Simone's thyroid story
simone's thyroid story
At the start of 2017, I was 115kg and so tired, lethargic, and felt like such a failure. I had tried everything to get my hypothyroidism under control, but nothing seemed to work. I came across Dr Izabella Wentz's documentry "The Thyroid Secret" and it changed my life. A month earlier I had decided to become vegan, and then watching her documentary she suggested that all people who suffer with thyroid issues should be gluten free, dairy free, soy free. This was the first time I had heard this, and because I had just gone vegan I was eating gluten and soy.
So I gave up gluten and soy and suddenly I had energy. I couldn't believe it. For the past 15 years, I had been sleeping 10 hours at night and 1.5 hours each day, my eyes would burn by 3pm if I had forgotten my medication, it was really hard to lose weight, and I felt ugly, fat, and a complete failure. Why did the other mums at school not have these issues? All anyone ever said to me was eat less. Well I did that, using guidelines from varies places - mostly 1 egg on 1 piece of toast (gluten), salad for lunch with tofu (soy), salad and vegetables for dinner with a small amount of pasta (gluten). No wonder it never worked.
March 2017 I joined the 8 week bootcamp of Bright Line Eating, which makes you weigh your food at each meal, only 3 meals a day, no snacking in between, and no flour or sugar, and only certain types of food at each meal. I went to a party 4 days after starting this diet and I received so many compliments about how good I was looking. As you can imagine I hadn't lost weight, but my eyes were suddenly clear, I wasn't bloated, I had energy, I had a new lease on life, I was interested in other people's opinions, what they had been doing, I felt like I belonged in society again. Within 1 month I was losing weight and feeling great. Around week 4 I got this strange headache at the back of my head and my intuition was telling me my medication was too high, so I cut one of my pills in half, and headache went away. A week later, another headache, so I cut out the half a tablet and headache went away. Same thing happened over the next few weeks with the other tablet, my dosage was so high I needed to take 2 tablets. I am not saying for you to do it this way - I would advise you to keep checking with your doctor.
Unfortunately 5 months later, after losing 30kg, my bones were cold and I couldn't work out why, so I tried to eat a bit of meat, no success, I added a bit of sugar, nothing, flour, nothing, the only thing I had managed to do was lose the momentum of the rigidness of the diet. I enrolled in a Diploma of Whole Food Plant Based Eating at Nature Care College in Sydney, so I could learn how to be a healthy vegan. This gave me my answer to my cold bones (low calcium), and I continued on to do the Professional Certificate of Nutrition and Food Coaching, so I could help others learn how to improve their thyroid, bring more fruit and vegetables into their diets, as well as what you need to know if you are going to live a vegan lifestyle. Unfortunately my thyroid results did not come back into the normal range.
The hardest part of this journey for me has been watching my family eat bread everyday, not being able to have milk chocolate, and putting myself first and being more concerned about my health rather than what I look like - weight wise - because I have to tell you my face is the oldest it has ever been, but at least once a week someone comments how good I look (and I am still overweight at 95kg). I am a sugar and bread addict so I know that I need to avoid these anyway for my health, but knowing that gluten really affects me - and yes I do keep testing that theory every now and then - helps me to stay on track with both my thyroid issues, and living a whole food plant based lifestyle (the recipes are plant based but you can add any other form of protein to them).
So it took learning to be a shaman where I released a lot of old beliefs, and my daughter becoming celiac that I was able to kick gluten to the curb for good. I also had to learn how to add iodine, selenium and vitamin D to my diet each day. And now June 2022 my thyroid is back in the normal healthy range.
Hear My Story
At the end of September 2021 I was interviewed by Iva Ursano from her series Hell To Happiness where 25 women told their stories of how they overcame hell to get to a place of happiness. Follow this link to watch my story https://youtu.be/_Y0QRbQEY78