Wednesday, March 23, 2016

Weight lifting helped my cholesterol and thyroid!

If this is not the right sub to share, apologies.

I've had hypothyroidism since 2006, and have taken medication for it off and on since then (mostly off, since I haven't been good at going to the doctor regularly). Early last year my doctor ran several tests and found that my hypothyroidism hadn't gone away and now I also had high cholesterol.

This was surprising to me, as I eat mostly vegetarian and thought my diet was pretty healthy since I usually cook at home and eat plenty of veggies. My doctor told me that I needed to go on medication to treat both conditions, and I needed to lose weight (I was around 198 lbs at the time). I filled my prescription, but decided to wait to take the meds and see if an increase in exercise would help. I know, stupid, but bear with me.

It took me about six months to get started, but I eventually began doing the Starting Strength program at my local gym (three times a week), with thirty minutes of cardio two or three times a week. My diet stayed mostly the same, but I'd try to avoid the occasional slice of cheesecake when eating out. Within the last month, I changed my weight program from Starting Strength to a PPL program (six days a week), with very rare cardio (30 minutes, once a week).

After six months of consistent weight lifting and eating slightly healthier, I had my annual checkup this week. I've only lost about eight pounds (not a shocker, given my diet stayed about the same), but my bloodwork was perfect. Normal cholesterol and thyroid levels. I don't have hypothyroidism for the first time in ten years.

Obviously, I'm super excited and needed to share. I plan to keep weight lifting because at this point I really love weight lifting, and now I'm also going to get serious about my weight loss. I am using MFP, and trying to throw in a couple low carb days a week.

I thought it might be helpful to share my experience, as I honestly didn't expect this experiment to work as well as it did. This experience also taught me that weight lifting is so much fun, and I can't believe it took me this long to figure it out.

Disclaimer: I'm not a doctor, I'm not a nutritionist, I totally went against doctor's orders and I shouldn't have, so don't do what I did.

Tl;dr: Had hypothyroidism and high cholesterol for years. Started weight lifting. Six months later, my cholesterol and thyroid levels are normal. Magic?

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