You wake in the morning and smacking the alarm button has almost become a game of whack a mole. Finally you throw your legs onto the floor, make your way to the bathroom and hop into the shower. As you begin washing your hair, you begin to feel clumps of hair streaming down your legs clogging up your drain. If your weight wasn’t already top of mind, now you have to worry about thinning hair, which just adds to your depression and anxiety.
Maybe your doctor has told you that your levels were normal.
Maybe you already know you’ve got hypothyroidism or Hashimoto’s.
But either way, you feel hopeless, frustrated, alone and confused on what to do.
It’s why I wanted to talk to you about one of the causes of hypothyroidism and Hashimoto Thyroiditis and that is its connection with a leaky gut.
Now before I go on, I want to remind you that I’m doing a free Thyroid Masterclass where I’ll be talking a lot more about what you can do to heal your thyroid. Grab your spot here.
So how do the dots connect here?
Think of it this way: 97% of women who have hypothyroidism actually have Hashimoto’s, an autoimmune thyroid condition. And let’s put this into perspective for a second:
Over 70% of your immune system resides in your gut! This part of the immune system is called gut-associated lymphatic tissue (GALT).
Now the immune system goes under attack when the gut becomes permeable which in other words means that the small intestinal lining becomes damaged and toxins and food particles can escape into the bloodstream. These protein molecules that escape into the bloodstream are supposed to stay in the gut, so when they’re not in the gut, the body mounts an immune response and attacks various tissues in the body – including the thyroid.
Thyroid hormones actually affect the tight junctions in the stomach and small intestine. For example, T3 (your active thyroid hormone) and T4 (your inactive thyroid hormone) have been shown in studies to protect the gut mucosal lining from stress-induced ulcer formation.
Now here’s a startling fact about Hashimoto’s that you be unaware of: It takes seven years for it to develop!
So what can be done? Here are several tools I’ve discussed in my video to get you started:
Remove dairy and gluten.
When gluten or dairy are consumed, a cross-reaction will occur and the thyroid will take a hit because the immune system can’t distinguish between these molecules because they have all have similar protein sequences. This is called molecular mimicry.
Even in individuals who don’t have an autoimmune condition, molecular mimicry can still impact thyroid function, which is why I’m adamant that individuals avoid both (unless you have been tested by a company like Cyrex for food intolerances and can have dairy once in a blue moon).
Next step is to integrate a gut-healing formula.
While I am going to be talking more about what foods you should integrate during my thyroid masterclass, I’m going to take this opportunity to suggest a supplement to help heal a leaky gut.
My favourite is: MegaMucosa (it’s a bit sweet, so combine it with at LEAST 16oz of water). My suggestion is to take 1 scoop once a day roughly one hour away from meals.
Mega Mucosa is serum immunoglobulin which helps to strengthen immune function while healing the gut. I find this formula to be incredible, especially if you have a tummy ache because, for the most part, it works pretty darn fast.
Next up: Get your sleep!
This is probably the most underrated tool utilized by women today. I’ll hear from women that staying up is their only “me” time. If this is your excuse I’ll tell you it’s because you suck at creating boundaries where you can carve out “me” time during the day. If you have 10 minutes to aimlessly scroll through social media, you have 10 minutes to get out into nature and get some sunshine or even meditate.
Without proper sleep, we add stress to our adrenals (a major causative factor behind thyroid dysfunction) and that stress will impact the gut and result in inflammation.
Chances are you have a set time when you HAVE to get up, but do you have a consistent time when you HAVE to get to bed? Mine for example is this:
I know I have to be fast asleep by 9:30pm which means my head hits the pillow by 9pm.
This means that I’m in bed and unplugged from my devices (which disturbs your sleep in a BIG way) by 8pm.
And I wear blueblockers by 7pm. Side note, if you go to SwanwickSleep.com, you can get a pair for yourself for 15% off when you use the coupon code: SEXYBLUEBLOCKERS.
These tools are just the tip of the iceberg, so if you haven’t signed up for my masterclass do so now.