HSOS #32: Is It Perimenopause or Your Thyroid?

If you’ve been chalking up weight gain, exhaustion, anxiety, brain fog, or cold sensitivity to perimenopause… pause. What if your thyroid is the real plot twist? In this episode, I share my own thyroid story and break down the labs every woman over 40 should understand before assuming it’s just hormones.

Let’s talk.

Welcome to Her Season of Strength—where women over 40 reclaim their bodies, their energy, and their voices, without apologies. I'm Kim Duffy—registered dietitian, personal trainer, mom, and your biggest hype woman when it comes to aging like you mean it.

This show isn’t about chasing skinny or counting wrinkles. It’s about building real strength—physical, emotional, and hormonal. Each week, I’ll share straight-talking nutrition tips, sustainable fitness strategies, and conversations that help you feel powerful in your skin once again.

Menopause is not an ending, it is only the beginning. This is your season of strength.

What We Talk About:

• The symptom list that gets blamed on perimenopause
• The moment my TSH came back at 15
• Why “I’m just busy” isn’t always the answer
• The labs most doctors don’t fully explain
• What Hashimoto’s actually means
• Why women over 40 are more vulnerable
• Medication myths and real talk
• The post-menopause curveball I didn’t expect
• The food shifts that truly matter
• How to advocate for yourself at your next appointment
• Link to Episode #10: What's Your Gut Telling YOU?

Links & resources for this episode:

Fit After 50+ Program: 8-Week Nutrition Coaching & Strength Program for menopausal women.  Join the interest list today for the best discounts, bonuses and updates about the next program coming Fall of 2026!

Free cheat sheet: "20 Tips to Crushing Menopause"

Join my free weekly newsletter list and get a new high protein recipe sent to your inbox every Thursday. 

Find me on social media: Instagram I Facebook I Tiktok

Transcript

[00:00:00] Hi there, and welcome to Her Season of Strength, where women over 40 reclaim their bodies, their energy, and their voices, without apologies. I'm Kim Duffy, registered dietitian, personal trainer, mom, and your biggest hype woman. When it comes to aging like you mean it, this show isn't about chasing skinny or counting wrinkles.

[00:00:20] It's about building real strength, physical, emotional, and hormonal. Each week, I'll share straight talking, nutrition tips, sustainable fitness strategies. And conversations that help you feel powerful in your skin. Once again, menopause isn't an ending. It's only the beginning. This is your season of strength.

[00:00:39] Hello and welcome back to her season of Strength. I am so happy you're here and I appreciate you taking just a minute out of your day to listen in to all things women over 40. I am just finishing up the first week of my program, the Fit After 50 program. It's my signature program for women over 40 who are looking to, build strength and to [00:01:00] truly understand the best nutrition to fuel their body for the best energy, for the best, strength and just for aging well, right?

[00:01:10] It's so cool to get to know, a new group of women and to understand their goals and their struggles and really diving in and creating a plan to help each of them be successful. It's just, it's really cool and I just love what I do. I won't be offering the next round of the Fit after 50 plus program until this fall, but, hey, you know what?

[00:01:30] If you are interested in being updated with kind of the latest. Updates of when the program's gonna launch and when I'll be doing, discounts or x or extra bonuses. Please feel free to join the interest list and I will put the link in the show notes. So I wanna talk today about something that I see frequently in, in clients when they come to me and we start, working on just.

[00:01:56] Their lifestyle and their habits and trying to make positive [00:02:00] changes. I see, women's women in their forties or early fifties coming into me for a full nutrition assessment, and that's where I just, I look at everything. I look at supplements, I look at medications. I look at your history.

[00:02:12] How you're eating during the day, what kind of movement you're doing, exercise, what are your goals and help to create a plan for reaching 'em. I see women come in and they're frustrated and they're seeing just a slow, steady weight gain. Even though they feel like they're doing all the same things they've always done, they're eating well, they're finding that they're exhausted.

[00:02:33] They're fatigued, they feel anxious or a little bit more depressed than normal. They see, I see this frequently, but they see hair thinning, they see constipation, and then they tell me that they're cold all the time and they're saying, ah, it must be perimenopause. It has to be hormonal changes. What can I do?

[00:02:54] And sometimes, yeah, absolutely. All these things can be related to perimenopause or [00:03:00] menopause. Because, hormones can wreak havoc right now. But sometimes it's the thyroid. And I don't just see this in my practice. I lived it right in my thir early thirties. I suddenly started gaining weight and I remember thinking, why is this happening?

[00:03:17] What's up? I was active, I was actually working at a gym during that time. My kids were little, so I was just doing a little side job at the gym, working in the fitness center as the dietician. I was working at the front desk and I had little kids, so I was like. Maybe it's just, I'm busy, right?

[00:03:34] These kids are busy, it's all day long. And, but I was so tired. It was a level of exhaustion that, that sleep didn't fix. I was I, it's so funny to say this, but like for a person who runs hot all the time, all my life, I've always ran hot. I struggle wearing sweaters 'cause I just get warm so easily.

[00:03:51] And so I'm always wearing layers. Putting a jacket on, putting it off. And even now, like at this time in my life it's even worse, just constantly on and [00:04:00] off and on and off. And I'm, like at night while I'm sleeping, it's like covers on, covers off. But at that point, like I can remember feeling cold and it hurt.

[00:04:09] It was like, I am so cold. It hurts almost when you get sick with the flu, it's like you get the chills. And I would sit, on the couch wrapped in blankets while everyone else was. They were I was like, isn't it freezing in here? And they're like, no, it's totally fine. And then I know that I've talked about this before, but like when my daughter, my middle daughter was, seven weeks old, I started having awful panic attacks, like really high anxiety because, it was hormonally related, but also it made me realize that I had struggled with anxiety like all my life, but never really could put.

[00:04:41] Could put words around it. But anyway, all of a sudden, these panic attacks are coming back and I had been so stable for so long, I was having heart palpitations, feeling like something's wrong in your body and you're just like, what's going on? What? Explain this. And at the time, I had three kids under the age of six, so what did I [00:05:00] tell myself?

[00:05:00] I'm just busy. I'm just stressed. I'm cleaning up. I'm just eating the kids' leftovers, chicken nuggets and mac and cheese. I need to stop that. I need to, start. Eating real food as compared to just cleaning up what they don't finish. And I minimized it. I blame myself because I never considered my thyroid.

[00:05:19] And finally I remember going in thinking, okay, something is wrong and I had no idea what, and my TSH, which is ideally, so it stands for Thyroid stimulating Hormone. It's ideally should be somewhere between 0.3 to 4.24. An adult female and mine was 15 and that's actually not crazy high. Like some women will come in and it'll be like hundreds, right?

[00:05:42] It was 15 and that wasn't a little off. That was, basically my body trying to get my thyroid to function by stimulating it. And it was not working. It was not listening. And so today I wanted to talk about how to tell the difference between, [00:06:00] menopausal symptoms and thyroid dysfunction, what labs you should ask for, what they actually mean, what Hashimoto's is, why women over 40, why are we at a bit higher risk for hypothyroid and what you like natural things that you can do about it.

[00:06:18] Natural and medications, right? So here's the takeaway though, is I want. I, if you're feeling off and it's off more than you feel like is just maybe hormonal changes. Don't automatically just assume it's hormones, right? It's a reason to take us into the doctor and get things checked out.

[00:06:37] And I feel like women over 40 should be knowing what their thyroid is and frequently getting it checked every year when they're going to the doctor, especially if they're having some kind of funky symptoms. Because thyroid disorders are much more common in women than men. Autoimmune conditions in general are more [00:07:00] common in women, we see that our risk of hypothyroid increases with age.

[00:07:06] And here is something really important. Estrogen influences how our high, our thyroid hormone is transported and used in the body. So when we see our estrogen fluctuating during perimenopause or dropping with post menopause, thyroid symptoms can really become more noticeable. On top of that, many women in their forties and fifties, they're juggling aging parents.

[00:07:29] They're juggling maybe kids careers, life stress, chronic stress can impact the thyroid conversion and our aal, our immune system balance. And pregnancy history matters too. Postpartum immune shifts can trigger autoimmune thyroid disease and even women that are getting. Getting pregnant, trying to get pregnant and struggling can be related to thyroid.

[00:07:54] Sometimes women after they get pregnant can see their thyroid whack out, and sometimes women will [00:08:00] have to get put on medication when they're first pregnant because it's really important to keep that stable. The thyroid does a lot of things and we do not want our thyroid going crazy when we're, cooking a baby inside.

[00:08:12] And genetics can play a role too. So if you're thinking, why now it's usually not random. It can be layers, right? And that doesn't mean your body's broken. It just means that multiple systems can be shifting at once, creating that perfect storm. So when you go to the doctor, here's maybe some labs you should ask for.

[00:08:33] And this is a lot of times when I'm talking to clients, I will, I don't want them to have to pay out of pocket for labs because frequently, you go in for your yearly physical and you're, your lab, the labs will be covered. So you can just say, tell the doctor, these are the symptoms I'm having and could we check thyroid?

[00:08:49] And sometimes, we can guide them as to what to check for. So a lot of times I'll say, okay, I want you to ask the doctor for a full thyroid panel, we wanna ask for a TSH, we wanna ask for a [00:09:00] free T four, a free T three. And if it's the first time, and thyroid's funky, asking for TPO antibodies.

[00:09:07] So let's break each of these labs down into real life language. Because if a doctor only checks your TSH, that's just, it's not the full picture. Okay. That's just one tiny little aspect of it. And there's so many other things that can come into play. Like I was saying before, TSH, it stands for thyroid stimulating Hormone.

[00:09:27] It's made by our pituitary gland in our brain. And if you think about it, like your brain texting your thyroid saying hey, come on. We need more thyroid hormone. We need you to work. It's trying to stimulate it, right? And if your thyroid is not working very well, it's underperforming. Our brain just keeps on, texting louder.

[00:09:46] N-R-T-S-H rises, it increases. When mine was 15, my brain was not functioning overly well. I was feeling so foggy, but it was, my brain was screaming, going, come on thyroid. You [00:10:00] gotta work here. So many labs say that up to 4.5 or even five is normal. But many women, especially ones who are already diagnosed with hypothyroid, can feel symptomatic anywhere above 2.5 or three.

[00:10:16] So normal does not always mean optim. Okay. And that can be the case for many different labs even, especially like labs, like vitamins and minerals and hormones and stuff like that. So now let's move on to free T four. So free, excuse me, free. T four is the storage hormone. It's what your thyroid actually produces.

[00:10:37] But it's not very active. So I tell clients, T four is it's just sitting on the bench right now. Free T three is actually the active hormone. It gets into your cells and it does the work. It influenced your metabolism, your energy, your mood, your temperature regulation, your hair growth, your bowel function.

[00:10:55] It's that player on the field. So your body has to convert [00:11:00] T four into T three. And that can, that conversion can be affected by stress, by inflammation, by iron deficiency, by selenium de selenium deficiency, zinc deficiency, and chronic undereating. So this is one reason why I get fired up about, women who are chronically under fueling their body.

[00:11:20] You can't starve your way to optimal thyroid function, right? So it's like sometimes people will think, oh, my thyroid's not working well, i'm gonna make some huge changes, dietarily, and there are some things that can help your thyroid to function better, right? But under fueling or starving yourself is definitely not the way to go.

[00:11:40] And then lastly, the last lab is your TPO antibodies. And basically that just tells us whether your immune system is attacking your thyroid. Is that the cause of your hypothyroid? And if we see that the TPO antibodies are elevated, that just means that the reason why you have hypothyroid is [00:12:00] caused by an autoimmune issue called Hashimoto's thyroiditis.

[00:12:06] And Hashimoto's is the most common cause of hypothyroid in women. One thing we can do when we know that it's Hashimoto is we know that it's autoimmune. We can take steps to, try to calm our immune system, right? We can look at things like stress. We can look at blood sugar regulation.

[00:12:25] We can look at ways to manage stress, ways to be more mindful. So Hashimoto's, you know it's autoimmune and it's basically your immune system that's just, it's mistakenly attacking our thyroid tissue. Over time, it damages the thyroid and as more tissue is damaged, your hormone production of that, that T four and T three declines.

[00:12:53] So it's often slow and progressive, right? So a lot of times once the hypothyroid starts [00:13:00] it, it usually can't be reversed. Okay? And it's not something that you caused common things that contribute to it can be, genetics, right? We can just have a genetic predisposition to it. Increase stress levels and not dealing with stress infections.

[00:13:18] Viruses, gut permeability. So we've talked about gut health in the past, when we're not when our gut isn't as, as healthy and it's allowing things to, to move through or be absorbed from your intestinal lining into your bloodstream. That can cause your body can be battling that.

[00:13:38] 'cause it's it knows that it's wrong and so it it's wait a minute, you're not supposed to be here. So it starts to, your immune system is trying to work to. To make things right, to stabilize your body. And then also, like I was saying, we can see it postpartum. We can see those immune shifts.

[00:13:55] So the question would be, can it be prevented if you have a strong [00:14:00] genetic predisposition? Probably not. Not entirely can it be reversed. Once we see that significant thyroid tissue being destroyed, it can't be fully regenerated, it's just not difficult to go back. But you can slow progression and you can reduce antibodies in some cases, to improve those symptoms.

[00:14:23] So first of all, like when my thyroid, my TSH came back at 15, I, they started me on levothyroxine right away. And what this is synthetic T four. And I've been on thyroid medication for, 24 years. It's been a long time. I take it faithfully. The biggest thing about thyroid medicine is that can stress people out, is that you cannot take it around eating at all.

[00:14:47] So it's like you need to, you can't eat. I think it's, usually say two hours after eating and one hour before eating. So usually what I'll do [00:15:00] is I'll wake up and I've heard a lot of women will say this, I'll wake up in the morning, I'll take my medicine, and then I might even go back to sleep for an hour.

[00:15:08] Or a half hour or something like that before I get up and start moving around. And then that way I can get up and I can have my coffee, I can have a little breakfast. I don't have to worry about holding off, but you have to really be consistent with that. It's super important. It's not like something that you can forget to take one day and not take the other or else you will.

[00:15:24] Feel yucky and you have to stay on top of lab recheck. You have to get it checked because especially in the very beginning when your thyroid is just not working totally well, it will have like fits and starts where it's oh, it's working really well. Oh, it's not working at all.

[00:15:39] So they'll be checking your thyroid. They'll usually start you on a lower dose of the medication and then they will gradually increase it based off of those labs. And a lot of times, you might be doing well with, a certain level, maybe 50 micrograms of levothyroxine for many years, and then all of a sudden it's oh, okay, we [00:16:00] need more.

[00:16:00] We need to bump this up to 75. And they do that by watching those labs. So it's important to watch us, even women who, who are not on medication for it, but they're starting to see that TSH trending up indicating that, your thyroid's just not quite working as well as it should. It's something to watch.

[00:16:18] It's a good thing to trend. Like I said, over the years, they adjust your dose because your body's changed. And right now I'm actually at my full replacement dose. So basically my thyroid is just no longer functioning at all, and my numbers are usually very stable. But here's something super interesting At my last visit, I'm 54, I'm gonna be 55 in just a couple days.

[00:16:39] TSH crept up into like more of a high normal range and I started to have some symptoms and I'm like, what is going on? And I think it's likely related to me being officially post-menopausal. Those estrogen shifts can affect our thyroid binding and regulations. So even, decades into treatment, your [00:17:00] needs can change.

[00:17:00] And this is not a one and done diagnosis. It's not just start this medication and then everything's fine. It's something that we have to monitor. Starting on medication is not about, it's not failure. It's not oh, I just didn't do enough to prevent this. If your thyroid's not producing enough hormone, replacing it is absolutely appropriate.

[00:17:21] So now I wanna talk a little bit about how we can use like real food and real kind of more natural things to support our thyroid function. Okay, because this is where I want you to feel a little more empowered. Medication replaces the hormone nutrition can support the system, right? And both of these pieces matter.

[00:17:44] First, let's talk about the foundation one. Eating enough. Especially protein. So if you're chronically undereating, your body is gonna downregulate metabolism. One of the ways it does that by is by reducing conversion of T four into [00:18:00] active T three. So that means if you're eating 1100 calories a day trying to fix, quote unquote, your weight gain, you may actually be slowing your thyroid conversion.

[00:18:10] Most women over 40 need to eat at least 0.8 to one gram of protein per pound of goal body weight or I think it's easier to just look at it and say, oh, I'm gonna try to get in between 25 to 35 grams of protein each meal. Three, at least three meals a day, right? Because protein is required for hormone transport and immune balance, it is essential in the body.

[00:18:34] So it's not, not the time for just eating vegetables and drinking coffee. Second Selenium. Selenium is required. It's a mineral that is required for converting T four to T three. The recommended daily intake for women is about 55 micrograms per day, and the easiest way to hit that Brazil nuts.

[00:18:56] You can eat just one to two Brazil nuts per day. And it [00:19:00] gives you about 50 to a hundred micrograms of selenium. Other good sources are gonna be like wild caught salmon, sardines, tuna, eggs, and Turkey. So if you are vegan, it can be more challenging. To get selenium in, unless you're doing Brazil nuts, right?

[00:19:18] So you don't need high dose selenium supplements unless they're prescribed too much can be harmful. But we wanna make sure that we're getting in enough and food is always the first spot. Next is zinc. Zinc also supports T four to T three conversion and immune regulation. So women need about eight to 11 milligrams per day.

[00:19:39] The best food sources of zinc are gonna be, three ounces of beef is gonna give you about seven milligrams pumpkin seeds. About a quarter cup is gonna give you two to three milligrams. Oysters are extremely high, but let's be real. Not everyone is going to be eating oysters regularly. And I'm sorry, I can't eat oysters.

[00:19:56] I can't do that texture. Next Greek yogurt's a good [00:20:00] source or chicken thighs. So if you're vegetarian, zinc becomes more important to monitor because plant sources are gonna be less, have less bioavailable zinc in 'em. Number four, iron. Iron deficiency is one of the most overlooked contributors to thyroid dysfunction, and it's always one that, that I talk to women about.

[00:20:21] Especially women who are still having regular periods, especially if their periods are coming in heavier. If there is a reason why you are losing blood or losing iron, it's, much more higher. It's a higher likelihood that you will be low in iron. And especially if somebody comes in talking to me about having fatigue, we talk about thyroid, but also iron is a big piece of that.

[00:20:42] Women need about 18 milligrams per day before menopause. And about eight milligrams per day after. And that's just because we don't have our periods after that, right? So low iron can impair our thyroid hormone production and conversion. The best sources are gonna be mostly, your meats. [00:21:00] Three ounces of red meat's gonna give you about two to three milligrams.

[00:21:03] And this is highly absorbable. This is heme iron versus plant sources are non-heme iron, right? And they can be a little bit trickier to get to absorb them. All right. Chicken thighs, again, Turkey. Those are also good sources of iron. Some plant-based sources that are higher in non-heme iron are gonna be like lentils and spinach.

[00:21:26] And if you do eat those plant-based irons. And even the animal products that are higher in iron, pair 'em with vitamin C in order to increase absorption, especially if you are deficient in iron. And we wanna try to find ways to, really increase our absorption of it, incorporate vitamin C with those good.

[00:21:46] Iron sources. So think spinach salad with strawberries or bell peppers. Those are also good vitamin C sources. And do not supplement iron. Iron is not one of those supplements that you just take just to cover your bases, [00:22:00] right? We don't take iron supplements unless we have a deficiency.

[00:22:05] Really important. Next is Omega-3 fatty acids. They're gonna help to reduce inflammation, which is really important, especially when we're talking about Hashimoto's. The autoimmune issue. For omega threes, the goal is to try to get in at least two servings of fatty fish per week. That would be like your wild salmon, your sardines, your mackerel, your Herr.

[00:22:27] And if you're, if you don't eat fish, you can consider a high quality fish oil. You're trying to get about 1000 to 2000 compi combined EPA and DHA. Those are both Omega-3 fatty acids daily. But wanna make sure that you don't have anything that's contraindicated because it can be a little bit of a blood thinner.

[00:22:47] But, yeah, if you can get it in those animal sources, that's fantastic. If you are vegan or you don't eat fish then it's a little, it's a little bit more challenging to get it in. Next and lastly is iodine. [00:23:00] And here's a quick word of caution. Iodine is necessary for thyroid hormone production, but just like iron more is not better.

[00:23:10] And most women are gonna get enough iodine from iodine. Salt, gonna get some from dairy products, from seafood, from eggs. So high dose iodine supplementation can actually make Hashimoto's worse. So please don't start, iodine drops just because you read something online that it helps to support the thyroid it.

[00:23:30] So that's kind of vitamin minerals kind of things that we can do. To support our thyroid. But now let's move on and touch base on gut health and Hashimoto's, because about 70% of your immune system lives in your gut. So if you have Hashimoto's, gut integrity or the strength of your intestines really matters.

[00:23:54] I did a episode of Her Season of Strength here on gut health and kind of all [00:24:00] the things that go into it, and it was episode 10. I will link this in the show notes if you wanted to go back and listen to it. And I really take more of a deep dive into, how we can maximize our gut health and how it can affect our body and effect specifically like autoimmune and stuff.

[00:24:16] But let's just touch on it here. If you have Hashimoto's, we want to, it's an autoimmune condition, and sometimes those autoimmune conditions can actually be caused by, a leaky gut when our guts aren't healthy, when the integrity of the walls of our intestine are not strong. So they're allowing our body to absorb things that normally it wouldn't absorb into our bloodstream and our body and our immune cys.

[00:24:43] Will get reacted because of that. It's oh gosh, this is a foreign invader. And so your immune system starts to overreact and that's can be what we can see can cause some of these autoimmune issues. So when it comes to gut health, one of the most, absolutely most important and easy things you can do is [00:25:00] fiber.

[00:25:00] Women over 40 should be aiming for about 25 to 30 grams of fiber per day. Fiber feeds those good gut bacteria. The best sources are gonna be like your nuts and seeds, like chia seeds, ground flax seeds. It's gonna be beans and legumes, like lentils, black beans. Oats are good. Those nice brightly colored berries are fantastic.

[00:25:23] Brussels sprouts, avocado, et cetera, et cetera. Basically. Beans are always a great source. They're gonna, beans are probably the best source of fiber. Starting there trying to incorporate in maybe a serving of beans in, once a day or once every couple days or something like that.

[00:25:37] Always having vegetables with lunch and dinner meals. Incorporating in maybe overnight oats with some good protein sources for breakfast, adding some berries. Those are easy ways to increase the, your fiber intake. So start slow. 'cause if you're not used to fiber. It can really, you can really be uncomfortable.

[00:25:55] It can cause a lot of, like gas and bloating if you go from zero to, 30 grams of fiber a [00:26:00] day. So start slow. Just increase it gradually. Just because you have a little bit of gas does not mean that you do not. Tolerate it or that you shouldn't be doing that. All right? It just means that you need to give your body a little bit more, more time.

[00:26:12] And with that, fiber is, we must include fluid, right? Because we can't just load up with fiber and then not give our body enough fluid to, to push it through and to keep that gut healthy. 'cause we don't want things sitting there for overly long. Those toxins and other things that we consume, we want our body to be able to, get rid of them quickly.

[00:26:29] Trying to get in enough of those non-caffeinated, non-sugar sweetened beverages. A rule of thumb would be maybe. Half your body weight and ounces of water daily as a baseline, or I would say, if you just want be like at least eight cups, usually eight to 10 cups a day because dehydration can worsen constipation, which is already an issue in hypothyroidism, right?

[00:26:53] So sometimes we, once our thyroid aren't working as well, we can see a lot more issues with that. Next, [00:27:00] probiotics. Probiotics. Are those good gut bacteria? So we can support our gut bacteria with food. And it's mostly gonna be, those fermented foods are gonna be the ones that are containing probiotics.

[00:27:11] Things like yogurts, like Greek yogurts, but you wanna make sure that they have those good live active cultures. Okay? Keefer fermented veggies like sauerkraut or kimchi, kombucha. Also fermented soy products like Tempe and nato. I know some of these, you'd be like, ah, I never eat any of these. Then you might want to, find ones that you do tolerate or that you do or potentially find a good quality probiotic supplement.

[00:27:40] If you are struggling with gut issues, if you're struggling with constipation, if you know you're, you have Hashimoto's or autoimmune type issues and but you don't necessarily need to jump straight to a probiotic right away, food diversity is gonna matter more. Next is blood sugar balance.

[00:27:59] [00:28:00] So having, stable blood sugar, and I talk about this all the time because it affects. Everything. It affects so many things. Our risk of chronic illness and disease and inflammation in our body and energy levels and brain fog, blood sugar balance is just key. It's gonna help to reduce those cortisol spikes, and we know that cortisol can interfere with thyroid conversion.

[00:28:24] That means, try to avoid skipping breakfast trying to f fuel your body regularly through the day. Always pair protein with your carbohydrate intake, protein and fiber if you can, and try to avoid living on coffee until 2:00 PM in the afternoon. That's just gonna raise those cortisol levels.

[00:28:42] There's a reason why that coffee gives you that, that energy and that get you going in the morning is because of the caffeine. And unfortunately, sometimes that caffeine can cause cortisol spikes. Usually I recommend eat something with it, right? And don't get me wrong, I love my coffee and I gotta have my coffee every single morning, but I always try to eat [00:29:00] something with it.

[00:29:00] That would be, here's some examples of some good proteins with our carbs would be like, if you have like Greek yogurt with berries, maybe we add some chia seeds, another source of good fiber for breakfast. Maybe we have some eggs with with toast in the morning. Maybe we add a little avocado for some healthy fats.

[00:29:20] Maybe you make a protein smoothie and make sure, you can add some flaxseed or chia. You add some frozen berries and maybe you wanna put a scoop of protein powder in there. It doesn't have to be overly complicated. It's just, just trying to be consistent. Because when I was first diagnosed in my thirties medication it made a huge difference.

[00:29:42] But what I know now decades later is that, you know how I'm eating. It matters too. When I undereat, I feel it. When I skip protein, I feel it. When my stress is high, I feel it. Medication replaces the actual hormone. But we need to, make changes in our lifestyle to support the, our whole, our thyroid, our [00:30:00] system.

[00:30:00] Lastly, I wanna just touch base on whether or not, can hypothyroid be prevented? We can't con control our genetics. It's very challenged to eliminate. Any and all stress in our life, but one thing, things that we can do, we can avoid our quick fish, quick fix, crash dieting.

[00:30:19] We can make sure that we're eating regularly. We're not under fueling, getting in enough protein, doing our best to manage our stress. Not that we can get rid of stress, but we can, find ways to decrease it. Finding, trying to get outside and walk in the sunshine. Maybe we're.

[00:30:36] Doing yoga, maybe we're doing some breath work, some meditation. There's a lot of ways that we can manage high stress levels. All, going to the doctor regularly, getting our labs checked, staying on top of what our thyroid's doing, and if. If we are moving in that direction of hypothyroid, make sure you're advocating for that full thyroid panel and asking questions.

[00:30:57] Know what are optimal numbers [00:31:00] versus just what are standard labs? 'cause sometimes the doctors can fall back on that, oh, it's under 4.5 and so it's. It's normal, right? Quote unquote normal, but yet you're like, I'm tired, I'm gaining weight, I have incredible anxiety. I can't sleep at night. Those are symptoms and we should be pushing for maybe a little bit more information.

[00:31:22] So if you're thinking, maybe I'm just tired because I'm so busy hear this from someone who's lived it, someone, sometimes it's just, it's not just busy. Sometimes it's chemicals, right? It's biochemical, it's what's going on in our body. So if you're finding that, you're tired, you're getting weight, you're anxious, you're depressed, you're have more brain fog, constipation, cold intolerance, losing your hair don't just assume that it's perimenopause.

[00:31:47] Ask your doctors. Ask for maybe a thyroid panel. Talk to somebody who can you can bounce off some questions and get some answers because, data can really be can really be eyeopening. [00:32:00] I love data, I love numbers. I know that not everybody does, but you are the only person who are, is going to speak up for you, right?

[00:32:09] You need to be proactive in your health. And if you find, you know that this episode really resonated you, you have a friend that has hypothyroid or who's been struggling with a lot of these symptoms and doesn't know what the heck's going on I would love for you to share it with them. Leave a rating or review it.

[00:32:26] It's just gonna help more women to find me. And if you've struggled with thyroid issues, message me. I would love to hear your story. Remember, this is about progress over perfection. We're in this for the long haul, and this is your season of strength. Have a fantastic day.