If you run your hand along the front of your neck starting right below your chin, you'll eventually hit a slight bump - that's when you know you've hit the thyroid gland. Your thyroid is a butterfly-shaped gland located along the mid-line of your neck, only a few inches above your lungs. The thyroid produces the hormones that regulate your metabolism. The proximity of these organs almost begs us to assume an inherent relationship between respiration, oxygen, and metabolism.

Oxygen feeds the fire of your metabolism. Like snuffing out a candle, a lack of oxygen all but extinguishes your metabolism. Under certain conditions, oxygen gets scarce in your blood. When oxygen is scarce, what's the thyroid to do? Your thyroid will naturally shift to a hypoactive state. The placement of your thyroid close to the lungs is not coincidental, but has meaning.

The thyroid tends to get a lot of the blame in the metabolism & weight loss game. The thyroid approach can leave you feeling a little fatalistic about metabolism - as if it's a fixed thing - you were either born with a high or a low metabolism and there's nothing you can do about it. But the foods you eat can affect your metabolism.

Rich foods such as bread, cheese and sugar, depress your metabolism because they thicken your bodily fluids. As your blood thickens, it becomes harder to circulate. Your circulation is responsible for carrying oxygen to all the cells of the body. When blood is thick and sluggish, oxygen delivery is thwarted, depressing your metabolism. A thick coating of mucus in your lungs doesn't help. The mucus thwarts absorption of oxygen. So you should avoid these foods if you have a low metabolism, no matter what your thyroid count is.

The effect of thick blood on your metabolism is similar to a camp fire with too many logs on it. If you've ever built a fire then you've probably had this experience. When there are too many logs, the fire starts to smolder. The vitality of the fire becomes dim and smoky. It becomes a very cloudy, and unclear. Once your fire is choked, it takes even longer to burn off the logs. If you had a nice roaring fire and threw a bunch of logs on it the fire would rip right through it. But when your metabolism is already smouldering, adding more rich food just slows down your whole system. Everything gets stagnant and dim, starting with metabolism, but also including your digestion. Even thinking becomes difficult, and your thoughts cloudy. This literally happens because of the changes in your blood.

Low thyroid is simply the end of a chain reaction. If you set off a long string of dominoes on a table - thyroid might be the last one to tumble. But the process started a long back. In order to rectify it, you must start at the beginning.

Read about these home remedies for hypothyroid

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