If anyone is interested in following my progress I started a gym log. So far it's pretty encouraging. No net weight loss (it's been dead on 170 for a couple months now) but steady strength gains and I'm back in the smallest size clothes I've been able to wear in at least 10 years.

They do, but neither in a straight line, nor always in a positive direction.

HIIT stimulates hormones. Good. Hormone stimulation produces more T4. Good. In people with healthy metabolisms, the T4 is converted to the metabolically active T3. Very Good.

But -- in a person suffering from an undiagnosed and/or untreated Reverse T3 Thyroid problem, the T4 continues to convert only into the metabolically inactive rT3. Weight gain, not loss. Not good.

The more that person exercises, the more T4 is stimulated, the more rT3 is created. Upshot: More exercise = more weight gain. Very Bad.

Welcome to Metabolism Reality, where nothing is as it appears to the uneducated mind.

Lisa

Thanks for that post Awriter.
Until I read it I had not been aware of Reverse T3 as a significant factor in the weight loss/gain, Basal Metabolic Rate puzzle.
I've been Googling away since and this link seems to be a good summary/detailed explanation of the impact of Rt3.

http://thyroid.about.com/od/losewei...t-loss-diet.htm

If there's anything dodgy in the link I look forward to hearing the critiques.

This seems to provide at least one explanation of why the metabolic brakes can go on hard for some people who either sharply reduce calories or try VLC or zero-carb.
I know that Dr Holtorfs' unreferenced claim (bottom page 2) that

"Low-carbohydrate diets will suppress thyroid function and increase reverse T3 more than comparable calorie reductions with adequate carbohydrates,"

will not please everyone here but that could be partly because Dr Holtorf mostly sees those low-carbers who do not do go all the way to goal without a stop or tune-up.

<edited to add>
I disagree with Dr Holtorf's statement above when it is presented as a generalization implying it is true for all lowcarbers, but also <end edit>

I do not doubt that he sees this RT3 problem in some low-carbers, so I would be more interested in any info that throws more light on why and how this occurs, and in any ways to avoid it or recover from it in those cases where it does occur, than the "VLC/ZC works for me so it must work for everyone" type stuff.

This is interesting to me as I have always packed on the pounds when I exercised. The protocol I'm doing now (HIT) is the first time I've actually maintained my weight while building muscle. The fact that I'm only exercising for 10-12 minutes a week may have something to do with that.

From what I've been reading in the gym logs, lots of people overtrain. The pattern is really obvious - really gung-ho starting out, working out daily or almost daily, doing massive numbers of reps, hours of "cardio" etc. And then about week 3 or 4, they hit the wall and quit. Basically, they're using a training protocol that approximates what a bodybuilder would use for only a few weeks to cut body fat right before a contest (and which is well known to ALSO reduce muscle mass), but they are not highly trained athletes with a large surplus of muscle to start out with (especially the women), they are typically obese and with poor muscle mass. What is that doing to their adrenals/cortisol/thyroid?

That being said, I do expect to lose some poundage at some point and if I hit a plateau in strength gains and don't start seeing some weight loss I'll consider dietary adjustments and hormone testing.

You'll find a continuation of this information on: http://forum.lowcarber.org/showthread.php?t=402765

But yeah, the "fill-in-the-blank-works-for-me-so..." is ridiculous. If nutrition issues were that simple, we'd all be bone thin and have muscle up the wazoo.

The reality is that no WOE will work if you have unresolved metabolic issues, and the corollary is likely true as well: if you're healthy as a horse, metabolically speaking, any WOE will likely work for you.

The medicine I'm taking now has begun to heal me (Nature-Throid, a different brand of Armour that's a T4/T3 combo), and the medicine that will arrive soon (Cytomel, pure T3) should be the final step. Now that I'm eating a decent amount of carb again (I've gone from less than induction 20g that I ate for almost two years to about 60g a day including -- yes -- bread and potatoes and rice) I fully expect the T3 (cytomel) will start the weight loss again and my metabolism will finally return to normal.

Interesting isn't it, that I've gone from eating less than 20g carb a day while not only unable to lose a pound, but slowly gaining -- to taking the right meds and eating 60g carb a day (with the same amount of fat and calories) and all weight gain has ceased. I even lost a pound of fat (not water weight) last week, the first loss in months. And my temperature has gone from a chilly mid-day 96.4 to 98.4! With the new T3 med, I expect to reach 98.6 within a week. Woohooo.

Oh, yeah -- and exercise has NOTHING to do with it. One way or the other.

Lisa

It doesn't. I do exactly the same training. Before starting NT, I had lots of weight gain over the course of a year that I convinced myself was muscle. Actually, there was muscle, a fair bit of it, but there was just plain weight gain as well.

I took five months off to try and research and fix what was wrong with me. I did find out, then started thyroid meds and finally went back to train again. Upshot: I'm stronger and more muscular than ever --- and I've lost a pound of fat. I expect to lose a lot more, and I don't expect any weight gain at all, except for the few pounds of water weight I get for a few days after a very intense session as my muscle repair begins.

Lisa

Well, if you are hypothyroid I suppose that may be more of a factor than exercise or even diet, up to a point. However I am not hypothyroid as far as I know. My temp is normal (lately I've felt extra warm most of the time) and every thyroid test I've had has come back normal.

Hi Lisa!
Firs of all...way to go on figuring it out for your body!!
I have a question...that may seem leading but here goes:
Do you think that staying at 20 grams of carbs a day for 2 yrs made your thyroid condition worse? or not effect at all?

Thanks!

Judy, not only did the staying at 20g carbs for 2 years make my thyroid 'worse' -- it created the problem to begin with. And tonight of all times, I found the proof.

Let me explain. Prior to 2 years ago, I had lost 65 pounds by eating a moderately LC diet. Took me three years, but I didn't mind and I never gained even an ounce back. Then, about 20 pounds from my goal, I stopped losing. Dead in the water. I thought it was just a stall but no matter what I did nothing worked. I read all the advice on these forums about how I probably had carb creep, and how I should lower my carbs even more. So I did. VL, and stayed that way. Of course to no avail. I slowly gained back ten pounds for absolutely, positively NO reason.

Tonight I went back and looked at all my medical lab tests from then to now. Back then I started with a great lipid panel, very high HDL, low TG's (normal for a low-carber) with good TC and LDL.

But. Six months later (about 18 months ago), that changed. The HDL and TGs stayed great -- but my TC kept going up. For no reason (I thought). And up. And up. And up. Every blood test brought higher TC. By the time I realized I had a thyroid problem, and that unexplained, out-of-the-ordinary high TC is actually one of the better-known symptoms, I was up to 381. Tonight I found out why.

Peripheral Metabolism of Thyroid Hormones

<http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0FDN/is_4_5/ai_65068470/?tag=content;col1>

Turns out T3 and rT3 are made, not in the thyroid, but in the liver. T3, in fact, is one of the hormones that signals the liver that there is sufficient cholesterol in the body. But rT3 is an inhibitor of T3! So of course as my rT3 reservoir grew, and my liver did not receive the proper signaling from my diminishing T3 -- it made more cholesterol, just as it's supposed to do under normal circumstances.

And of course, at every physical/lab test, my rT3 problem was growing, the T3 signaling was getting weaker, and the liver was churning out more and more of what it thought was needed. Which meant my TC numbers kept rising. This also explains a well-known side effect of T3 supplementation: drastically lower TC. I just figured all this out myself (after reading the article and putting 2 and 2 together, and I feel like I've just had a Eureka moment!

Was the VLC and the ever-growing TC a coincidence that just happened at exactly the same time? Not a chance. The VLC suppressed my T4 to T3 conversion, as it has been proven to do, and once the rT3 problem grew, it explained every single one of my symptoms. Including the high TC. And the slightly high T4 and lower TSH lab results -- exactly what a doctor would look at and say: "Perfectly normal."

Yeah, on the surface. Underneath the surface wasn't so pretty, but unless you insist on a rT3 test, and I do mean insist, you'll never know. You'll be told your thyroid is 'fine', you'll believe it, and you'll continue to think your 'stall' is your fault.

Now I know and I hope everyone reading this knows -- that it's not. If you believe your thyroid tests are 'normal' and the only hypo symptom you have is the inability to lose weight when you know you should be losing it -- and you have NOT had an rT3 test -- you've had no thyroid tests at all worth a damn.

My 2cents; YMMV

Lisa

Thank you for sharing all this. It's fascinating.

Somewhere along this line I think I missed a stitch. I apologize, I'm probably just fuzzy-brained at the moment. Could you go over a couple things I'm not clear on? That being:

1. Why, specifically, does eating 20 vs. 60 carbs cause the body to generate more rT3 (instead of T4 which would get normally made into regular T3)? I mean what is allegedly happening that is the cause of this, which 40 more carbs changes?

You might not know, this one, but:

2. If eating too-few-carbs can cause some kind of rT3 meltdown in the body, shouldn't eating more carbs 'cure' it without necessarily having to do thyroid hormone itself? (Why not, if not, just wondering!)

PJ

Good question. It's similar to asking: "So too few calories can create a rT3 problem? Okay, but just how many is too few?"

There is no one 'right' number, because it depends on the individual, but there is a general consensus in the medical research community that in terms of carbs you need to eat enough to keep you out of long-term ketosis. It's not the ketosis itself that's the problem, it's the cascading effect it causes that sets the rT3 off. And remember, it doesn't happen to everyone.

However, there may also be another issue at work here in regard to who VLC does or doesn't affect. There was a ground-breaking article in the May 2009 issue of Endocrinology in which researchers said they discovered a thyroid gene that predisposes the carrier to a T4 to rT3 problem. What's really shocking? The gene is in about 16% of all humans. That's almost one in every five people!

The article doesn't talk about what turns that gene on or off (the 'expression' or non-expression), or whether or not women are carriers at a higher rate than men, but as research on the gene continues I'm guessing they will find a gender link and low calorie/carb link as well. Call it an educated hypothesis for now.


Another good question! This one I do know the answer to. Once the 'reservoir' of rT3 has been created, and the cell signaling is interrupted, you need to clear the cell receptors of rT3 before normal signaling can resume. They say it takes about 12 or so weeks of pure T3 supplementation for this to happen.

Once the rT3 is cleared out (without T4 intake there's no conversion taking place -- and since the T3 supplement doesn't need to be converted but goes straight to the liver for normal processing), I will hopefully no longer need the T3 at that point. And by eating more calories and carbs, I should be able to prevent the problem from happening again. I won't really know everything is fine until the lab tests show me that it is.

Lisa

Hogamous , higamous, Man is carnivorous.
Higamous, hogamous, Woman is omnivorous. ???

With perhaps apologies to William James.

Thanks for answering my question in such detail!!
You are a powerhouse of good and valuable information.

LOL! I haven't heard that little rhyme in years and years!

I remember it:

Higamous, hogamous, women are monogamists
Hagamous, Higamous, men are polygamists

Just bookmarking this fascinating thread.

(awriter-thanks again for recommending swansonvitamins. I have been ordering from them since you told me about the site.)