Going 70-100% with borderline hypothyroidism and CVS

Hey everyone!

I started using huel a few years ago to help alleviate days with severe ‘cyclic vomiting syndrome’ (CVS).

Essentialy I was throwing up after every meal/drink. I cut out every single posible thing the doctor could think of to the point I couldn’t eat anything anyone else made as there was always something that was gluten, or not low fod map ot whatever trend the doctor had picked up on.

I was already vegetarian before CVS struck and then I lost all interest in food and I stoped going anywhere I was expected to eat in public because geting sick was embarasing but having people question why I wasn’t eating was worse.

They wanted to give me anti-depressents and hypnotherapy which I declined and thought I would try to find something else to help first.

I kept needing IVs of nutrients because I wasn’t absorbing much and had to stop working because I was constantly drained, tierd and hungry all the time.

It also had a serious effect on my weight I would bounce around up and down over 10kg (22 pounds) every couple of months.

I used huel to try to give myself much needed nutrients having 50 g at a time as my stomach would eject anything heavier. Huel really helped the CVS but I did occasionaly throw it back up too.

Currently the CVS is better, I am also borderline hypothyroid (under active) but my blood tests seemed to be getting better when I was using huel more frequently.

I want to try and keep on top of my weight, I somehow put on about 10 kg between March to July then lost 8.2 kg since August through no changes in my life style at all but I am accounting this to the CVS and under active thyroid.

This past week I have been at 40-60% huel and I am now going to try to go 70-80% huel most days and 100% some of the time starting tomorrow. I am thinking 5 days 70/80% 2 days 100%.

In all the time I have used huel I haven’t noticed any side effects but that could be due to the other medical problems I had going on at the time.

This last week I have been crazy hyperactive (think tigger from winny the pooh -I was litteraly jumping around singing “The wonderfull thing about Tiggers” song) of an evening since uping my huel intake so I am interested to see long term how huel will affect my energy levels.

I am still having a bit of trouble geting energized in the morning but its not as bad as it was.

I also found that when my friend made me food I couldn’t eat half the portion size he gave me since upping the huel intake.

In case anyone is also underactive thyroid or is just interested in general I have listed the three main blood tests they do and my worst/best/current results.

I am getting another blood test in 2 months so I am interested in seeing if this change in my diet makes a difference.

TSH normal range 0.27-4.2 mU/L
T4 normal range 12-22
T3 Normal range 4-6

TSH worst 26.41
TSH best 4.92
Oct 2018 10.5

T4 worst 7.6
T4 best 12.7
Oct 2018 12.3

T3 2017 4.7

I will keep this updated to keep track of what happens, both energy levels, thyrpid leves and weight.

I am currently at 67 kg and am aiming to get down to 60 kg.

I have worked out all of my calories and as there as so few foods I can actually eat I thing I will be able to stick to it wothout getting to tempted.

Hope you are all going well on your huel journey!

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Hey there, how are you getting along?

Great to have you on the Huel team, it sounds like this a really difficult condition to manage. It sounds like the general goal here to just consume the right about of nutrients to improve your blood markers?

Keep us posted, thanks for taking the time to tell as about you :blush:

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Hi @Tim_Huel thanks for droping by.
My choice of Huel is for nutrition, in the weeks before increasing my Huel intake I was throwing up after every meal/ drink of water no mater what it was.
I wouldnt usualy throw up the whole meal just a large portion of it.
But at its worst I managed to throw up a whole can of tomato soup back into the tin it came out of, filling it back to the top.

However in these last 9 days I increased my Huel intake to the point where I have only been having approximately 200/400 calories of non Huel meals.

I have only been sick twice in the last 5 days both times after having a meal at my friends house, once was with a pasta dish and the other with toas and a black coffee.

With CVS I used to find I would be quite tierd after eating and my hunger would be all over the place. It was especially hard when you eat then it all projectiles back out leaving you more hungry (but less inclined to eat) than when you started!

I have now managed to get my food intake to more routine times and am going to try making shakes of more than 200 calories at a time next week as I intend to go 100% Huel once I eat he left over salad and dont know how I will be able to drink 7 200 calorie meals in a day.
I am concerned about it being to heavy a meal and it making me sick but I will have to adjust as I go along.

I have also found that the mind fog that I usualy experience in the mornings (that could be because of the borderline thyroid issue) is much better.
The only day it was bad was in the morning when my last meal was dinner at and not Huel. I will be keeping that in mind in the future.

I have managed to maintain my weight of 67 kg on changing up my diet this past week.

My goal for this week is to:
Eating between 10 am - 7 pm
Go 100% Huel once the perishable salad is gone.
Reduce my calorie intake to start making progress to my current goal weight of 60 kg.

Hope you are all well!

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Had a reasonably huel filled week with some healthy foods too. Now that my energy levels have evened out I am going to focus on getting to my (current) goal weight of 60 kg.

Inconsistent Hueling 6th of August starting weight 74.9 kg.
(A reduction of 7.9 kg before staring consistent Hueling)

Consistent Hueling 27th of January starting weight 67 kg

Current weight 66.1 kg
(Overall reduction of 8.8 kg)

I’m not going to up my exercise too much just yet at it aggravates the CVS, but hope to in the near future.

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Week 3

Current weight: 64.9 kg
Reduction since last week: 1.2 kg
Overall reduction: 10 kg!

This week I had mostly Huel most days, I atempted one meal mid week with famil which made me feel ill and made me feel realy ill.
I realy prefer the sustained feeling I get with Huel.

I am very surprised with the 1.2 kg weight reduction I found this morning as I was out last night for a colleagues 70 th birthday where I had dinner, desert and drinks last night :partying_face:.

I am teally happy with my increased Huel intake, all of my stmptoms are much calmer and I can actualy enjoy having a meal socially without the CVS interfering too much.
I find I feel fuller on smaller amounts of food when I do eat which probably contributes to the reduced symptoms of CVS.

I am looking forward to my next blood test for the thyroid levels as I don’t feel any of the symptoms of it.

Hope you are all enjoying your Huel journeys.

Week 4

Current weight 64.7 kg
Reduction since last week 0.2 kg

This week I had some CVS symptoms crop up which made it hard to consume all my allocated calories for those days. I didn’t keep records of eating patterns on those days but I will next time to see of there are any overall patterns.

Otherwise still enjoying Huel and love that its take out the process of chosing and making food each day. Even with a calorie deficit I am not felling particualry hungry if I stay to set meal times (give or take)

Not bothered by the minuscule weight change as I have been measuring various parts of myself and have seen consistent changes into this week which I am very pleased about.

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Morning Error,

Sounds like you are making progress with your goals.

It is really interesting to see that your CVS seems to be becoming more manageable and that you were able to go to the 70th birthday party. From your earlier posts I am guessing this would have been a big no no.

I would be interested to know what Huel is going to help with this? Is it the regular small intake do you think? Could the stress of what your stomach perceives as over indulging cause you to vomit?

A very interesting post.

Hello Journey2wellness,

You are right I stopped going to social events, I got bored of watching everyone else eat. I was lucky when it was at its worst all my friends I went out with I worked with and they had seen the hell of it so it was no where near as bad as going places when people assume your not eating/drinking because your on a diet.

I originally picked Huel because a friend was malnourished and it was recommended for him. I thought it looked like something I could use to help replenish my own nutrients and would just take the headache of thinking about food as I had been put off eating so many things due to the taste the second time around…

Huel helped me workout how much food/calories my stomach could actually take at a time; 200-300 calories max and thats drinking over about half an hour. I spread them out about every 2 hours and will also have something else that I know will stay.

I try to eat any solid food before 4pm as my digestion is also a bit on the slow side. Actually thats what they told me in 2016, so I’m not sure if thats still true.

I also find that there are days where I am clocking less than 800 calories but because I can’t physicaly eat anymore. For example I went away in November travelling with a friend and over 3 days I had 2 small meals but wasn’t hungry, thirsty or tired.

When I cam back was when I decided I really have to make sure I get a handle on getting enough nutrition in me.

I am not sure why my stomach randomly rejects food, when I was younger I used to feel or get sick occasionally after breakfast in the mornings. I wonder if my slow digestion ment when I was eating breakfast it still hadn’t properly processed dinner and rejected it. I gave up eating breakfast back then because of it.

Week 5

Current weight 63.4 kg
Reduction since last week: 1.3 kg

Still finding myself able to get up far easier and with more energy in the mornings yay huel!
I had 2 days with quite bad CVS caused vomiting, nowhere near as bad as what it can be. This was on days were I had soup and bread, personaly I blame the bread as its usualy a contributory factor to bad CVS days. I bearly ever have bread any more and maybe I will have to ditch it entirely.

I am happy with my overall weight reduction so far and beter protien carb fat consumption percentages.

I have been in the scales daily and keeping track of my average and lowest weights from these for the week. It can fluctuate wildly up and down over 2 kg but my measurments are consistantly reducing so I am content.

Week 8

Monday this week marks my reintroduction of exercise into my routine!

The under-active thyroid would play havoc with my energy levels and I found it hard to motivate myself into going to the gym.
Furthermore some exercises exaserbated the CVS vomiting… not fin finishing a workout then throwing your guts up.

Over the last few weeks I have had no CVS symptoms (unless I had bread) so I thought it would be a good time to get to the gym and see what workouts I could handle.

Going for a mix of cardio weights and swimming and see if any still cause me to vomit.
So far none have during or immediately after but on Monday I did feel more sensitive to eating in the evening. So I need to keep an eye on that.

Current stats:
I am currently static at 63.4 kg, the same as a few weeks ago. However my body composition has changed.

Before upping my Huel intake I had reduced the inches of various areas of my body (27 measurments - I know thats a lot but I needed to see where things were changing) by 70 inches.

Since starting this thread and upping my Huel intake my stats are:
Reduction in weight: 3.6 kg
Reduction in body composition: 26 inches
Overall weight reduction: 11.5 kg
Overall body composition change: -96 inches.

4 of those inches reduced over my body were over the weeks where my weight stayed static. Even though I am still aiming for 60 kg, I am much happier seeing changes in my shape than on the scale.

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