EP51: Three Tools For Measuring Your Body's Physiology
In this episode Maja and I talk about why you can't lose weight sustainably until your thyroid is functioning optimally. We explain how the thyroid is your master regulator of your metabolism and how it works in your body to produce energy (C02, heat and water).
We teach you how you can use your own physiological feedback using low tech tools (like body temperature and pulse) to find out how your thyroid is functioning. Explaining how this can be invaluable information over time and how you can use it to help your metabolism work better.
Some important points in our conversation:
- We have a brief conversation about how your throat area and tongue are connected to your pelvic floor and how they can affect each other.
- Your thyroid gland secrets two hormones; T3 (triiodothyronine), which is the active form of thyroid hormone and T4 (thyroxine), which is the inactive (storage) form of thyroid hormone.
- About 75% of your hormonal conversion ( from T4 to T3 ) happens in the liver.
- T3 controls your oxidative metabolism (the rate in which your cells use O2 to turn the food you eat into C02, water, heat and energy)
- T3 is connected to weight loss since it's the basis for control of the body structure and function.
- We talk about how you can measure your thyroid function using body temperature and pulse.
- Stress hormones can mask a low thyroid function - how to determine if you're running on stress hormones or not.
- Measuring basal body temperature and pulse gives you information and feedback about the efficiency and strength of your metabolic function. These measurements can give us direct feedback on how well your body is able to heat itself and transport 02 and nutrients to the cells in your body.
- Broda Barnes, M.D. (Hypothyroidism, an Unsuspected Illness), measured body temperature to determine sub-clinical hypothyroidism which does not show up in standard blood chemistry tests. The basic function of the thyroid is its ability to regulate the metabolic furnace of the body – to create heat or control temperature.”
- The basal body temperature originated from Dr. Broda Barnes when he discovered that hypothyroidism was being severely under diagnosed in the medical community. He later developed a diagnostic test that was intended for thyroid function and it became known as the “Barnes Basal Temperature Test”
How to establish your baseline metabolic function with temperature and pulse...
Use a digital oral thermometer.
Take your temperature and pulse after waking in the morning, again 30 minutes after breakfast and then 30 minutes after lunch
Do this for 7-14 consecutive days.
Your pulse can be measured by taking two fingers to your carotid artery on your neck or on your wrist and feeling for a strong pulse. Hold there for 10 seconds and then multiply that number by 6 or hold it for a full 60 seconds to get your full heart beats per minute (bpm) measurement.
Your optimum temperature will range between 97.8 and 98.6 F or 36.6 - 37.0 C. A normal rhythm should be reflected by a lower measurement for both in the morning and rise to it’s peak in midday and then decline in the evening. Your optimum pulse will range between 75-85 beats per minute at rest.