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Week 5

Welcome to the fifth week of the BTF weight loss and wellbeing programme.

To read the advice, tips and suggestions from our experts please follow the links to this week’s articles below. The other resources you can use are:

  • Expert advice - learn more about thyroid disease and weight management from our medical experts
  • Patient stories – find out about how other thyroid patients have managed to successfully lose weight and improve their wellbeing
  • Community - share your weight loss journey with other people who are taking part in this programme by joining our closed Facebook group

Alcohol

Not everyone drinks alcohol but for those that do it can often be overlooked when losing weight as we tend to focus on food and exercise.

Calories from alcohol are usually labelled as ‘empty calories.’ In other words, there is not much nutritional benefit in alcohol, and so, on that basis, you should probably cut it out. Or should you? What if you enjoy an alcoholic beverage and want to lose weight? Hopefully this article will help you make an informed choice in relation to your weight loss goals.

To start we should look at the current guidelines on alcohol consumption. It is recommended to drink no more than 14 units of alcohol a week, spread across three days or more. That's around six medium (175ml) glasses of wine, or six pints of 4% beer. There is no completely safe level of drinking but sticking within these guidelines lowers the risk of harming your health.

Knowing how much you currently drink will give you a foundation to work from and will enable you to set informed goals. So if you want to check how many units you drink there are various apps and websites to help you. The guidelines recommend that reducing your alcohol intake will lower the risk of harm to health. But what are the benefits?

Short term benefits:

  • Feeling better in the mornings
  • Being less tired and more energetic
  • Better-looking skin
  • Saving money

Long-term benefits:

  • Lower blood pressure
  • Lower risk of stroke, hypertension, cancer and liver disease
  • Lower cholesterol levels
  • Better mood, memory and quality of sleep
  • Help with weight management

"But I've heard drinking some alcohol is beneficial for my health."


Well there is some evidence to suggest low level consumption may benefit some populations and provide a protective effect against coronary heart disease (CHD). However, having more than one unit a day increases your risk of CHD. That said, stopping smoking, being active and having a healthy balanced diet are better ways to decrease your CHD risk.

Tips to lower your alcohol consumption

Cutting down on the alcoholic strength

This is a bit like swapping a full sugar fizzy drink to a diet version. You still get to enjoy your fizzy drink as you would a glass of wine with a meal but it contains less energy and fewer units. It’s an easy, straightforward swap towards making a healthier choice. If your tipple is a spirit and mixer then you might look at the measure of spirit served and/or the mixer you have with it. The next step could be trying to swap to some low/non-alcoholic varieties. Alternatively, something like kombucha (a fizzy sweet-and-sour drink made with tea) may be worth a try.

The low/non-alcoholic versions of beer, lager IPA etc have come a long way since the days of Kaliber in the eighties. Manufacturers are developing better ways to make them without sacrificing the flavour. This market is continuing to grow year-on-year with greater choice and availability. Next time you’re out socialising, have a look and see if this is an option for you especially if you feel pressure to conform socially and have a drink.

Size matters too

If you buy less, have less in the cupboard/fridge or choose smaller bottles then possibly you will drink less. As an example, patients will say I bought a multipack of crisps and ate all six bags when I only wanted one. It was 90p for one bag or £1 for six so I bought the multipack to save money. It can make financial sense when it comes to alcohol too. If you know you find it hard to resist if it’s in the home, next time you’re at the shop, stop and think. You might save yourself some money, but what if you end up drinking more than you had planned? If you end up drinking more than planned is that 50p saving worth it?

Benefits of cutting down

The day after

It’s not just the empty calories in alcohol that affect weight management. We should also understand the after effects that drinking can have. When we drink alcohol, the liver will focus on metabolising it to remove it from the body. This affects the metabolism of other nutrients, impairing fat loss. Our appetite levels increase whilst drinking and in turn our craving for high fat, high sugar nutrient dense foods. Processing alcohol in the body takes time and may continue as we sleep, depending on how much we have consumed. This can affect our sleep and lead to tiredness the next day. When we’re tired we’re less likely to stick to our healthy food choices or to go to take part in that exercise class we’d planned to go to. And unfortunately even if we do exercise, our level of performance is impaired.

Alcohol and thyroid function

Alcohol consumption is also known to have an effect on thyroid function. Whilst some studies have shown that moderate alcohol consumption can reduce risk of Graves’ disease and thyroid cancer, reducing alcohol intake is associated with very significant health benefits including weight loss. Indeed a number of studies have reported that drinking alcohol may suppress thyroid function, making symptoms like low mood and weight gain worse.


Reflecting on this article I have tried to provide a balanced view, however, when focusing on weight loss the benefits of cutting down on alcohol consumption far outweigh the benefits and risks of drinking alcohol. Now it is up to you to choose what you do with this information and what goals you want to achieve.

How does activity and exercise benefit our health?

"If exercise were a pill, it would be one of the most cost-effective drugs ever invented."
Dr Nick Cavill – Health Promotion Consultant.

The potential benefits of a new-found physical activity or exercise programme on our health cannot be underestimated. Just as we know vaccines protect against many illnesses, exercise has been to proven to provide similar benefits. Not only does it help prevent heart disease, some cancers, osteoporosis and poor mental health, it also makes us feel good and helps us to get the most out of life. These benefits, do not only apply to the general population. Further evidence has emerged in recent years about the positive effect physical activity, sport and exercise can have on those living with hypothyroidism.

Damaging effects of sedentary lifestyle

Living a sedentary lifestyle can have a dramatic effect on our health. Higher blood pressure, high cholesterol, depression, stress/anxiety and increased risk of heart disease are all possible results of not moving enough. And each of these symptoms can also be found in those of us living with thyroid disorders. But the good news is that many of these symptoms can be reduced as our body becomes fitter and stronger as a result of becoming more physically active.

Living with thyroid disease can be challenging. When symptoms persist, even the thought of doing any activity can be tiring and demotivating. To prevent a perpetual vicious cycle of reduced physical activity due to symptoms, remember that even the smallest amounts of physical activity or movement can have dramatic benefits by improving long-term health and reducing the impact thyroid disease and its symptoms can have on our health.

How hard should I work when exercising?

Exercise does not have to be vigorous. To get the benefits of being active we need to think of a ‘Goldilocks’ principle and get the intensity ‘just right’. In fact, vigorous activity may harm our health if we have not previously been active. So, to gain the benefits we need to aim for activity that is not too easy, but is enough to trigger changes in the body which will inevitably lead to better weight management, lower blood pressure, lower cholesterol and improved blood sugar, reduced stress and reduced risk of heart disease. Next time you are exercising, why not rate the difficulty of your given activity out of 10? If it is between 4-6 out of 10 then you are in the Goldilocks zone; the exercise or activity you are doing is ‘just right’ and is likely to provide you with the benefits you’re aiming for.

I cannot stress enough how important moving more is for our health. So, why not find a form of activity today that works for you? Whether it is a session at the gym, a country walk, swimming or even gardening, they all count and will help you improve your health and help you to live better with a thyroid disorder.

Watch

Chartered psychologist, Dr Sue Jackson, talks about behaviour change and weight loss, including:

  • Making mistakes and learning from them
  • Accepting that weight loss is a process
Week 4 info Week 6 info