Expert: Joanne - 12/15/2008

Question
about four years ago when i was 15 i lost about 40kg going from 93 to 53 kg.
now four years later i have mostly maintained this weight but recently have
gained weight back up to 62kg. (I am 170cm tall). While i know this is in the
healthy weight range  i have not changed my eating habits probably eating
around 1200-1500 calories per day and walk for exercise for about 1hour
and half each day. I need help to understand why i have gained weight and
was wondering is it possible that i have hypothyroidism. my mother was
recently diagnosed. could treatment for this help with the weight gain or is
there something else you could suggest?
thankyou and sorry for such a long winded question.

Answer
Kate

Hypothyroidism could explain your weight gain, and because of that, I suggest that you should go and have blood tests done to determine whether or not it is the cause.

I find it strange that you are eating more than 1200 calories a day, and exercising the same and still have gained weight, this is not a low enough number of calories to cause your body to go into starvation mode - so I think this is definitely something you should bring up with your Dr just to make sure that there is no medical cause for this!

Joanne