4 Tips to Protect Your Thyroid from Thanksgiving Dinner

Soon, millions of people will come together with their family and friends to spend time with loved ones they oftentimes don’t see enough, and give thanks for the important things in life.

Sometimes it can be difficult to be thankful for your health, especially when there are roadblocks like hypothyroidism and its many symptoms and its related diseases that are getting in the way of you feeling like your former healthy self.

But it’s also important not to focus so much on where your health is at this particular moment in time and instead focus on where you want to take your health moving forward and what you need to do in order to get there.

You don’t put up a house without following a good building plan.

You have to follow specific building steps in the right order to ensure that you end up with a solid house that you can depend upon for the rest of your life.

For example, you first have to lay the foundation before you can even start building or else the walls and roof won’t be stable and will easily fall down, leaving you with nothing, and having to start over from scratch.

Similarly, it makes sense for you to have a good plan to follow to help rebuild your thyroid.

In this blog post, I’ll give you a plan to protect yourself from thyroid-busting Thanksgiving foods, and I’ll give you a simple and delicious recipe that is super thyroid-friendly and sure to be a holiday hit…

…But first, back to the plan: You MUST first lay the foundation of your health before you can build upon it and create the kind of health that you can depend upon for the rest of your life.

This is where most people fail.

Instead of following a good plan and laying the necessary foundation, they jump erratically from supplement to supplement or diet to diet trying to put the roof of the house on before they even have the walls up.

Houses are not built overnight.

It’s a process that takes time, work, and resources.

Your health works in the same way.

Restoring proper thyroid function takes time, work, and resources to correct all of the underlying problems that are inhibiting your thyroid to begin with.

For example, just the other day, I had a consultation with a client who I’ve been working with for the last three months and one thing we discussed was what she had achieved in this short amount of time.

Had she expected for everything to change overnight, she would have given up after a week or two and she never would have experienced any of the remarkable progress that she has made up to this point.

Instead she was willing to commit to and trust the plan we had in place.

Now, she’s feeling better than she has in over 20 years.

It’s amazing what you can achieve when you’re willing to take control of your own health.

To help you take some control of your Turkey Day, I’m giving you some simple and easy healthy thanksgiving tips that you can use for the holidays, regardless of what your situation may be.

1. Balance the Tryptophan with Broth or Collagen

Feeling sleepy after a big Thanksgiving meal is a common occurrence.

Many believe it to be caused by the high amount of the amino acid tryptophan found in Turkey.

Yet, pretty much all meats contain the same, or larger, amount of tryptophan as turkey.

So, it’s not the tryptophan that makes you tired. However, we do need to be careful with tryptophan.

In hypothyroidism, over-consuming tryptophan tends to directly suppress the thyroid gland, and promotes the production of other thyroid-suppressive hormones.

No, I’m not saying that meat is bad for your thyroid.

Not getting adequate protein will quickly suppress your thyroid function.

Yet, overeating large amounts of meat (especially chronically) can suppress your thyroid too.

Protecting yourself is easy…

The best way to protect yourself is to simply balance your turkey with some broth, gelatin, or collagen.

Broth, gelatin, and collagen are healthy protein sources that contain no tryptophan and help to balance the amino acids from your meal.

Need some healthy ideas?

You can easily add cooking gelatin to gravy which also acts as a thickener.

How about a dessert made from gelatin, like a fruit Jello-dish or mousse?

Or, if you’re not the cook, or not in the mood for that, then supplement with a high-quality Grass-Fed Collagen Protein Powder.

Using even just a tablespoon (15 ml) with your meal can help. It dissolves easily in any liquid.

2. Don’t Waste Your Turkey Bones

Speaking of broth…

Most people just toss the turkey carcass in the trash after Thanksgiving, without realizing that it’s the most nutritious part.

So, instead of throwing it away, make turkey broth out of it.

Be sure to include the carcass, trimmings, and skin for a gelatin-rich broth.

Not sure how to make broth?

Get step-by-step instructions using this Bone Broth Recipe.

3. Support Your Thyroid With Coconut Oil

If you’re cooking your own Thanksgiving meal, then do yourself a favor and use coconut oil in place of vegetable oil or other thyroid-suppressive oils, which is protective of your thyroid instead of damaging to your thyroid.

But I also understand that many people are eating with friends or relatives and don’t have control over what oils are being used in their food.

That doesn’t mean you can’t still benefit from using coconut oil.

Simply taking a teaspoon a few times during the day and/or with your meals can provide some great added protective benefits.

If you don’t have any coconut oil on hand, then most health food stores today, and now even many national grocery chains, are carrying it.

Even if you can’t find it locally or don’t have direct access to it for the holidays, you can still get some and prepare yourself for future events and future Thanksgivings.

You can easily order high quality refined coconut oil online from some trusted resources.

For example, see the one that I personally use myself and with all of my clients here.

4. Protect Your Thyroid with Vitamin E

If you’re not cooking your own Thanksgiving meal…

…it’s likely that you’re going to be consuming foods containing large amounts of thyroid-suppressive polyunsaturated fats (PUFAs).

For most this is unavoidable.

But instead of worrying about what’s on your plate, there’s a simple way to help protect yourself.

Using a high-quality Vitamin E supplement on Thanksgiving Day (or any day for that matter) is highly recommended.

It will help protect you from the dangerous effects of these fats.

And Now That Recipe You’ve Been Waiting For

In the previous section, I talked about foods to be careful of.

In this section, I’ll give you a recipe that is full of ingredients that are good for your thyroid so that you can don’t have to worry that the table is covered with foods that are thyroid-toxic.

Parmesan Baked Potato Halves

Source: http://www.favfamilyrecipes.com/parmesan-baked-potato-halves.html Ingredients

• 6 small potatoes, scrubbed and cut in half
• 1/4 cup (60 ml) butter
• grated parmesan cheese
• garlic powder
• other seasonings (to personal preference)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400F/ 204C.
2. Melt butter and pour into a 9×13 inch pan and spread evenly across the bottom.
3. Generously sprinkle parmesan cheese and lightly sprinkle other seasonings all over the butter.
4. Place potato halves face down on the butter and seasonings.
5. Place in preheated oven and bake for 40 to 45 minutes.
6. Cool for at least a FULL 5 minutes before removing from the pan, otherwise the parmesan crust won’t stick to the potato.
7. Serve on a plate with a side of sour cream for dipping.

A few things we like about this recipe…

If you’ve tasted these potatoes then you don’t even need to ask.

Parmesan cheese is one of the most nutrient dense food sources there is.

And being traditionally made with real rennet makes it one of the safest cheeses there is… even for those with dairy sensitivities.

(Note: I believe in all my years I’ve only had one or two clients who had to wait before re-introducing Parmesan cheese.)

Potatoes themselves are also a great source of very high quality nutrition.

However, they are starchier so those who are diabetic or insulin resistant may need to be cautious.

We do address these very issues of diabetes and insulin resistance with our clients, which you can learn more about in this article on “Hypothyroidism and Diabetes: How to Reverse It and Why Sugar Is NOT the Problem“.

Giving Thanks (Thank You)

Don’t spend your day worrying and stressing out about what’s on your plate.

Instead, use the 4 very simple healthy thanksgiving tips above and spend your day enjoying yourself and those around you.

Remember, this holiday is about giving thanks for what we do have.

It’s not about dwelling on our past or what we are lacking.

So count your blessing and focus on a plan for healing your thyroid and improving your health from this point forward.

One of the many things that I’m extremely thankful for is having you in my life…

Because without you, I wouldn’t be able to fulfill my dream of helping people correct the underlying causes of their hypothyroidism and related health problems, instead of relying on the inadequate medical care that most people are limited by today.

So, I wanted to say, Thank You, from the bottom of my heart. Happy Thanksgiving.