Eating not Enough Won't Make U Lose Weight Faster

While you'll run across an occasional expert who recommend extremely low-calorie diets for weight loss with hypothyroidism, the majority of experts believe you may not be eating enough to maintain your metabolism. Dropping calories too low can lower your metabolism and send your body into "hoard" mode -- a process which thyroid patients are particularly susceptible to and which can offset weight loss efforts and keep you from success at your diet.

Personally, when I want to lose weight, going on a 1200 calorie or less per day diet is a sure-fire way to ensure that I don't lose a pound. And if you're dieting your heart out, and not getting anywhere, the problem may not be that you're eating too much -- you may be eating too little, and not in the right balance.

To calculate how many calories you need:

1. Dvide your current weight in pounds by 2.2, in order to convert your weight to kilograms.
2. Multiply you weight in kilograms by 30. (30 is the number of calories you need per pound of body weight.)

So, if you are 160 pounds, you divide 160 by 2.2, which equals 73 kilograms.

Multiply 73 kilograms by 30, which equals 2190, which would be how many calories you theoretically need to maintain your current weight of 160.

Subtract 200 calories for your thyroid condition, an estimate to reflect the reduction in your metabolism and calorie requirements.

1990 calories is now the estimated calorie requirements for you as a thyroid patient to maintain a weight of 160 pounds.

To lose weight, you need to cut your calorie requirements by 5 calories per kilogram, so that means you multiply your current weight in kilograms by 25 instead of 30.

So, in our example above, if you are 160 pounds, you divide 160 by 2.2, which equals 73 kilograms.

Multiply 73 kilograms by 25, which equals 1825, which would be how many calories you theoretically need to lose about a pound every ten days, at 3500 calories per pound).

Again, subtract 200 calories to account for your thyroid condition.

1625 calories is now the estimated calorie requirements for you as a thyroid patient to lose weight at a safe rate.

Also, most of the effective weight loss programs for thyroid patients also focus on breaking up those calories into multiple "mini-meals" per day.