Can’t Lose Weight? Get Healthy First. Simple Tips to Boost Your Thyroid Health

Hey, it's J.J. here.

You know, I've been talking about environmental toxins forever, and laundry detergent is a sneaky one. A lot of them contain harsh chemicals like dyes, preservatives, and even UV brighteners.

Those brighteners don't actually clean anything.

They just coat fabric so your eyes think things look whiter or brighter. That's more chemicals I don't want on my family sheets or skin.

And.

And if you've got sensitive skin or allergies around the house, this can be a big problem. That's what got my attention about Earth Breeze. It looks like a dryer sheet, but it's actually laundry detergent. You toss one in the washer and that's it. No pouring, no mess, and no heavy plastic jug. Their packaging is lightweight cardboard, which helps reduce plastic waste. And if you choose the fragrance free option, it's gentle, hypoallergenic, non irritating and non sensitizing.

I really like how simple it is.

And how fresh and clean everything comes out without those unnecessary chemicals. Right now you can try Earth Breeze for up to 40% off with free gifts@earthbreeze.com virgin that's earthbreeze.com virgin for up to 40% off plus free gifts on your first order.

Hey, JJ here. Every year around this time, I get the urge to make my home feel a little extra special. A space that feels just like the holidays. And Wayfair is my go to for that. Think cozy textures, twinkly decor, warm lighting, and all those little touches that make you want to curl up with a good book and a blanket. You'll usually find my book stacked on a great little end table I got from Wayfair, proof that function and style can coexist. Now, whether you're adding last minute hosting essentials, picking out gifts for loved ones, or refreshing your decor for the season, Wayfair makes it easy with beautiful finds, great prices and fast delivery. And when the holidays wind down, Wayfair has everything you need to tuck it all neatly away. Smart storage solutions for every room from the kitchen to the closet. Plus, with free shipping for any order over $35, that's fast delivery and a total peace of mind. It's the perfect mix of joy and order, bringing the holiday spirit in, then storing it all with EAs ready to make your home feel as good as it looks. Get organized, refreshed and ready for the holidays. For way less, head to Wayfair.com right now to shop all things home. Wayfair. Every style, every home that's W a Y F A I R.com Some people.

Think nature is like this, but actually it's like this. That's why Columbia engineers everything we make for anything nature can throw at you. Columbia engineered for whatever.

Hey, this is JJ Virgin. Thanks so much for joining me. This is Ask the Health Expert. In each episode, I put the power of health in your hands and share ways to get healthy, lose weight, heal your gut, detox, and lots more so you can look and feel better fast. If you'd rather watch the video hit.

Hey, I did put on my makeup.

And do my hair, so check it out on my YouTube channel.

So if you're at your wit's end because you can't lose weight, no matter how much intermittent fasting you do or how balanced your gut is, or you detox or de stress and you think you've checked out everything that could be holding your weight hostage, you've arrived at your thyroid. Now, if you've got thyroid fatigue, you don't have to settle for the weight gain or the low energy that usually comes with it. There are things that you can do to get your thyroid healthy and moving again. So stay tuned for the way to unlock this key to revving your metabolism.

Hey JJ Virgin here. Okay, real talk.

So often the holidays sneak up on.

Me, travel, gifts, hosting, you know, all the things and suddenly it's like, wait.

Who spent what and where?

And I know I'm not the only one who's looked at a bill in January and thought, wow, that escalated quickly. If you want to keep your finances.

Under control this holiday season, you need.

To be using Monarch. It's rated the Wall Street Journal's best budgeting app of 2025. Monarch is the all in one personal finance tool that brings your entire financial life together in one clean on your laptop or on your phone. Monarch lets you link everything and gives you real time visibility so you're not shocked later. Right now, I've been checking the holiday spending category so I don't accidentally start the new year with that dreaded debt hangover. And honestly, just seeing everything laid out is already helping me stay more aware. This season, Monarch does the heavy lifting. It links your accounts in minutes, gives you smart categorization and super clear visuals. Yes, that end of year reset could be a real goal this time. Don't let financial opportunities slip through the cracks. Use the code virgin@monarch.com in your browser for half off your first year. That's 50% off your first year@monarch.com with the code Virgin Toyota THON is on.

So stop by your local Toyota dealer and test drive a rugged Tacoma or full size Tundra with great financing and lease options available to qualify customers. Visit buyatoyota.com for more Toyota Let's Go.

Places.

If you want to stay current with the things that will help you get healthy and feel better fast and lose weight and keep you from regaining it, let's stay connected. All you have to do is hit like on this video and subscribe to this channel and you're done. So I've put out a few videos on reasons you might have trouble losing weight other than your diet, and this one could be a game changer for you. It's so important now. So far we've covered stress, your gut, sleep, toxins, and over exercising, and each of them has an impact on how easily you lose weight or don't. What you're probably noticing is that you need to get healthy to lose weight and not vice versa. And if your thyroid isn't working optimally, that can massively impact your health. Now this was an issue for me, so I can speak from personal painful experience. You may already know if you've got a sluggish thyroid, but if not, here are a couple of the clues. Weight gain is obvious, but also fatigue. You feel cold. Your hair and your skin are dry. You're losing some hair. Your cholesterol levels are going up, Your sex drive is going down, down. You just feel a little puffy. You go to the gym, but you just can't seem to build any muscle. You're just a little depressed. You feel brain foggy or you've got this yellow tinge to your palms. And that's by the way, because you can't convert your beta carotene to vitamin A. And here's a weird one. You start losing the outer third of your eyebrows. Now also a little one from my buddy Dr. Alan Christiansen. He says if your weight bounces up and down a couple pounds a day, that is not normal. It's not calories, it's your metabolism going crazy. So weighing in every day using the scale as a biometric tool again, not as a mean friend, can help you sleuth this whole thing out if you feel like you have a problem. Okay, so those are all some of the symptoms. And by the way, even if you just said check on one or two of those, you could have a low functioning thyroid. The opposite of this is hyperthyroid. It has totally different issues. But if you can't lose weight and you're having problems with your thyroid, odds are good. It's probably low thyroid or hypothyroidism. And if your thyroid's sluggish, it's definitely interfering with your weight loss. So you want to get a handle on it. When your body doesn't make enough thyroid hormone, for whatever reason, you're operating at a lower metabolic rate. Now, if your thyroid is tired, you're tired. Your thyroid holds the key to burning fat and having great energy. And even if you don't have outright thyroid disease, a sluggish thyroid can slow down your metabolism and put the brakes on weight loss. Now, losing weight when you have an underactive thyroid can be tough. It can be really frustrating, I will admit. Done it myself. And if you've lost your thyroid from surgery or radioactive iodine treatment, losing weight can seem impossible because fortunately, there's some things you can do. Now, most likely if you have hypothyroidism is Hashimoto's, which is a hereditary autoimmune condition where the body's immune system attacks and damages the thyroid. This prevents the thyroid from making and releasing enough thyroid hormone, so you're pretty likely to need supplemental thyroid hormone as well. And if you do, no amount of diet or exercise is going to take that weight off alone. But not all medications create equal. So that's something we're going to talk about. But here's the thing. Because most of the symptoms of hypothyroidism are pretty common, it can get missed or misdiagnosed. So it's really important to chase down what's going on with you, because this isn't the only thing. It's not just about your weight. This is about your overall health. Undiagnosed hypothyroidism can have a serious impact on your heart health, believe it or not, and your bone health. So you've got to get this figured out, and I'm going to help you do that. So if you're thinking that maybe but you're not sure you have thyroid issues, the first thing you gotta do is you gotta get yourself checked out. And I recommend that you do this with a functional medicine doctor who's going to look past the normal range of the single TSH marker and look at the bigger picture, which is going to also include antibodies and symptoms. One of the challenges is that most traditional practitioners will only look at TSH or TSH and T3 and T4 and TSH, thyroid stimulating hormone, is produced by the pituitary gland. The challenge is that you can be hypothyroid and still in the normal range here. Mild hypothyroidism, like what I had, and it was just a little over, makes you tired, achy, and less likely to exercise. And then you pack on more pounds. And when you're tired, you probably crave and eat more sugary foods and carbs. I mean, it just all becomes a vicious cycle. Normal reference ranges often won't tell you that your thyroid is the problem. So just testing TSH is not going to give you the complete picture you need. And again, you're going to want to work with the functional medicine doctor who will give you the complete picture. You'll get TSH free T3 and T4, reverse T3 and antibodies. And you should also take a look at your iron levels and your cortisol levels as all of these go together. And they all tend to get out of whack together. By the way, chronic stress that causes cortisol to be elevated longer than it should also is going to negatively impact the thyroid along the way and starts to block that conversion of T4 to the active T3 hormone. So when you focus on healing your thyroid, you've also got to look at your stress hormones. Now, the right diet and supplements can help balance your hormones, reduce inflammation, bring down those thyroid antibodies, and bring back your energy when you get yourself healthy. Weight loss is this beautiful side effect. It's this beautiful side bonus. The first thing you want to do is make some changes to what you eat. And I'm going to tell you to start with the virgin anti diet. It's going to make sure that you eat enough protein relative to carbs and fat, which is super important here because lots of fiber is good for your gut and for the butyrate in your gut that regulates thyroid hormones. It's also critical to remove the key high food intolerance foods, because these things, specifically gluten, soy and dairy, could be triggering that autoimmune response. Now, when you have a thyroid problem, you may also be worried about the goitrogens in foods like broccoli or cauliflower. But those are really only an issue if you're eating a pound or more a day of raw. And I'm guessing you're not doing that right. So. So little bit of cooked broccoli every day, cauliflower, that's not a problem. Now, what about iodine? Should you salt? Should you not salt? Now, iodine is always a big question for thyroid issues, and Google can scare the crap out of you. Can we be honest? So here's the top line depending on where you fit. If you're on thyroid medications, limit extra iodine. If you're not on thyroid medications, don't worry about supplementing with iodine. If you if you're not on thyroid medications and you're a raw food vegan, you may want to use some iodized salt. Pretty simple. And for all the rest of us, we're using really clean, perfect sea salt, right? All right, there you go. Hope you got some good tips in this video to help you get your thyroid back in gear and your metabolism fully healthy. Now don't forget to like and subscribe so you can keep info like this coming your way. In the next video, we're going to tackle four ways to boost your metabolism that will make you look and feel great. See you there.

For more info on this and other health topics I cover, or to rate and review, find me on Instagram, Facebook and my website, jjvirgin.com and don't forget to subscribe to my show so you won't miss a single episode. Go to subscribetojay.com and thanks again for.

Being with me this week.

Hello listeners, this is Anne Boeckle, author, blogger and creator of the podcast what Should I Read next? Since 2016, I've been helping readers bring more joy and delight into their reading lives. Every week, I take all things books and reading with a guest and guide them in discovering their next reading. They share three books they love, one book they don't, and what they've been reading lately, and I recommend three titles they may enjoy reading next. Guests have said our conversations are like therapy, troubleshooting issues that have plagued their reading lives for years and possibly the rest of their lives as well. And of course, recommending books that meet the moment, whether they are looking for deep introspection to spur or encourage a life change, or a frothy page turner to help them escape the stresses of work, school, everything. You'll learn something about yourself as a reader and you'll definitely walk away confident to choose your next read, with a whole list of new books and authors to try. So join us each Tuesday for what Should I Read Next? Subscribe now wherever you're listening to this podcast and visit our website what should I readnextpodcast.com to find out more.