Vegan Bodybuilding & Fitness

Hey guys, new member here. Hoping you have some avenues that I can research. I noticed that a lot of you are pretty well experienced in weight loss, better eating, etc, so I'm hoping that you might have some valid opinions.

I've been trying to lose about 50 pounds for a few years now. When I got my first desk job, I sky rocketed up to 225 lbs. For a 5'9" guy, that's no good. This was when I was about 21, so being young, I just cut my portions in half, went jogging, kept up my weights, and knocked it down to my svelt 175 with no problem. Then I got married, started cooking for two, and gained it all back.

Now I'm 30 and I can't seem to shed it. The strength and endurance are definitely there, and I feel healthy. I bike, lift weights, eat mostly right, etc. I can drop a few pounds here or there, but overall I'm just maintaining a solid 225. I've been doing a lot of reading, and this thyroid specialist houston (hope the link is OK) is saying that a lot of people are unable to lose weight because as their diet worsens and they get older, it adversely affects their thyroid and that bad thyroid function can make it hard to lose weight, even if they don't have any other real symptoms. Now I'm kind of worried that the diets that I did back in the day when I was heavy into lifting are causing me problems now.

Has anybody else heard this? I've got no other symptoms. I'm not fatigued, achy, sick, etc, I just can't lose the padding. Do you think it's a valid thing that I should have checked out? I mean, I always thought that a little diet and exercise would fix almost anything, but I cannot seem to shed this weight.

Any advice or other avenues of research would be awesome.

Yes your link works. What are you actually eating? I don't think it hurts to go see a doctor. Normally its simple math, burn more calories than you take in and lose weight. Always the more information the better. Maybe try searching thyroid in the search here on the forum and post your questions directly to those that have posted about it before.
I guess my non-medical opinion is decrease calories and increase cardio. If that doesn't make a difference why not seek medical advice about your thyroid.

-Dylan

From experience certain foods can impact your thyroid

http://outsmartdisease.com/lesson-1-hea ... -function/

Also using toothpaste with fluoride can impact your thyroid

http://thyroid.about.com/od/thyroidbasi ... roid_7.htm

Been more info coming out lately that the removal of iodine from processing grains has lead to more people having thyroid issues (even iodized salt apparently is NOT always accurately dosed, and can have far less iodine than stated on the label). There are home tests you can do based on checking your temperature immediately on waking up to help find if there may be a thyroid issue, but truthfully, it could well be that you might just not be eating in the way that your body is asking for macronutrient-wise. I know a LOT of people here shovel down the carbohydrates like mad and never put on fat from it, but I can't do that, and as long as I was basing my meals on carbs first and protein/fats secondary, I couldn't get the scale to budge. It was mostly diet tweaks to cut carbs from being around 60-70% of my calories to 30-40% that made a massive difference, so you never know, it might just be a symptom of getting older and your body wanting a shift in a new direction before things will start working well for fat loss again, the only way to know is to find out if your thyroid is or isn't a factor, and if it isn't, then you've got your work ahead for changing your diet and how you train in order to get what you're looking for!

_________________
"A 'hardgainer' is merely someone who hasn't bothered to try enough different training methods to learn what is actually right for their own damned body." - anonymous