Forgive me, I was in a rush. I mean ablation therapy.

That probably won't change anything Christine, at least, not with your weight.

No need to apologize for being a Mainah!

I haven't been diagnosed yet, and am not on any meds. I have all the symptoms, though, and my test results are outside the new range of .3 to 3.0 (my TSH is 3.84).

My regular doctor wouldn't treat me for it, but thought my symptoms could be related to menopause, so he referred me to a gyno. I have gained 20 pounds in the past 6 months with no change in diet or exercise (except that I've been even MORE diligent on both). And I can't lose for nothing.

I showed the gyno my weight charts of all my workouts (4x per week) for the past several months. Pretty impressive, if you ask me. She glanced at it, handed it back to me, and said, "Where's your cardio?"

I told her I don't write down my cardio because I know what I'm doing -- it's not like you have to keep track of weights or reps or anything. I told her I was doing 30 - 45 minutes (sometimes 60) minutes of cardio 4 to 5 times a week.

NOT ENOUGH, she says. She says I need to do a full hour at 75% max heart rate 7 days a week. Also, she said not to cut calories. I've been averaging around 1400 to 1500 calories a day.

I was so pissed, I did that faithfully for 15 days. Didn't lose a single ounce. It wore me out, though. I get up at 4:00 every morning, drive 1 1/2 hours to work, work usually a 9- or a 10-hour day, drive 1 1/2 hours home again, jump on the treadmill or the bike, sweat for 60 minutes, make dinner for DH and me, let it digest for about 30 minutes, and then off to bed.

I was exhausted! My muscles got weaker and weaker, and I felt worse and worse.

No one can tell me that more cardio is the answer.

Since then I have ramped it down a bunch. I'm now doing cardio around 4 times a week at a lower pace for about 30 minutes. I'm weight training twice a week using much lower weights but way more reps. This is at the advice of my physical therapist (and DH, who has always worked out this way, and his muscle tone is amazing).

I haven't weighed myself since beginning the new regimen, but this week I've worn two pair of slacks that were tight last week. When I put them on this week, one pair was quite loose, and the other was noticeably looser.

To each his/her own. I think I'm finding that if I treat my body more gently, I get more out of it.

Just another opinion from a fellow Mainah! Ayuh!

thanks Bawdy...as long as the doctors don't say "You cahn't get they-ah from he-ya" .....I'll keep working at it!!

Bawdy, that's exactly what happened with Sona and Val. They really started emphasizing the weight training over the cardio and had much better results!

Also, another thing to think about with sudden weight gain is cortisol levels. Especially if you start to get a "buffalo hump" at the back of your neck. You might want to look into searching for "high cortisol" on the internet and see if your symptoms match.

Thanks, Nancy. I know about Sona and Val. Before I went to gyno, I was doing their type of weight training. It didn't work for me. They do low reps and freakishly heavy weights. That didn't work for me. I've started doing HIGH reps with very LOW weights.

I've had tests on cortisol levels. All came back well within normal ranges.

Yep. That's me!!

Of course, to be fair, I can't say that it was the lifting itself that changed everything so much as the Armour thyroid/Cytomel supplementation I began last May. However, keeping up with the lifting forced my body to hang on to muscle as it began to shed those extra pounds (in my case, 10 to 13, depending on when you catch me. ). Thus, it was forced to give up bf instead of muscle. And the more muscle to fat one maintains in one's body, the higher the body's metabolism (since muscle requires more energy to maintain itself); the higher the metabolism, the higher one's maintenance cals become and the easier it is to shed a few pounds by introducing a modest deficit.

That's why lifting--in particular lifting as heavy as I can, to maintain and even enhance what muscle I have--worked better for me than relentless cardio.

Heavy lifting by itself, for those with hypoT, is only one piece of the puzzle.

Thanks, Sona. I don't know if you've visited my journal lately, but I'm trying a new experiment that seems to be panning out for me. I won't bore everyone here, but it's there if you're interested.

Find a physician that will treat your hypothyroidism if exhibiting symptoms with a TSH of 3.84. There are some good ones out there. Some will even treat based on the symptoms instead of the lab values, but at least find one that takes both symptoms and lab values into account. At a TSH of over 3, I am half dead.

Good Luck

Hey Holly ... I feel your pain!
I've been on meds for months and initially lost a lot of weight very quickly, but I haven't lost a jot since then. I will keep taking my meds and keep eating low carb and increase my exercise when I am settled in my new home (after Easter) Until then, I realise that I can't keep beating myself up about losing more weight, because the bottom line is that I am healthier than I was a year ago. I am slimmer than I was a year ago and I look a darn sight better than I was a year ago.
With that in mind, I just have to keep doing what I'm doing and if anything happens in the meantime, then great, but if it doesn't, I'm happy to have made it this far in the time I did.

I am fairly sure my key to all this is the exercise. I am just not doing enough right now. I know you are, but I also know you have a fairly stressful life with your job. Cortisol is going to keep that weight on, hypo or not.
:-/

That statement just leaves me speechless...... well, maybe more angry than speechless. Nothing will wear you down quicker, especially if you have adrenal problems, very common with hypoT.

Boy, you said it! When I got my test results that determined that I was nowhere near menopause (her explanation of all my symptoms), I told the nurse what the doctor had said about exercise, etc. She was shocked. She said that was WAY too much and no wonder I was exhausted at the end of it. She agreed that 30 minutes 3 to 5 times a week was more than sufficient, especially with that number of calories.

Sometimes they just flounder with their answers instead of just admitting that something's wrong - even if they don't know WHAT it is. No one should have to exercise that much to lose weight with a proper diet. That's ridiculous.

You were a trooper for even trying!

well...just a quick update since my panicky first post....I have been working out ALOT for the last 5 weeks now. Pretty much every day except 1x a week. I think I 'might' be starting to see the scale ever-so-slightly creep downward....also, I'm doing phase 1 SBD for the last 2 weeks now. I think that is also helping. I think it's just going to take A LOT of perserverance...I need to keep up the workouts (mostly cardio (40min minimum- elliptical, running and stationary bike) ..some muscle conditioning (1 hr class Sat, Tue and Thurs) and tennis (2hr drills on Mondays...games here and there), and eat strictly for a while. I'll let you all know how it continues to go......

Holly, I wish you luck. That's a pretty strenuous routine, and similar to what I had been doing. Didn't do a darn thing for me. But then, everyone is different. I sure hope all your hard work brings results.