Is It Really Your Thyroid? The Truth About Weight Gain, Fatigue and “Normal” Labs with Dietitian Priscilla Swahn

In today’s episode of Bite Back with Abbey Sharp, we’re cutting through the misinformation surrounding thyroid health and nutrition. Joined by registered dietitian and thyroid health specialist Priscilla Swahn, we unpack how the thyroid actually impacts metabolism and weight, why you may still have symptoms despite “normal” labs, what the science says about popular thyroid diets and supplements, and what actually matters when managing thyroid dysfunction. Here’s a run down of what we discussed in today’s episode: What Does Your Thyroid Actually Do? Hypothyroidism vs. Hyperthyroidism Symptoms Can Your Thyroid Labs Be “Normal” but You Still Feel Off? How Much Does Your Thyroid Affect Weight Loss? Does Thyroid Medication Cause Weight Loss? How Chronic Dieting Can Affect Your Thyroid Thyroid Diet & Supplement Myths, Debunked What Should You Actually Eat for Thyroid Health? The Problem With the “Broken Metabolism” Narrative Your Weight Doesn’t Need a Medical Explanation Check in with today’s amazing guest: Priscilla Swahn www.priscillaswahn.com The Hormone & Thyroid Healing Podcast www.instagram.com/priscillaswahn.rd 👩🏼‍💻 RESEARCH LINKS https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3219766/ https://www.thyroid.org/thyroid-and-weight/ https://academic.oup.com/jcem/article/105/4/e1741/5771362 https://europepmc.org/article/MED/24936556 DISCLAIMER: The content in this episode is for educational and entertainment purposes only and is never a substitute for medical advice. If you’re struggling with with your mental or physical health, please work one on one with a health care provider. If you have heard yourself in our discussion today, and are looking for support, contact the free NEDIC helpline at 1-866-NEDIC-20 or go to eatingdisorderhope.com. — 📚 GRAB MY BOOK: The Hunger Crushing Combo Method ⤵️ Learn how to reach your healthiest weight without dieting using evidence based nutrition strategies. Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0306836793?tag=hacboogrosit-20 More purchase options: https://www.abbeyskitchen.com/hunger-crushing-combo/ 🎙 LISTEN TO BITE BACK WITH ABBEY SHARP ⤵️ Real conversations about nutrition, wellness, diet culture, parenting, and the biggest food debates. https://lnk.to/Bite-Back?utm_source=hoobe&utm_medium=social ⭐ Enjoying the podcast? Follow Bite Back on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you're enjoying the show, leaving a rating or review really helps support it! ✉️ SUBSCRIBE TO MY NEWSLETTER https://abbeyskitchen.myflodesk.com/kd6ijl0y3e 🥞 FREE Hunger Crushing Combo™ E-Book https://www.abbeyskitchen.com/hunger-crushing-combo/ 💪 FREE Protein 101 Guide https://www.abbeyskitchen.com/protein-intake-recommendations/ 📖 MY FIRST COOKBOOK: The Mindful Glow Cookbook Amazon: https://amzn.to/2nev0lf 👩🏼‍💻 COACHING: 🍽️ Feeding Kids Without Diet Culture Webinar Raise confident eaters without food battles, guilt, or diet culture. https://www.abbeyskitchen.com/coaching/ 📈 Business Coaching Build and grow your online brand with proven social media and business strategies. https://www.abbeyskitchen.com/coaching/ 🤝 Personalized One-on-One Coaching Tailored support for content creation, business growth, podcasting, AI, brand partnerships, and more. https://www.abbeyskitchen.com/coaching/ 📱 FOLLOW ME @abbeysharprd Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/abbeysharprd TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@abbeysharprd Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/abbeysharprd Pinterest: https://ca.pinterest.com/abbeysharprd 🌐 VISIT MY WEBSITE Healthy recipes, nutrition resources, parenting advice, and evidence based articles. https://www.abbeyskitchen.com 💬 If you enjoyed this episode, please leave me a comment below with your thoughts and let me know what you'd like to see next! With Science & Sass, Xoxo Abbey 🌸 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Speaker 00

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• 0:32Speaker 01

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• 1:00Abbey Sharp?

  It's like we have demanded that women find this pathological origin story for their weight gain because our culture treats ordinary body diversity and the fact that bodies change as we age as some kind of personal failure.

• 1:18Abbey Sharp?

  Welcome to another episode of Bite Back with Abby Sharp, where I dismantle diet culture rules, call out the charlatans spinning the pseudoscience, and help you achieve food freedom for good. Today, we're diving into what has become a bit of an enigma in a lot of online spaces, and that is thyroid nutrition and health. To many, the thyroid is this mysterious organ that is seemingly at fault for all that ails us. The fatigue, the brain fog, the hair loss, constipation, depression, and the difficulty losing weight. And because many of these symptoms are overwhelmingly common and nonspecific, especially for women

• 2:01Abbey Sharp?

  also navigating perimenopause or other life changes, the thyroid health community online has become a magnet for wellness culture BS. From grifty root cause protocols to hyper restrictive diet hacks to sketchy supplement stacks promising to fix a broken metabolism, it has become increasingly difficult to tell where legitimate thyroid care ends and fear-based misinformation begins. So to help us sort through the noise, today I'm joined by registered dietitian and thyroid health specialist Priscilla Swan. We're going to be unpacking how the thyroid

• 2:41Abbey Sharp?

  actually affects your metabolism and weight, why your labs may be normal, but you feel anything but, what the research actually says about all of those miracle thyroid supplements and superfoods, and what you should be focusing on if you are struggling with thyroid dysfunction. A quick reminder here that the information in this episode is for entertainment purposes only, and I always recommend working with an RD and medical team for one-on-one care. Also, if you have not already subscribed to Bite Back, I really would appreciate if you would. It really does help me spread the word. So please do your little shares, leave me your love notes on the episodes, and thank you in advance for all of your

• 3:21Abbey Sharp?

  support. All right, friends, let's dive in. All right. Thank you so much, Priscilla. I'm very excited to chat with you. So thanks for joining us on Bite Back.

• 3:30Speaker 03

  Absolutely. Thank you for having me. I'm so excited.

• 3:33Abbey Sharp?

  Okay, so you know, to set up these conversations, like I often like to kind of start with some basic definitions because we know a lot of the time, you know, people hear a word on on social media, in this case thyroid or hypothyroid, and we maybe like know it's related to weight or metabolism or energy levels, but we don't necessarily understand fully what it does. So can you, can you help set the stage and tell us what even a thyroid is and what a normal, healthy thyroid is designed to do?

• 4:07Speaker 03

  100%. Yes. And you are so correct. I feel like it's gaining a lot of traction on social media and then women naturally are just saying, hey, it must be my thyroid. And that's what's going on. And they might not be wrong. And so, um, yeah, so the thyroid, it's that little butterfly gland right in the front of your throat. And it's the powerhouse of a lot going on as far as hormones and your metabolism. And so that is the primary issue that we're seeing is when it's not working appropriately, even becomes suboptimal, then your metabolism becomes a little more sluggish, the metabolic rate, as we call it.

• 4:48Abbey Sharp?

  Yes, yes. It's really in charge of, you know, it's the metabolic regulator, you know, resting metabolic rate, body temp, heat, heart function, blood circulation, metabolism of different macronutrients, fluid, salt balance, nervous system, like muscle, digestive motility, like it really plays a role in so many different things. It's kind of the Jill of all trades, so to speak, and it's, it influences every system in the body to some capacity. But can you just kind of tell us what, what kind of symptoms does that translate into if we're looking at hypothyroidism or low thyroid hormone versus hyperthyroidism, AKA high levels?

• 5:27Speaker 03

  Yeah. So hypothyroidism, the most common one that we hear a lot about is the weight gain. And then also it can affect our temperature. So feeling more cold all the time, even when it's hot outside, hair loss, uh, low energy, those are prominent hypothyroid symptoms. And then hyperthyroid is the exact opposite. You're losing weight, you're a little more jittery, like you had too much coffee, a little more heart palpitations going on, anxiety, on edge, and a little more restless and hard to sleep at night.

• 6:02Abbey Sharp?

  I would bet, uh, all my savings that every woman listening to this episode right now is probably, you know, hearing this long list of symptoms, whether we're talking about the hypothyroidism or the hyperthyroidism, and thinking, oh, my God, that's me. That's me. Like, I have fatigue, I struggle with, I struggle to lose weight, I feel puffy or bloated. Um, so these are pretty like nonspecific symptoms that could be related to thyroid dysfunction, but it could also have, you know, a multitude of other explanations. So, you know, obviously, the next critical step here is for your doctor to run some tests. And, and so, you know, for folks listening, usually the first test is TSH, my goodness,

• 6:47Abbey Sharp?

  uh, thyroid stimulating hormone. Um, but then, you know, sometimes doctors will also want to look for T4, T3, possibly antibodies essentially. Um, but let's just say you do all that and your labs come back within range and your doctors are like, yep, you're good. Is that it? Or are we sure we're good?

• 7:06Speaker 03

  Yeah. And I love that you threw out there the antibodies because I was going to throw that out there because you're right, doctors, most of the time just draw the TSH. And then it's like, no, no, no, let's go back, get the T3, T4 as well. We want to make things, make sure things are converting well in the gut and the liver. And then lastly, the antibodies. But if you've done all the things and you're just like, oh, it's still normal, then that's when we want to discover, is it more of a metabolic issue? Are there allergens out there as far as celiac disease going on? Just checking the boxes for these things. But a lot of women are still left feeling crazy, like, oh, what's wrong with

• 7:47Speaker 03

  me? And I have still found that research has shown that it can take up to 10 years for a thyroid condition to fully develop, where it shows on the paperwork that you're getting back from your doctor on the labs. And so you can be developing all those symptoms during the course of these 10 years. So, okay, a little less, you know, you can't eat carbs like you used to, or drink that soda, or have as many glasses of wine. You're starting to see it. And so that's where it's maybe where I say, normal isn't your optimal thyroid level as well. Some people operate at a better level for their thyroid.

• 8:26Abbey Sharp?

  Yeah, I think, I think what's really important for folks to know, and this is not just when it comes to thyroid number, lab values, but a single lab value can really only tell us so much because a reference range of what is quote unquote normal, um, these aren't magical borders where symptoms suddenly switch on and off, like you've said here. And, you know, reference ranges typically describe just 95% of a healthy population, not necessarily any one individual's ideal thyroid set point. Um, so as you mentioned, when it comes to like the progression of these things, patterns are really important. And so, you know, what are our thyroid levels before versus after when symptoms started?

• 9:09Abbey Sharp?

  So for example, if you think about a free T4 reference range being from 10 to 20 picomoles per liter, which is a pretty big range of what is quote unquote normal, one person's usual value might always be at 11, while another person always sits at 19, but the change from 19 to 12 would still remain technically quote unquote normal, but it's a significant departure from that person's kind of historic pattern or what their normal is.

• 9:39Speaker 03

  Absolutely.

• 9:40Abbey Sharp?

  So I think that, you know, don't just think that you check something once and then, okay, then you don't need to worry about it again. These things, we're looking for patterns, same with blood sugars and things like that. Um, and so, you know, when you look at twin studies and family studies, um, they suggest that about two thirds of person-to-person variation in, in thyroid levels in the concentrations are genetically influenced. So this is really like, we all have our individually genetically regulated set points. And we need to be paying attention to our own numbers as opposed to just what that range says is good or bad. Yeah. Now, one of the most common complaints, obviously

• 10:23Abbey Sharp?

  amongst folks with hypothyroidism is this experience of having this sluggish metabolism, difficulty losing weight, as you mentioned. How much exactly of an impact does the thyroid or hypothyroidism play in your metabolism and body weight?

• 10:40Speaker 03

  Yeah. So it, it does have a big impact as it is correlated to your metabolic rate dropping. So that's the amount of energy your body is burning. So for other people's, eating 2,000 calories, their body's going to burn that right off, whereas you, it might not do it as fast and it's going to conserve some of that as fat to store for later. But at the same time, women can make this so much harder on themselves by eating less and less, working out harder and harder. And that's just telling that metabolic rate like, oh, at first we'll lose a little weight, but we're starving ourselves. I have to protect

• 11:23Speaker 03

  you. We're gonna keep decreasing that amount of energy that we're burning so we can save that as fat because we don't know if we're gonna eat again. And that's compounding the issue even further.

• 11:34Abbey Sharp?

  Right. Yes. And I mean, I want to just kind of take a moment to be mindful that, that, you know, talking about this, you know, how much of your, of your weight gain, for example, is, is due to your hypothyroidism. It can be a very sensitive topic to unpack because, you know, if we are to suggest that the thyroid, the pathology only accounts for modest metabolic variations, it feels like we're shifting that blame back onto the individual despite their lived experience of weight loss feeling very, very hard. But then, of course, if we are just kind of saying, oh, well, every difficult weight loss experience is just a thyroid problem and that's it. And it mean ignoring those other factors, as you've mentioned of over restriction or over exercising. And, you know, also kind

• 12:19Abbey Sharp?

  of falsely implies that bodies should be predictably controllable as long as, you know, lab values are within range. But as we just talked about, that's not necessarily, you know, that's not necessarily what's going on. And so what I found really interesting when I was doing research here was that, you know, the American Thyroid Association estimates that hypothyroidism accounts for about five to 10 pounds of excess body weight or difficulty losing five to 10 pounds. And then, you know, weight gained beyond that is due to a very variety of different factors, over restriction, you know, you know, over exercising, genetic, environmental, medication, reproductive, behavioral factors that, you

• 13:02Abbey Sharp?

  know, affect weight in everybody. So I think that, you know, it's, it's definitely important to, to recognize, you know, where the initial challenge was. But then, as you said, sometimes the things that diet culture has taught us to do to fix that or to reverse that may actually be doing more harm than good.

• 13:23Speaker 03

  1,000%. Yes.

• 13:25Abbey Sharp?

  And maybe you can speak to that a bit, like over restriction, you know, under fueling, under eating, chronic dieting, disordered eating. What is the impact of that on our thyroid levels?

• 13:40Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah. So it definitely compounds the issue. Like you said, there's already an issue, but I love that you brought up the research, like five to 10 pounds extra. Like, okay, maybe I can live with a five to 10 pound extra difference. But I think what happens in the mindset is so powerful. As women, we feel like we're losing control the moment we see the scale go up. We freak out and we're like, I'm gonna control this. And so instead of just gaining the five to 10 pounds as they're eating less and less, working out harder and harder, over restricting, that scale is going up more and more as that metabolic rate is dropping further. And so it takes a toll on your metabolism, the mindset,

• 14:22Speaker 03

  and nutrient deficiencies, the absorption of that inflammation. And we just see all these hormonal imbalances start to snowball, so to say. And it just gets worse and worse. All the symptoms that were hypothyroidism become mega thyroid issues.

• 14:38Abbey Sharp?

  Right, right. And so, you know, I want to come back to that piece when it comes to, you know, what do we do here? But I also want to note that, you know, in your experience, for example, knowing that a lot of women are struggling with their, their weight and whether they've been, you know, hyper restricting because this started as just like, you know, a minor hypothyroidism, and then it's of course snowballed or not. In your experience, when the thyroid is treated via, you know, medication, and let's say labs fall back within quote, quote, "normal range," does it automatically just reverse all the symptoms and poof, the weight just falls off? And, or is it more of just like a leveling of

• 15:20Abbey Sharp?

  the playing field to an average person's weight loss trajectory?

• 15:24Speaker 03

  Yeah. So what I commonly see with women that come to me with a thyroid condition, they're put on a thyroid medication like levothyroxine. And maybe at first, they start to feel a little regulated, a little better. But then it just goes back to feeling crummy and seeing the scale go up, inflamed, exhausted. And they go back to the doctor, and that's where this frustration comes from, is their labs are in the normal range because the thyroid stimulating hormones are doing exactly what they're supposed to do, bringing it into balance. But there is a lot of underlying issues that that medication can't address, such as the metabolic health, the stress, the inflammation that's in that body. So

• 16:09Speaker 03

  even clients that even go on something like a GLP-1, Ozempic, they'll see the scale even going down. It might help with that, but they're still feeling very blah. And they're still like, why am I not feeling better? And that's when I say, because you haven't addressed the underlying issues of all these years of the stress, inflammation that you've put on your body.

• 16:34Speaker 00

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• 17:06Speaker 00

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• 17:37Speaker 01

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• 18:09Abbey Sharp?

  Yeah, I think that's really, really important to note because, you know, often a lot of folks, you know, including those who are abusing medications like levothyroxine, see this as kind of like a weight loss medication. Oh, I'll just go on this medication. I'll drop all the, all the weight. And, and, you know, when, when I dug into the data, there was one review that found that only 52% of patients lost weight within two years of starting these medications. And the average loss among that, the full group was only 0.1 kilograms. So, you know, if you are banking on this being kind of like, oh, this is the panacea, this is going to change my life, this is, this is all that needs to happen. And then everything's going to fall into place. And you're not addressing some

• 18:54Abbey Sharp?

  of those kind of other issues that, that I'm hoping to get into now. You know, you may not see the full recovery that you're, that you're after.

• 19:04Speaker 03

  1,000%. Yeah.

• 19:05Abbey Sharp?

  And can you now like, tell us a little bit about like, what is your approach when you are working with a client or patient who they've started the medication, maybe it hasn't yielded the results that they were hoping that it would. What are some of the kind of, you know, underlying issues that we need to tackle at this point?

• 19:25Speaker 03

  Yeah. So when patients come to me, they always say they just want to feel better. But overall, the data shows they all want to lose the weight. And then the cherry on top is feeling better and improving the lab work along the way. And so I, as a dietitian, I want to honor the aspect, okay, if you need to lose weight, let's lose weight. But I also want to address that in a very gentle way because they've gone years dieting. And I do not want them to go into a restrictive mindset. But at the same time, we, what I see is some of the three overarching root issues with thyroid conditions is insulin resistance, inflammation in the gut, and then stress in the body. So adrenal fatigue

• 20:08Speaker 03

  is what we're seeing going on. And it's starting to peel back those layers in a mindful, gentle, anti-inflammatory way that we start to see improvement across the board.

• 20:21Abbey Sharp?

  And so what are some of the kind of best practices, so to speak, when it comes to nutrition for folks with hypothyroidism?

• 20:29Speaker 03

  Yeah. So the biggest one is I take a mindful, gentle approach. And so I start telling my clients, let's start having a breakfast, lunch, and dinner, snacks as eat, as needed, and eating till full. And trust me, that freaks out 99% of my clients because they're like, I'm going to gain weight, don't you know? And I'm like, you've been under eating, like probably under 1,200 calories for years, every day. And so that's just one of the things because we want to start getting the metabolism to trust us again. It's a relationship.

• 21:03Abbey Sharp?

  Yes.

• 21:03Speaker 03

  And so starting to wake that up. And then we do take an anti-inflammatory approach at first. So we do go gluten free, dairy free at first while going low carb. So to be gentle, heal that inflammation, the insulin resistance. But I always tell my clients, that's not the end goal. You're not going to do this forever. As long as you don't have an allergy, we can, it's like a muscle. We have to start out gentle with our weights, but we can make it stronger, more resilient. And that's how it is with food as the body is healing.

• 21:35Abbey Sharp?

  Okay, this is really, really great. I thought we would play a little quickfire myth busting. I love doing this with my kind of healthcare professional guests. And so I want to ask you about a number of different online hypothyroid kind of cure lore that we hear about online. You tell me if it's more of a hype or hack or, you know, in what circumstance it makes sense.

• 21:58Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 21:58Abbey Sharp?

  Sound good?

• 21:59Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 22:00Abbey Sharp?

  Bladder whack, bladder rack? I read it and I was like, what the heck is that? That does not sound yummy.

• 22:07Speaker 03

  Oh, gosh. I'm always having to be up to date on this. And I even had to look that one up. I was like, what the hell is this? And I've had individuals come to me and I, and so it's eating seaweed, a certain type of raw seaweed, apparently. And I've had individuals ask me about this, I guess, and. It's, it's all not great. It's not a hack. And even with that, it's a highly absorbable type of plant seaweed seaweed is. So it can actually absorb a lot of the metals apparently around it. And it can affect the absorption of your thyroid medication. So no.

• 22:42Abbey Sharp?

  Ah, no, we don't like that. Okay. Now you kind of alluded to this one, but gluten free, dairy free diet for life.

• 22:49Speaker 03

  No, I do not recommend that unless they have celiac disease.

• 22:53Abbey Sharp?

  Yes. Okay. Fair. That makes sense. That's excellent. And what is the, and is the idea of removing it at the beginning to help to essentially gently reintroduce foods as the gut is?

• 23:05Speaker 03

  Exactly. Cause the gut is just like, hey, we're angry right now. We're reacting to everything we eat. So if we can just take out a couple of foods and provide a nice, less inflamed gut. And then it's more gentle to reintroduce.

• 23:18Abbey Sharp?

  Got it. So lower FODMAP to kind of, yeah. Okay. Cool. Cool. Brazil nuts every single day.

• 23:25Speaker 03

  So Brazil nuts is a tricky one. So selenium is amazing for the thyroid. However, there's a caveat. We do not want to go crazy with the Brazil nuts because there is such a thing as selenium toxicity. So don't take the bag of Brazil nuts. Just have like one to three max a day. Or, but don't take that with a selenium supplement. It's one or the other.

• 23:46Abbey Sharp?

  Right. Okay. Love that. Okay. Fluoride free water, fluoride free toothpaste, no fluoride at all.

• 23:53Speaker 03

  I don't recommend that. I think fluoride is great for the body. There's lots of research out there. And I have yet to find anything that says, don't do it. And the main thing is if you have an iodying deficiency, that can affect the fluoride that you're consuming. So let's address the deficiency and that won't be as much of a problem anymore.

• 24:13Abbey Sharp?

  Okay. I love that. I love that. Tyrosine supplements.

• 24:18Speaker 03

  I'm not a fan of supplements in general. I'm one of the weird dietitians because your body is so inflamed, the gut. And so you're hardly absorbing anything you're getting it supplement wise. So let's take that out of the equation and just heal it with food. And then your labs start to improve. And if you have a true deficiency after several months, then we can look at that. But I don't think that's necessary.

• 24:40Abbey Sharp?

  And what is, what is the, why tyrosine? Like, why is that the amino acid people talk about?

• 24:45Speaker 03

  Because there's a lot of things. I mean, gonna be honest, I'm not the expert when it comes to all these supplements. Because I'm just like, why do we even need these? But it, there's a lot of people saying like, it has a lot of benefit to the thyroid. We need tyrosine. And so it just gains a lot of traction in that.

• 25:02Abbey Sharp?

  Yes. I, that makes, that makes sense. As do all these, all these trends, don't they?

• 25:06Speaker 03

  Yep. We all think more and more is better.

• 25:09Abbey Sharp?

  Absolutely. Okay. Here's another one that I hear probably a lot is avoiding all cruciferous vegetables.

• 25:16Speaker 03

  No. So that's the biggest thing. So when someone is very inflamed, they come to me and they're like, I can't eat anything. And I'm like, okay, that's when we go back to it's just several foods and we can get there. But there's a lot of research. So you might hear cruciferous or goitrogenic foods. You should avoid that with a thyroid condition. And I found research that said you'd have to eat insane amounts of those foods to actually affect your thyroid. Like insane, like it's not attainable. And then with the cruciferous veggies, I have found, you know, we think, oh, it's 20 foods. I, if you still have gut issues after a month of targeting some of those main inflammatory foods, then it might just be one or two of those foods.

• 25:59Speaker 03

  Like broccoli or cauliflower. It's not all of them.

• 26:02Abbey Sharp?

  Right. And that I guess also kind of plays into the, the FODMAPs, the gas production going kind of easier. Vegetables that are easier to digest perhaps than the cauliflower and the kale and all that stuff. Okay. That's really helpful because obviously these are really nutritious foods. And we don't want to encourage people to cut these things out if they, if they don't have to. So I think that's great. Yeah. Okay. Then my last one is vitamin D mega doses.

• 26:30Speaker 03

  So I'm not a fan of anything mega dose. So it's kind of like the idea of vitamin C powders that we take during the winter. And honestly, the body can only absorb so much of that vitamin C. We get rid of the rest. So the vitamin D, you can also get toxicity. You can be overdosed in vitamin D if we're taking too much. So just take a standard like 2,500 micrograms or talk with your doctor. Don't go crazy with it. We don't want to hurt a good thing.

• 26:58Abbey Sharp?

  Yes, absolutely. I love that. Yeah. And I mean, really with any of these supplements, the benefits in the data, in the research are really only there when we're correcting a deficiency. So more is not necessarily more. And so again, it really speaks to the importance of kind of getting blood work. And you know, working with a registered dietitian because hypothyroidism is not just like, you know, people with hypothyroidism, not a homogenous group. Like everyone is going to react to different foods differently. And their journeys are going to look very different depending on where they started and where they're going. So I think this just reinforces that we don't want to kind of go in there with a blanket supplement stack or diet for everyone.

• 27:43Abbey Sharp?

  And so, you know, it really pays to be working with a registered dietitian like yourself who can kind of help walk you through what works best for you and your body. So that's so helpful. And if you, you know, for, for folks who are struggling with hypothyroidism or symptoms of hypothyroidism, and they're not able to get a diagnosis because their lab work looks great. Do you have any kind of words of encouragement or support for those who are feeling like frustrated by the lack of answers? And the lack of solutions of what to do in this situation?

• 28:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, absolutely. So even if the labs are coming back normal or you're just like, what do I do? All the overwhelming information is contradictoring itself. And so I usually just say, be gentle and less is more when it comes to women and our hormones and our thyroid. So if all you can start doing is just being, having your breakfast, lunch and dinner and start being mindful at those meals. Maybe within 30 minutes to two hours and think, hmm, is there a trend in this food that I'm eating? Where I'm feeling really exhausted or bloated and take just note of that food. And you might surprise yourself and it might just be two or three foods that are affecting your mood, your exhaustion or the weight.

• 29:02Speaker 03

  And then test it out. You know, at the end of the day, just test in a healthy way.

• 29:07Abbey Sharp?

  Yes, yes. I, and I think it's really important because often, you know, as women, we have become accustomed to, you know, tracking things for the sake of macros or calories or for restricting or cutting things. And there is a gentler way when we're basically using this as data, collecting data to better understand how different foods and meals and combinations make us feel. How they keep us satiated, how our energy levels are, how, you know, our digestion is after a particular meal. And to use that data non-judgmentally to inform, you know, future meals and snacks and, and, and choices that we make from a place of self-care

• 29:48Abbey Sharp?

  rather than a place of self-denial. So, I mean, I really appreciate what you do in, in this world. You know, the thyroid world, I'm sure you know, is full of a lot of grifters online. And there's no shortage of miss and disinformation. So where can friends find you if they're looking for, you know, more information and more support?

• 30:11Speaker 03

  Absolutely. So I'm on Instagram at priscillaswan dot R D or on my website, priscillaswahn.com. And so definitely reach out. We have so many resources available.

• 30:22Abbey Sharp?

  Amazing. Well, thank you so much, Priscilla.

• 30:24Speaker 03

  Yeah. Thank you so much, Abbey.

• 30:26Abbey Sharp?

  Okay. Such an interesting conversation and one that I think likely resonates with a lot of women, even if they do not have a confirmed thyroid dysfunction. You know, for so many women who have struggled with their weight all their lives, getting a confirmed diagnosis of something like hypothyroidism may in some ways become like a thin layer of armor against a diet culture that otherwise assumes that gaining weight or not being able to easily lose it is simply a marker of laziness or lack of discipline. It's like we have demanded that women find this pathological origin story for their weight gain.

• 31:08Abbey Sharp?

  Because our culture treats ordinary body diversity and the fact that bodies change as we age as some kind of personal failure. But when you really interrogate that expectation, you really can't unsee the damage of weight stigma. Even the language we often use in thyroid health communities of having a quote unquote, broken metabolism reinforces the idea that a body is only functioning properly if it is easy to make smaller. So when thyroid treatment may improve labs, but does not produce dramatic weight loss as discussed is not uncommon. People may feel betrayed or believe that they have failed yet again.

• 31:52Abbey Sharp?

  But I just want to remind all of you listening that you do not need abnormal blood work to be worthy of compassion. Your body size does not become more acceptable because a lab test explains it. And it does not become less acceptable when the tests come back normal. We can take symptoms seriously, investigate them thoroughly and provide evidence-based care without turning weight into the ultimate measure of whether a treatment worked or not. So if you are feeling frustrated by your body, exhausted by the search for an explanation or convinced that you just have not found the right diagnosis or supplement or protocol yet.

• 32:36Abbey Sharp?

  Please know that your experience is still valid. You deserve care that is curious, thorough and respectful. Not care that makes your worth contingent on the number on the scale or a flag on your blood test. But on that note, friends, I'm going to wrap it up here. I really hope that you enjoyed this episode of Bite Back. And if you did, I would love if you would subscribe to the podcast and leave me a five star review and a little love note on this episode. Cause it really does help me out. Also, you can check out my YouTube, Instagram and Tik Tok. I've got links to all of that in the show notes. But signing off with Science and SaaS, I'm Abbey Sharp. Thanks for listening.

• 33:25Speaker 03

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