Hello fellow Hashimoto Thyroiditis patients,

I had the great pleasure to have a one on one session with, Mary Shomon,a thyroid patient advocate. I visited her Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/thyroidsupport on Monday and saw that for $100.00 you may signup for a personal telephone session with Mary. Impressed with Mary’s knowledge,  I signed right up and the next opening was Friday at 3:30. I was booked.

Terry Ryan

Mary promptly called at the arrange time and she introduced herself and got right down to business. I paid by credit card. Then she went over my note I had sent her. “I see here that you want to discuss weight loss.”  I have put on about 50 pounds in the ten years since being diagnosed with Hashimoto, and they were 50 pounds that no matter what I did to lose weight, they would not budge. Ack!

Mary speaks in a rapid fire way which is great because that way you get a ton of useful info in the 30 mins. It is also good that I have researched Hashimoto Thyroiditis so I could keep up with her. I had my recent labs done and had previously reviewed them 2x over the phone with my endocrinologist’s assistant, but I had the feeling she missed some things. I was looking at the actually paperwork that was sent to me by the lab, but the assistant was looking at a computer screen and  kept on saying, “Wait a minute and let me find that.”  Anyway, she had missed a lot and I am glad I spoke to Mary who straightened everything out for me.

Mary asked me for the lab results and then asked me for the range which is on the right side of my lab paperwork. Example below.

TSH                 0.102                            0.358-3.740 (I was over medicated on T4)

Free T3           2.83                              2.18-3.99 (Mary said that was too low)

“Free T3 should to be closer to the 3.99 for optimal health and weight loss,” Mary stated.   I had been taking Cytomel  (T3) before but in the last few months I had stopped when my prescription was changed to Tirosint (150mcg) from Synthroid and my doctor had eliminated the T3 (Cytomel).

Then going over my lab report she noticed another red flag. My ferritin level was very low. 39

Ferritin (iron)     39        range  0-252 (I was low.)

Mary explained that I could cut all the calories I wanted to and join 10 workout classes a week and with my T3 low and my ferritin so low that I was never going to lose weight. (I should point out that my other lab results were fine according to Mary.)

Her advise was:

• Call my endocrinologist and ask for a prescription of Cytomel. If he prescribes 5mg ask for him to prescribe it as 2.5mg tablets and take one in the morning and the other after lunch.
• Start taking a iron supplement. This is tricky because most will be hard on the stomach and will cause constipation. She recommended a liquid iron supplement called Floradix and said that my local health food store should carry it. I could also call my doctor if I wanted to get a prescription for iron.
• Mary said to go to www.drrosedale.com and on that website there is a tiny heart that if you click on you can download a diet PDF. She said to follow that diet. I did download it (Ron-Rosedale-Health-Plan) and basically no fruit, no sugar, no gluten, no dairy.

I told her about my juicing and she is not too impressed with juicing. She said it was introducing too much glucose/sugar into the body at once. It was okay to juice celery and cucumber but to stay away from spinach and kale because they slow down the thyroid because they are goitrous foods. Goitrous is a substance that slows down the thyroid. It is found in bok choy, broccoli, Brussels’  sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, kale, mustard greens,   radishes, soy, soy milk, soy lecithin (often used as a filler in vegetarian food) and tofu and now apparently spinach is on the list. I was using a lot of raw spinach and kale in my juices. Ugh! But I was feeling so much better with juicing and my skin is glowing from all the veggies, but no, I haven’t lost a single pound. (sigh)

Mary also said that some of her clients have had great results on fasting for two days a week. Let’s say you practice a Paleo diet 5 days a week but on Monday and Thursday you only eat 500 calories. Mary said that you don’t have to eat the 500 calories of the fast day and it may be easier to just drink water. She recommended a couple of books. See below.

Other tips were to check out T-Tapp for light exercise on Youtube. Mary said she has lost many inches by practicing the T-Tapp exercises. I checked it out and they look pretty easy so I will give that a try. Also:

• Limit snacking.
• No alcohol!
• Eat only three times a day.
• Don’t eat after 8:00pm

Okay, so that’s why I haven’t lost any weight. I just went out and bought a steak which shocked the heck out of my husband since I have been mostly vegetarian (the dog is thrilled), and I will make a spring salad with lemon juice as the dressing.

Yesterday I drove over to the health food store to purchase the Floradix but they did not have it. The young girl at the counter told me to take a couple of tablespoons of Plantation Blackstrap Molasses ($4.95/15 fl oz.) per day. Okay, that certainly was cheaper than the Floradix which runs around $20.00 for 8.5 ounces so I am giving that a try. It tastes okay, not too bad.  What is Blackstrap Molasses? Click here.

So, I would honestly say that I am very happy with my 30 minute session with Mary Shomon and I would recommend it for anyone who is having problems with their Hashimoto symptoms. I will try all the things she suggested:

• Take Cytomel (If my doctor will not prescribe it Mary has already given me a name of a local holistic doctor who will but will not take insurance.)
• Try eating more foods that contain iron like steak.

• Take my iron supplement.
• Stop juicing spinach and kale.
• No fruit, dairy, gluten, sugar.
• Try T-Tapp for excercise.
• Try the 2 day fasting diet.

I’ll let you know how it works out.

Thanks for reading,

Terry Ryan, Health Blogger

Read The Thyroid Diet Revolution by Mary The Thyroid Diet Revolution: Manage Your Master Gland of Metabolism for Lasting Weight Loss

Here’s a great article by Mary Shomon  titled

Help, I’m Hypothyroid and I Still Don’t Feel Well

http://thyroid.about.com/cs/hypothyroidism/a/notwell.htm

Recommended reading by Mary Shomon

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