, since my insurance doesn’t include naturopaths) but no luck so far. My other endocrinologist has needed to increase my medication because my TSH levels were still out of whack and I have to admit, the increase has really helped. I do believe that you can alter your diet as much as you want, but the fact of the matter is that there is already damage done to your thyroid and the only way to get your body to work properly with a damaged thyroid is to provide it a synthetic thyroid hormone. Diet will help prevent the Hashimoto’s from progressing and getting worse but it won’t fix the damage that has already been caused. This increase, in combination with the rest of my regime (which I’ll go over below), seems to be working well. My back aches have mostly subsided and I haven’t had a headache in a couple months. I’ve had a couple flare- ups that’ve lasted about a week each but they’re nowhere near as bad as the way I was feeling a year ago. From what I understand, this is normal. Update 4/2. 0/1. 6: Last fall, my blood tests showed that I’d tipped over, just slightly, into HYPERthyroid territory so my endocrinologist decreased my thyroid hormone medication. I was just beginning to show signs of depression but my endocrinologist was positive that it was separate from thyroid issues because of the blood test results. The decrease in medication caused an increase in other HYPOthyroid symptoms like weight gain, fatigue, brain fog, hair loss, etc. But when I went back in February, my blood tests showed that I was still HYPER and even though I was having these symptoms, my doctor insisted on lowering my medication again. I felt that she wasn’t listening to me. I went to my regular doctor to request a new endocrinologist referral and my doctor agreed that we needed to get me back to feeling better, even if that meant my blood tests showed that I was HYPER. That may be where I feel normal. So I went to my new endocrinologist. He agreed that it was important to get me back to where I felt normal. So he increased my medication back to where it was the last time I felt good. But there was something else we needed to address. They’d found nodules on my thyroid a couple years ago and during my yearly ultrasound to monitor said nodules, one of them had grown and developed “morphologically suspicious features.” The ultrasound results actually said “Consider Fine Needle Aspiration.” Which, for those of you who don’t know, is a biopsy. My first endocrinologist ignored this and suggested that we look at the nodules again in six months or so. My new endocrinologist didn’t want to mess around with it and ordered a biopsy, which I did the following week. I was sure that if it was anything serious, they would call me in and we’d talk about it in his office, just like they do in the movies. When the doctor called, I was positive that he was just calling to say that it was normal. When he told me that I had cancer, I struggled to hear everything he said afterwards but there was a high- pitched tone in my ears. I was at work and I carried the phone outside to the balcony so I could get some fresh air and escape the sound in my head. I asked him to repeat himself. Partial thyroidectomy. Need to make an appointment with the surgeon. So I made an appointment with the surgeon. The week leading up to the appointment was confusing. I take care of myself. I’m supposed to be healthy. How do I have cancer in my body? I was in the thick of my stint with bronchitis and I couldn’t help but wonder if part of the coughing was due to the cancer. Maybe I’m so tired because of the cancer? Is it growing and spreading right now? Is it possible that I have cancer elsewhere in my body just waiting to be discovered? Day Reset Autoimmune Diet Plan. For many years I suspected that I had some form of thyroid problem based on my own research and symptoms like dry skin, occasional fatigue, trouble losing weight after having a baby, and hair thinning, but I was never able to get answers from conventional tests which showed that my T3 and T4 thyroid hormones were in the normal range. Thankfully, I found an amazing doctor who specializes in hormones and endocrine problems and with additional blood testing and a thyroid ultrasound, he was able to finally figure out what I was struggling with: Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis (an autoimmune condition where the body creates antibodies to the thyroid). What are Autoimmune Problems? It turns out that many different disorders and diseases are autoimmune in nature but they manifest in different ways. As the Paleo Mom explains: Autoimmune disease is caused by the immune system losing the ability to differentiate proteins belonging to your own body with proteins belonging to a foreign invader (like a bacteria, virus or parasite). What causes symptoms is the build up of damage to cells, tissues and/or organs in the body. Which proteins/cells are attacked is what separates once disease from another. In Rheumatoid Arthritis, the tissues of your joints are attacked. In psoriasis, proteins within the layers of cells that make up your skin are attacked. However, the root cause is the same. Genetic predisposition to autoimmunity makes up about one third of your risk of developing an autoimmune disease. The other two thirds of your risk come from environmental factors, which include: diet, lifestyle, infections (both prior and persistent) exposure to toxins, hormones, weight, etc. While you cannot control your genetics or whether or not you had mono as a kid, you do have an immense amount of control over your diet and lifestyle (and the extent that these affect hormones and weight and even toxin exposure). By removing the foods that contribute to a leaky gut, gut dysbiosis (the wrong numbers, relative quantities, or types of microorganisms typically growing in the wrong locations in your gut), hormone imbalance, and that stimulate inflammation and the immune system, you can create the opportunity for your body to heal. By addressing important lifestyle factors and changing your focus to eating nutrient- dense foods that support optimal gut health (and optimal health of your gut microorganisms), that restore levels of important nutrients and provide all of the building blocks that your body needs to heal and properly regulate the immune system, that help resolve inflammation and support organ function, you create an environment in your body conducive to healing. Why Other Diets May Not Work. From my understanding, once the body has an autoimmune reaction, it can sometimes be necessary to remove a wide variety of potentially inflammatory foods for a short time and then reintroduce to test the response. The idea is similar to the theory behind the GAPS protocol but geared toward addressing autoimmune issues instead. Since the body is in a state of heightened immune response, removing these foods can help it get back into a state of balance and reduce the autoimmune reaction. Technically, an autoimmune disease cannot be “cured”, but in many cases, it is possible to put the condition into remission with careful diet and lifestyle changes. My Experience. I switched to an autoimmune protocol diet after being diagnosed with Hashimotos in hopes of giving my immune system a little time to recover. I was hopeful that it would be beneficial, but I was AMAZED at how quickly it helped. Within the first week, I saw my bloating go away, my thyroid nodule felt noticeably smaller, I had more energy (after the first couple of days), and my skin improved. Over the course of the almost two months I did the strict protocol, I lost some of my stubborn weight and felt incredibly better. It also helped me identify foods that I was not responding well to, but that I didn’t realize were problematic (like eggs, which was confirmed by blood test later). I was able to reintroduce many of the foods after that time without a problem and I felt continually better (until I created a flare by not sleeping and stressing about finishing my book). Sleep and stress are both huge factors in overall health and are especially important for those with any kind of health condition. The Specifics of the Autoimmune Diet. The general idea of the autoimmune diet is that you are removing any potentially inflammatory foods, but the specifics are a bit more difficult. Some sources consider foods like fruit and sweet potatoes ok, while others do not. For reference, some sources that I find most helpful are: This particular post from the Paleo Mom is really helpful in understanding what foods are considered safe and which ones to temporarily avoid. I’ll also be posting more autoimmune friendly recipes and meal plans soon, but those are great resources for getting started. You can download the complete food list I used by clicking here (PDF). It can seem overwhelming, but this way of eating is actually relatively simple if you follow a template. My typical day on the autoimmune diet was: Breakfast– A scramble of meat and cooked vegetables, a cup of homemade bone broth, some fermented vegetables, and supplements. Lunch– A huge salad with leftover protein (meat, offal or fish) and a small piece of fruit, a cup of bone broth, fermented water kefir or kombucha and olives. Dinner– A stir fry with some type of protein (meat, offal, seafood) with a lot of vegetables and allowed spices, evening supplements and at least 1 cup of healthy starch like cooked winter squash, pumpkin, etc. I also made a lot of stuffed squashes and soups. We rely heavily on big salads, stir frys and casseroles while on the autoimmune diet. When I first started, it seemed like I couldn’t eat anything and I was depriving myself of everything, but it is important to remember that many times the body is deficient in certain nutrients because of an autoimmune disease so during the course of the 3. I focused on extensively nourishing my body with as many high quality proteins, vegetables and healthy fats as I could consume. I may have been tired of my food choices at times, but I certainly never went hungry. I also focused on consuming a TON of vegetables during this time, after talking to Dr. Terry Wahls and reading her book, The Wahls Protocol. Wahls emphasizes the importance of consuming at least 9 cups of vegetables a day, especially brightly colored vegetables, leafy greens, and onions and garlic. Personally, I found that these factors were equally important to recovery for me: Sleep. I love to stay up late and skimp on sleep so I can get more done. My body does not love this. I’ve found that when I sleep at least 8- 8. I see my health markers improve (blood tests, fasting blood glucose, etc). Stress reduction. Also a tough one for me, but stress can have as much of an impact as diet on gut health and hormone levels. I found that even with a good diet, I started to notice symptoms creeping back in while under the stress of finishing my book. Supplements. I hesitated to include this part because if diet, stress and sleep aren’t under control, this won’t help at all, but I found certain supplements helped tremendously once I had optimized other factors. I personally take: WP- Throid thyroid medication (under the care of my doctor), Betaine HCL with protein meals, 5- MTHF and Methyl- B1. Folate, Probiotics, Fermented Cod Liver Oil, Cortisol support, Omega- 3s, Vitamin D (and sunshine daily in the morning), Magnesium, L- glutamine, Gelatin, and Vitamin C. I would highly recommend seeing a good functional medicine doctor and finding out what you personally need before taking any supplements. Autoimmune Diet Encouragement. This diet is difficult. Sometimes the best things in life require some work and denial of self. An elimination diet is temporary and it gives you a window into your own body and what you need to eat for optimal health. Don’t let is cause you extra stress. Don’t let this keep you up at night. Try to focus on nourishing and loving your body and providing it with the building blocks it needs to function optimally. If you can, encourage a friend or family member to make the journey with you for support. Let me know below what your struggle is and the results you see! Gain Weight as a Vegan. You hear a lot about how to lose weight. Not so many of us are trying to gain it. This article would be so much cooler if it had a headline like, “How I Gained 2. Pounds of Muscle in 3. Days (On a Vegan Diet).” And if it included dazzling before and after photos, it would probably do a lot to show people it’s possible. That’s what I had in mind when, earlier this summer, I took a look at myself in the mirror, realized I had gotten too thin, and decided it was time to hit the gym. Actually, even for a small guy like me (I was all the way down to 1. I decided it was time to start putting weight back on) a goal like 2. Twice in my life, once in college and once shortly after, I’ve gone from 1. The only difference now, with a vegan diet, would be the absence of chicken breasts and milk — two foods I absolutely relied on during any rapid muscle gain diets I did the past. I knew that adding weight wouldn’t be any help to me as a runner, but that was okay. I needed a break and a change of pace, and I didn’t like being so skinny. And if in the process I could show a bunch of people that it is possible to put on a ton of muscle really quickly on a vegan diet, then all the better. How it really turned out. I didn’t gain 2. 0 pounds in 3. I did, however, gain 1. Not exactly a strike- fear- in- the- hearts- of- enemies number, I know, but it’s a lot more than 1. And although the point wasn’t to gain strength but to gain mass, I got a lot stronger too, increasing my chest press from 1. But my results could have been a lot better if not for two interruptions to my regimen: I traveled a lot and was not able to maintain the volume of eating I could do at home. This killed my momentum on three separate weekends. I suppose I could have been more disciplined with my eating, but a large portion of my calories came from a “fat shake” that I just couldn’t make on the road (more on the fat shake later). I got injured when I made a careless mistake in the gym. Six weeks after I had started, I tore a disc in my back when I inadvertently loaded more weight on one side of the barbell than the other for a deadlift and tried to lift the unbalanced load. When I learned this would keep me out for three weeks, I decided I was done with muscle gain. Still, 1. 7 pounds is nothing to shake a carrot at, especially for a skinny guy who has always found it harder to gain weight than to lose it. So here’s what I did, the vegan- adapted version of what I found success with the other two times I’ve succeeded at quickly putting on a bunch of muscle. If you can’t gain weight, you’re probably making this mistake. Shortly after I got interested in fitness in college, I wanted desperately to get bigger. I drank all these Myoplex shakes, ate six meals a day, and lifted like crazy. And yet I just couldn’t get past 1. After every trip to the gym, I’d eagerly weigh in, feeling all puffed up from my lift and sure I’d tip the scales. And every time, I’d see 1. F’ing 1. 40. So I did some research, and came across Anthony Ellis, a guy who went from 1. Trying to gain muscle and lose fat at the same time is completely counterproductive. Prior to learning this, I thought the road to muscle gain was more lean protein along with more lifting, and of course some cardio to keep the fat off. Wrong. I made three big changes as a result, and experienced drastic, immediate muscle gain. I stopped running and all other forms of cardio. I started lifting fewer times each week, training each muscle group only once per week. I started eating more fat. Like, getting up in the middle of the night to make a peanut butter sandwich. And I gained weight. I went from 1. 40 to 1. I don’t remember exactly how long it took, but I figure it was about six weeks. Really, putting on weight is about only two things. Lifting, which is important. And eating, which is more important. I’ll explain what I did for each. The lifting. For the lifting, I decided to try out Tim Ferriss’ methods from The 4- Hour Body, specifically the chapter “Occam’s Protocol I: A Minimalist Approach to Mass.”Here, Tim proposes a lifting regimen that requires less than half an hour a week of gym time per week: just two sets of exercise each session (one each of two different lifts), performed at extremely slow cadence (5 seconds up, 5 seconds down), until utter and painful failure is reached. And not just “I can’t get this next rep, so I’ll quit” failure, but really putting every bit of effort you have into pushing that last rep up, and then lowering it as slowly as possible. And since I don’t want to get sued for plagiarism, you’ll have to check out The 4- Hour Body to learn about that stuff. I must admit, this was fun. An unexpected benefit was what knowing that my gym time was precious helped me get amped up for it –knowing, for example, that this one set of 7 or 8 reps is my only chance all week to do chest press certainly made it easy, almost fun, to keep going until I reached that point of true failure. And it worked. I followed Tim’s plan to the letter for about three weeks, gaining 3- 4 pounds per week, until I decided I wanted to alter the plan to include some lifts I really liked, like squats and deadlifts (in hindsight, not my best idea). But I followed the same cadence, rep scheme, and frequency of workouts, and kept getting results. As it turns out, Tim’s approach isn’t all that different from what I had done to put on weight before. Infrequent workouts, heavy weight, and sets to all- out failure. So I knew going in it would work. The diet, however, I wasn’t so sure about. The eating. As I wrote before: The major difference between this time and previous ones was my diet. I wasn’t vegan then, or even vegetarian. When I wanted to bulk up in the past, I just ate tons of cheese, milk, steak, and chicken breasts, and it was pretty easy. Not that I doubted it was possible for people to get big on a vegan diet. Look at Robert Cheeke or Derek Tresize. But for me, a guy whose equilibrium size is more sapling than mature oak, I wasn’t so sure. In looking at my diet, it was pretty clear that it was lower in both protein and fat than what had worked for me in the past. So I focused on adding those two nutrients to my current diet, without reducing carbohydrates, hence increasing total calories. I also tried to eat larger portion sizes in general, and found that after just a few days this became comfortable. I did eat fewer salads and raw vegetables, since they take up a lot of room without providing many calories. But way more than I usually eat, and definitely higher in fat, thanks to the “fat shake.”The vegan fat shake. The fat shake is something else I got from 4- Hour Body. Tim’s version is about as far from vegan as a shake could be, with raw milk and raw eggs as key ingredients. My vegan version was obviously lacking in the raw animal protein category, but I found it did a nice job of providing a lot of protein and fat among its roughly 1. I drank it about two hours after each workout, and also the first day after each workout. Here’s the recipe: 1. Blend all ingredients together in a blender. Supplements. I also added a few supplements, in addition to the multivitamin I usually take. Each day, I added to one of my smoothies: 5 grams creatine. IU tablet of Vitamin D3. And right before I got hurt, I realized that I was missing one thing from my earlier mass- gaining days, which was a proper post- workout carbohydrate drink. I had been using apple juice, but in hindsight I wish I would have used something that was designed to deliver quick, post- workout carbs. Conclusion. It worked. Maybe with not staggering results, although if I didn’t have any experience with gaining muscle from the past, then perhaps I would have found a 1. I did start to gain some fat towards the end: my overall body fat increased by 1- 2% throughout the process (that’s as accurate as I can get with my cheap body fat scale), so I probably would have stopped within a few more weeks anyway had I not gotten injured. Just to restate, I wouldn’t recommend a diet like this long- term. I’m sure consuming that many calories (and that much fat) isn’t healthy. If you’re looking to gain weight on a vegan diet, then sure, you can look at my experience as one example, but I highly recommend checking out Robert Cheeke’s book, Vegan Bodybuilding and Fitness, for diet advice from someone more experienced than I am, and Tim Ferris’ book 4- Hour Body for the details of the lifting regimen (which I have nothing but good things to say about, with the results I got in so little gym time). And now, three weeks after my injury, I’m happy to say that the torn disc in my back is healed. I probably won’t do deadlifts for a little while, and I’m done with weight gain for the foreseeable future. But I’ve got lots more planned, and I’m excited about what’s next.
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July 2017
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