Weightloss Support

Heya,

If there were a way to get fizzed water not in single use bottles, but just as cheaply, then I'd do it. As there isn't, then single use it is for me.

I don't think the problem is necessarily with the consumer, but with the manufacturer - because the option just isn't there.

L

Xx

Fizzy water.....not in single use bottles? I'm sort of thinking back to the 1970s and the slogan" Get busy with the fizzy with Soda Stream!"

Now I'm showing  my age! 

My original one came with reusable glass bottles and it just carbonated the water and you added whatever flavour you wanted. I seem to remember the fore runner of it with the Soda Syphon. (James Bond style)

X

The Soda Streams were still around in the 80's and 90's too. We had one when I was growing up, and it was a weekend treat that we were allowed to make up one bottle between two of us. So we had to pick a sibling who wanted a flavour we liked! Lol

However, I'd not use one of those here in Leeds, because the tap water is terrible! There is so much chlorine in it, it sometimes smells like a swimming pool when I turn the tap on! Lol

But I do believe soda streams made a comeback a few years ago. No idea if they'e survived or not though.

L

Xx

Soda streams are still available - just take a look on Amazon - but the cost of the gas is so shockingly expensive that they're really hard to justify.  What I'd REALLY like is a home fizzing tap like they have in Yo Sushi! restaurants - limitless fizzy water coming out of the tap at the table would suit me fantastically. If somebody would start making those for home use, I'd definitely want to invest.

Still water in bottles - now that's silly. It's no better than the stuff from the tap most of the time.

Ahhh k.

When they first came back out I did look, but found them too expensive. Didn't know if that had killed them off, or if they had reduced the price, etc. But apparently neither...  Lol

Back in the 80's, Makro worked it where you had to buy a fizz capsule from them. But after that, so long as you returned it, they'd give you a full one for free/pennies.

So it actually worked out much cheaper than buying a bottle of coke or fanta.

I'm intrigued by this fizzy tap you speak of though! However, I wouldn't get one here. Mayve back in Scotland though where the tap water is nice! Lol

Lass

Xx

Jut checked price of soda streams. Wow! They seem to be very expensive possibly because they seem to be very trendy looking. 

Sodastream had a MAJOR PR disaster a few years ago after it was revealed that the Israeli company was manufacturing products in the West Bank. It led to some terrible publicity, major loss of face and some boycotting of the company. I think they were hit in their pockets pretty badly.

Good morning folks,

Is everyone still doing the weight tracking thing?

I only ask since I've found I've been sneakily creeping up the scales roughly two years out from diagnosis/op and RAI.

Essentially, I have never really felt fighting fit at any point in these roughly 24 months and have been plagued by the nagging feeling that I am subclinically hypothyroid, even though my onco always notes that I'm euthryoid in terms of bloods.

He's super-keen on getting thyroxine down ASAP, which means although I started on 150 I was recently on 112.5, where I started to feel really dopey. I also then got a fitness watch since I wanted to count steps and sleep, etc. No point in complaining to the onco if I am sitting around doing nothing after all and skipping on shut-eye! And yes, I need to get my steps up and into the garden more often, etc. Sleep is also nowhere near 8 hr on average but I'm working on it. The real shock though was heart rate. Here's little old me, 48, with a desk job and long hours and a BMI of 23.8 and yet ... resting heart rate constantly dips below 60 (my record is 50 while sitting at my desk) and I've even managed 42(!) while asleep. Needless to say I feel a little light-headed when it hits the low fifties while I'm awake and surely something's up there... My onco is uninterested ... as long as ultrasound and bloods are OK, it's always something else.

Anyways ... I'm back on 125 mcg right now, and I'd like to try getting the weight down first, but if it doesn't work, I really need more thyroxine, I guess. Weight is 72 kg, which is about 11 st 5 lbs. Ideally, I'd like to be at around 68.

So has anyone lost weight (by dieting, exercise, etc.) and then found their thyroxine dose needs adjusting? 

I read about all the people who feel hyperthyroid on here with great envy right now... :=).

Heya,

I am, and it's a daily fight. I'm a stone and a half down from Jan 2018, but tbh I feel like that is pathetic when I have so much to lose. I should have been 2 stone down, but these last two weeks I've put on half a stone due to gastric issues.

The thing about having your bloods classed as 'normal', especially when it comes to thyroids, is that there is quite a large range of what is classed as 'normal'. So are you at the bottom, in the middle, or at the top of normal with your T4?

Regarding your heart rate, make sure your watch is on tightly enough. If it isn't, it can miss some of the beats and give you a false reading that's lower than it should be. If it's def on tightly enough, and you're still getting low readings, do mention it to your GP. 50/60 isn't too bad, and it's normal for your HR to drop while you're asleep. So I'd not be too concerned at this point, but you don't want it going lower unless it's because you've got your fitness up.

If you lose the weight you want, and are under medicated as you think, then you'll probably actually feel better. Thyroxine dose dose vary depending on body makeup, so if you lose mass or turn fat into muscle, then the thyroxine dose is usually decreased to match your new shape and size.

And don't be envious of those of us on the hyper side of things. I ended up with a month long migraine because my blood pressure hit 194/132 and no-one medicated me. My heart rate often hits the 120's while resting, and that's on a beta blocker. And I sleep a LOT because everything is moving too fast and so is using up my energy stores, but without using up my fat stores. However the sleep isn't all overnight, it's usually in about 4 hour blocks, 3 or 4 of them a day. It's human nature to have what someone else has and we don't, but hyper will do you more damage than hypo will.

Lass

xx

Dear Lass,

Wise words as ever and I do wish you the very best in your endeavours to stay on top of your issues. As for bloods, I'll get another letter this week so we'll see where they are. My last results were (I'll give the range as well since these are German lab results):

TSH 0.08 (range 0.4 to 4)
Free T4 1.36 (range 0.7 to 1.76)
Free T3 2.63 (range 1.5 to 4.5)
TG <0.20 (range 0 to 55)

T4 and T3 have stayed fairly constant at these levels for 18 months. While T4 is back up where it was pre-op, free T3 was around 3.7 before I had the TT and has never got back up there. Perhaps that's normal.

I've cross-checked my pulse with another device and the good old thumb on wrist - the watch is pretty accurate and very much so for lower pulses. It usually goes a bit haywire for higher heart rates as with all optical gadgets. And as said, it's not so much whether low forties or fifties is clinically OK but whether it's normal for me, which it certainly isn't. When I was mega-hypo before RAI I had a pulse of 40 at night and I thought I was past that...

But very good to know that weight loss might bring some changes here though, thanks for the very useful information!

And as to hyper ... I just wish I could have hit that hyper ceiling so to speak early on with thyroxine and then know that I could come down from that to "normal". Even on 150 mcg I wasn't hyper so I kinda have the feeling that we have never really checked what my maximum is and worked down from there, which I would have thought would have made more sense. And while true, full-blown hyperthyroidism is of course inherently dangerous, a cotton-woolly hypo mind is also not the safest thing if you have drive down town first thing in the morning. Plus my blood pressure also increases when hypo, my veins looked like a body-builder in the run-up to RAI...

I'll try the weight loss thing first though - I'm doing intermittent fasting, which is the only thing that's ever worked for me - and let you know how things proceed!

Take care,

Ed