Grains & Your Thyroid

One in 4 women believe they have a thyroid issue that is preventing them from losing weight. While you might, and we highly suggest you get tested if you think you might, it could be that the grains you are eating are negatively affecting your thyroid. Grains aren’t what they used to be 20+ years ago. Today, they are mass-produced, genetically modified, and a significant source of weight loss resistance. 

The Science

Before moving on, let’s examine what happens when we consume grains. When digested, carbohydrates (those that grow from the ground) are broken down into glucose or blood sugar. Blood sugar travels through the body via our blood. When our blood sugar is elevated (after eating), our pancreas secretes insulin, a storage hormone. Insulin’s job is to deliver the blood sugar from our blood into our cells for use.  As we mentioned earlier, insulin is a storage hormone, and it helps to store our blood sugar in our liver and our muscles to be used.  The blood sugar stored in our liver is used for our daily functions (fueling our brain and vital organs). The blood sugar stored in our muscles is used to fuel our daily movement.  If both the liver and muscles are already full of blood sugar, then the excess is stored as fat.  This is why it is so important to move our bodies daily, especially if we eat carbohydrates that produce a high blood sugar response.

Insulin and Cortisol

In today’s fast-paced, stressful society, we create the perfect storm for gaining weight when we combine elevated blood sugar levels with high insulin and cortisol from chronic stress. Insulin and cortisol are two of our major metabolism hormones. In women especially, our gut contains the most amount of cortisol receptors; thus, we keep gaining weight around our mid-section when insulin is high combined with high cortisol levels.

This cycle continues, again and again, every time we eat carbohydrates. When there is a continued excess, our insulin levels continue to rise and rise. Eventually, our body becomes insulin resistant, which means we store excess blood sugar faster and faster as fat. 

Secrets from our 21 Day Detox – to help keep blood sugar in balance and reduce excess insulin.

Avoid low fiber grains:

Bread, cereal, pizza, pasta, and pastries should be avoided on a regular basis. The specific grains to avoid or not over-indulge in are wheat, rye barley, oat, corn, durum, millet, rice, spelt, and any type of grain flours. Why? Eating these foods leads to a sharp increase in blood sugar and insulin. And the faster the spike, the faster the crash. This crash leaves the body craving more sugar, and thus creating havoc on your thyroid. *if you are an athlete, your body will process these very differently since your muscles are constantly being depleted of their glucose stores, but this also doesn’t mean that athletes can eat all they want when it comes to carbohydrates.

Watch foods processed with grains

Ice cream, salad dressings, canned soups, dried soup mixes, non-dairy creamers, processed cheeses, cream sauces, beer, spices, and hundreds of other common foods all contain processed grains. These further spike our insulin.  When we don’t watch for these foods, we can be living in a daily “spiked” insulin level.  When our levels of insulin are chronically high, this leads to inflammation throughout the body, leading to autoimmune disease and other health risk factors (diabetes, heart disease, etc.)

Gluten Free?

Don’t trade gluten-filled refined carbohydrates for gluten-free refined carbohydrates. Studies show that refined carbohydrates, whether they contain gluten or not, increase your blood sugar and insulin production, which blocks your ability to burn fat.  For example – corn is gluten free and will still produce a high insulin response do to a high amount of increased blood sugar after consumption.

Watch for secret seasonings and flavors

"Seasoning,” “flavoring,” “natural flavoring,” “hydrolyzed vegetable protein,” “maltodextrin,” and “modified food starch,” are all ways that companies add in processed grains to food. They can actually cause more inflammation.

Why it matters

Making these small changes will make significant impacts on your overall health. We aren’t saying they need to come out permanently, but we encourage you to remove them (like we do in our 21 Day Detox) and see how you feel without them and how you feel when you reintroduce them. You might find that your body prefers legumes, buckwheat, amaranth, and quinoa over traditional (less-fiber filled) grains.

When you need a “grain” be sure it is whole grain, as your insulin response to break down whole oats will be very different than oat flour since the body has to break down the fiber hull of the whole grain, reducing the insulin spike.

Got more questions about how grains affect your thyroid and your overall health – lets chat!