Dr. Westin Childs Podcast: Thyroid | Weight Loss | Hormones

It’s well known that your thyroid controls and regulates your weight through its impact on your metabolism. As a result, it’s actually very common that patients with hypothyroidism end up gaining weight. But what patients usually don’t understand is that if you gain weight from hypothyroidism, only about 10-15 pounds of that weight is directly from your thyroid. So why is it that some thyroid patients gain 30, 40, or even 50 pounds after their diagnosis? The cause for this extra weight gain has more to do with fluid than with actual fat! And because fluid levels can shift rapidly from day to day, they are often responsible for the wide shifts in weight that many thyroid patients experience. The 3 main causes of this rapid weight gain include: 1. Swelling, edema, and water weight. Hypothyroidism puts your body in a state where holding fluid is much more likely due to a condition called myxedema. This thyroid-specific condition results in the accumulation of GAGs and hyaluronic acid in your tissue