Desperate - I have gained over 30 lbs since August 2025 and I don’t know what to do. I am having issues with poor thyroid function and high fasting insulin.
I am desperate here, guys, and this is a little bit of a long post and I’m not sure if this is the best thread to post this to, but here goes. I’m hoping someone here can help me.
In October 2024 I started a really intense diet/exercise program to get the baby weight off from my summer 2023 baby. For about 6 months, I was on a diet of about 1,200-1,500 calories of daily intake with over an hour of intense cardio and resistance training 6 days a week and IF with a pretty short eating window and a skipped breakfast every day. I tracked religiously so I know what I was eating. This was quite a deficit for me and I started to notice it was affecting my fertility so I did some research and realised I had way overdone it. Since I was going to start TTC April 2024, and this was March, I pulled back. I didn’t go back to full eating but I started eating a more reasonable amount and had to stop running because of an injury. I also started seeing a naturopath at the same time. I’ll add I was on a daily progesterone supplement (a bad advisement from a practitioner who almost never worked with women who weren’t in perimenopause or menopause) - neither of us realised this was wreaking havoc on my fertility and I was on it for a year.
Bloodwork at this time was showing my thyroid was not doing great, but neither were any of my other hormones. I did a 9-month protocol to recover from diagnosed adrenal insufficiency and everything except my thyroid has steadily improved.
Fast-forward again to today. I have had 7 pregnancy losses in the last year. I have gained 40 lbs since last year. 10 lbs was after coming off that over the top program and took several months. The last 30+ have been since August and I continue to gain - I’m over 200 lbs now with a waist circumference of 36+ inches, and I’m only 5ft 6in so I am considerably overweight. My TSH is at 3.22 mIU/L (I’m in Canada for reference) and my fasting blood insulin is at 60 nmol/L. I have a severe history of type 2 diabetes on my dad’s side so I don’t know how much of this is just lousy genetics.
So - Here are my questions. If you have been in a similar boat, what did you do that actually helped? How did you improve your thyroid function before it got worse? How did you lower your fasting insulin? I already eat limited sugar, do weights 3-4 days a week and lots of walking, eat primarily whole/homemade diet, prioritize healthy fats and protein and track my calories/macros. I can’t go on anything more than a mild deficit or it immediately and very negatively impacts my fertility and I’m still TTC.
(PS - If this is the wrong place to post this, please let me know.)