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Take Your Life Back and Stop Hypothyroidism Naturally at the Source |
When
it comes to exercise, there’s a lot that we don’t understand when this applies
to hypothyroidism treatment.
While
everyone is led to believe that exercise is something that is always beneficial
for our health and hypothyroidism treatment, if you suffer from hypothyroidism,
then exercise can quickly become dangerous and pose a serious risk to your
thyroid and health.
This
has become a very serious problem because so many hypothyroidism sufferers are
incorrectly and dangerously using exercise as a means of trying to control
their weight.
You
can’t blame yourself though because everyone, even your doctor who is supposed
to actually know what is best for your health, tells you that you need to
exercise to lose weight and get healthy.
But,
when nobody stops to actually look at and understand the physiology of the body
and how exercise impacts your entire hormonal system (thyroid included) that’s
when you end up getting yourself into big trouble.
Yes,
I understand that society today is obsessed about weight loss and the
ridiculous idea that simply losing weight is the solution to all of our health
problems.
If
that were true then why are so many non-overweight people suffering from
hypothyroidism, cancer, autoimmune disease, heart disease, and every other
disease for that matter?
In
fact, I work with a number of clients who are severely hypothyroid and
underweight.
If
we would take a minute to step back and look at the big picture then we could
begin to see that exercise isn’t always healthy, and in fact, can be quite
thyroid suppressive and dangerous to your health.
A
large part of the problem can be attributed to our poor interpretation of
research, lack of knowledge, and a lack of understand of the human body.
While
I will cover some of the dangers of exercise as it relates to hypothyroidism a
little later, the purpose of this article is really to open your mind so that
you can understand how little we really do understand when it comes to
exercise.
So,
I’m going to discuss a couple of very common exercise myths just so show you
how little we really do know.
Hypothyroidism
Treatment Myth #1 – Exercise Improves Thyroid Function
If
you look at the current research, a lot of people are incorrectly led to believe
that exercise improves thyroid function and is helpful for hypothyroidism
treatment.
There
are studies where they have taken blood samples immediately before and then
immediately after exercise in order to analyse the amount of thyroid hormone in
the blood.
Many
of these studies have found that some forms of exercise cause an increase in
blood level thyroid hormone, and so they interpret this as evidence that
exercise improves thyroid function.
It’s
time to celebrate, right? Not quite…
Using
a basic understanding of cell physiology, when cells become fatigued or
overworked, they take up more water. This is a natural response to stress.
So,
when you exercise, as your muscles fatigue, they can take up a significant
amount of water. As water is pulled from your bloodstream and into your cells,
this effectively decreases blood volume.
If
blood volume is decreased then of course the concentration of thyroid hormone
will increase but only because there is less blood and not because there is
more thyroid hormone.
If
you are to take this into account, the total amount of thyroid hormone actually
decreases. And these researchers fail to account for this loss of blood volume
that exercise causes.
There’s
also a lot of research that demonstrates this as well.
For
example, one mechanism that is well known is that stress, including exercise,
inhibits the conversion of inactive T4 thyroid hormone to active T3 thyroid
hormone by the liver…
The effect of acute exercise
session on thyroid hormone economy in rats
“T3/T4
ratio was significantly decreased 60 and 120 min after the exercise, indicating impaired T4-to-T3
conversion.”
And
there are plenty of studies showing the negative effects of exercise on thyroid
hormone as well…
The effect of exhaustion
exercise on thyroid hormones and testosterone levels of elite athletes receiving
oral zinc.
CONCLUSION: Findings of our study demonstrate that exhaustion
exercise led to a significant inhibition of both thyroid hormones and
testosterone concentrations…
And
this one which also demonstrates a decrease in resting metabolism…
Endurance training with
constant energy intake in identical twins: changes over time in energy
expenditure and related hormones.
“Resting metabolic
rate (RMR) was significantly decreased by 8% after training despite the
preservation of fat-free mass (FFM). Accordingly, plasma norepinephrine (NE)
concentrations, NE appearance rate, and plasma levels of triiodothyronine (T3),
free T3, and total thyroxine (T4) were lower after training.”
There
are lots of studies that show the same exact results, but I think you get the
point.
Forcing
yourself to exercise as a means of losing weight or trying to “boost” your
metabolism can actually have the opposite effect and result in the further
suppression of your thyroid, a slower metabolism, and ultimately more future
weight gain.
Sounds
kind of counter-productive, right?
Hypothyroidism
Treatment Myth #2 – Running Burns More Calories than Walking
This
is one of my favorites because it goes to show you how far behind we are when
it comes to our understanding of exercise and physiology.
The
media, your doctor, your next door neighbor and everyone else who still has a
bit of sanity left will tell you that running is one of the best ways to burn
calories and lose weight?
Running
is far better than walking, right?
Yes,
you can read this in any exercise physiology book, but there’s something big
that they’ve all forgotten to take into account…
Your
brain!
When
exercise physiologists study energy expenditure and derive their energy
calculations, they fail to account for the brain in their calculations.
And
your brain produces huge amounts of energy and requires a huge amount of fuel.
Just
because you’re running on a treadmill doesn’t mean that your brain shuts off
and stops working. It’s still working and expending energy, just like your
muscles.
Russian
physiologists on the other hand are accounting for the brain. And by
stimulating the brain and therefore increasing its energy expenditure, your
brain can burn significantly more calories.
So,
stimulating your brain while you walk can actually be more beneficial than
running on a treadmill while your brain is minimally stimulated.
If
you take into account that walking would be far less damaging to your thyroid
and metabolism, you can effectively support your thyroid and burn more calories
on average from walking in a mentally stimulating environment than running
while bored.
The
bottom line is that our current understanding of exercise and physiology is
severely lacking and it’s only further contributing to our general declining
state of health today. And in today’s world, your thyroid really does need all
the help it can get.
Millions
of people today are not only hypothyroid, but are also making their
hypothyroidism worse by following all of the bad advice out there.
When
millions of people are led to believe that something like exercise is always
beneficial to their health, while it’s unknowingly causing more damage to their
thyroid when it comes to hypothyroidism treatment, then we really have an
epidemic problem.
Hopefully
this opens your eyes up to the fact that exercise, as it relates to
hypothyroidism, is something that needs much more attention if we are ever
going to make real progress in properly understanding and treating
hypothyroidism.
Read
the following related topics:
Author Bio:
Tom Brimeyer – The
author of Hypothyroidism Revolution – is a practitioner of functional medicine,
health researcher and author on nutrition, hormones and hypothyroidism.
His personal
mission is to inspire and educate people to take control and achieve true
health by correcting their hypothyroidism and underlying causes of their health
problems instead of being stuck relying on doctors and drugs that merely cover
up their symptoms while their health continues to suffer.
