Welcome back to Thyroid Strong, the podcast for high-performing women with Hashimoto’s who want real strength, real answers, and root-cause healing—without the burnout.

In today’s episode, I break down the exact roadmap I wish I had on Day 1 of my Hashimoto’s diagnosis. No fluff, no guessing, no protocol-of-the-month—just a clear, strategic plan to get strong, reduce inflammation, and finally feel like yourself again.

I cover:

• Why testing over guessing is non-negotiable

• The labs I would run immediately (full thyroid panel, GI-MAP, blood sugar markers, cortisol data)

• How to rebuild your foundational habits so your body has the capacity to heal

• Why sleep is your first domino—before supplements or workouts

• How to stabilize blood sugar quickly

• Why gut health is central to autoimmune healing

• How to work out with Hashimoto’s so you build muscle instead of burning out

• The role of protein in hormone balance, energy, and metabolism

• When tools like peptides, drainage pathways, and detox support make sense

This is the episode I wish someone had made me listen to when I was first diagnosed. If you’re newly diagnosed or overwhelmed by conflicting advice, this will provide you with clarity, direction, and momentum.

Episode Highlights

00:00 – Welcome + why this episode matters

00:56 – My personal Hashimoto’s journey

01:34 – What I’d do first if I were diagnosed today

01:39 – Test, don’t guess: essential labs

03:54 – Rebuilding your foundation

04:18 – Sleep + stress: the starting point

05:39 – Stabilizing blood sugar

07:27 – Gut health + autoimmune triggers

09:28 – How to train effectively with Hashimoto’s

10:37 – Protein + nutritional priorities

12:44 – Detox + drainage

13:32 – The role of peptides

15:22 – Final thoughts + next steps

Do you need my help?

Functional Medicine Coaching for Hashimoto’s

Root-cause testing + personalized protocols:

https://www.dremilykiberd.com/functional-health-coaching/

Thyroid Strong — Doctor-Designed Strength Program

Get strong without the flare-ups:

https://www.dremilykiberd.com/thyroid-strong/

Free Resources

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https://www.dremilykiberd.com/gutfunctionalhealth/

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DISCLAIMER

The Thyroid Strong Podcast with Dr. Emily Kiberd is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute the practice of medicine, nursing, or other professional health care services, including the giving of medical advice. No doctor–patient relationship is formed by listening to this podcast or using any of the information provided. The content of this podcast is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Users should not disregard, delay, or avoid seeking medical advice for any medical condition they may have. Always seek the guidance of your own health care provider for any questions regarding your health or medical conditions. The use of information from this podcast is at the user’s own risk.

welcome back to Thyroid Strong Podcasts.

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This is a show for women with Hashimoto's

who want to work out and heal their

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Hashimoto's smarter, not harder.

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And finally, feel strong,

lean, and full of energy.

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Again, I'm Dr.

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Emily Kiberd chiropractor,

functional medicine practitioner

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and creator of Thyroid Strong

Functional Medicine program.

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If I were diagnosed with Hashimoto's

today, knowing what I know now, I

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would do things completely different.

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No crash diets.

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No endless cardio, no supplement roulette.

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Today, I'm sharing exactly what I'd do

if I were starting from scratch, step

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by step to lose inflammation weight.

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Rebuild strength, reverse my

Hashimoto's symptoms in the

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most sustainable way possible.

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And this is coming from someone who is

a chiropractor for the last 18 years,

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has a background in strength rehab.

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Built a seven figure

clinic in New York City.

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is a mom of two, and put her Hashimoto's

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But let's do a little rewind.

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When I was first diagnosed

with Hashimoto's, I tried to.

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Let's say hustle my

way out of Hashimoto's.

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I under ate, I Overtrained, hello,

double Soul Cycle classes five days a

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week, and I thought I could out exercise

my fatigue and it totally backfired.

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I gained weight.

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I lost muscle mass.

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I felt even more exhausted then.

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having a new baby, and when I was

diagnosed with Hashimoto's, it was after

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the birth of my firstborn baby Elvis.

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It wasn't until I slowed down

and worked with my body, not

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against it, that things change.

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So here's what I would do

if I was starting all over

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again to today from scratch.

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First step, step one, collect the data.

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I take a test don't guess approach.

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You cannot change what you do not measure.

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So things that I would run are a

full thyroid panel, TSH, free T

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four, free T three, reverse T three,

the two antibody tests, TPO and

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TgAB, thyroid globulin antibodies.

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When I was first diagnosed,

I had seen five doctors that

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had only run TSH and T four.

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No one had any idea.

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There was the autoimmune component

going on for about a year.

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And then my fifth doctor, which is a

common story amongst the Hashi ladies,

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seeing multiple doctors before they

find their one that diagnose them,

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was like, girl, your antibodies are

off the charts, so let's get to work.

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I'd run a salivary cortisol test to

check my cortisol rhythm throughout

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the day, not just that one point

from a blood test in the morning.

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So that would look like either,

a Dutch test or a Genova.

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A salivary cortisol test with a car

awakening response, A GI map stool test to

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look at my intestinal inflammation markers

to see if I had SIBO h pylori parasite.

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Potentially I would look at nutrient

status from a blood perspective.

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Ferritin Vitamin D, zinc Selenium B12.

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When I was first diagnosed,

my vitamin D was 12.

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FDA says above 30.

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Optimal ranges is really 60 to 80.

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I would check my blood sugar

regulation, fasting insulin,

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fasting glucose, hemoglobin A1C.

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I would run a mold and mycotoxin

panel on myself if there were any

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signs of fatigue or brain fog.

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And I do that for my clients.

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Now in my functional medicine

practice, when there is

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fatigue, we're looking at sleep.

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Sometimes we order a sleep study.

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We're looking at iron, a

full iron panel of ferritin.

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We're looking at thyroid panel.

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We're looking at gut, which

could cause fatigue, especially

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after eating like h pylori.

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And if there are things like a

histamine response, then we are also

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checking for mold and mycotoxins.

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So those results tell you

why your body is holding onto

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inflammation and potentially weight.

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So that you can really target the problem,

the real problem at the root cause.

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Before touching food or supplements,

I would rebuild my foundation.

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So while I'm collecting data, doing

the test, and this is what I do in

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my one-on-one functional medicine

practice, while we are gathering the

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data, we are rebuilding foundation.

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How are you eating?

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How are you working out?

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How are you sleeping?

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And how are you regulating your

stress, your nervous system regulation?

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And how are you making

your body feel safe?

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So.

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I would prioritize sleep Back in the

day I did not because I had a practice

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and a team to run and a new baby.

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For women, I recommend seven to nine hours

of sleep a night, six hours uninterrupted.

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So no waking up to pee.

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And we want one and a half to two

hours of deep sleep a night screen

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free two hours before you go to bed.

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Mouth tape, sinus opening with an intake,

breathing device or Nasal strip to open

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up the septums blue blocker glasses.

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If you need other things related

to sleep and foundation, morning

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sunlight exposure and walking

the first half hour of the day.

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Breath work longer.

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Exhale than inhale.

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Maybe you tap into the NVA app or the

Your Daily Health app before meals to

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drop into that place of rest and digest

that parasympathetic nervous system.

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If your nervous system is

stuck in fight or flight.

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Your thyroid will downshift to protect

you, and no thyroid medication or

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supplement can override that nervous

system feeling of being unsafe.

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Okay, so such an important

piece of the healing journey.

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For a long time, I thought nervous

system regulation was bullshit.

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I've changed my tunes over the years.

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I thought just execute, execute, execute.

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But the more I've learned, the more

I've gone on this own healing journey.

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Nervous system regulation

is very important.

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Next I would stabilize my blood sugar.

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I would eat within one hour of waking.

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I used to eat a coffee and croissant, so

very Parisian in New York, city of me.

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And then I would not eat till

dinner and I would crash around

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noon to basically all day.

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'cause I did not, I was

not feeding myself enough.

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Sometimes I would fast, I would not

eat and I wouldn't eat until noon.

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'cause I was running to work

and I was like, oh, I'm so busy.

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I'm too busy to eat.

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How many of you listening to

this have said that to yourself?

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Change your tune my friends.

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So eat within an hour of waking.

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There's studies that show that eating in

the morning pulls your cortisol back down.

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So cortisol is supposed to be high

in the morning, peaks 30 minutes

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after, and then gradually goes down

as the rest of the day goes on.

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Cortisol is like the sun.

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It's supposed to wake you up.

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It's your motivation,

your get going hormone.

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Cortisol can stay high if you're not

eating to help bring it back down.

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Okay, so I like to eat

within one hour of waking.

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I eat 30 grams of protein,

minimum per meal, sometimes up

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to 50, especially for breakfast.

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You are breaking your fast with

breakfast, so I want to feed my muscle

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tissue after that overnight fast.

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With protein, I pair carbs.

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Any carb I eat, I'm pairing

it with a protein or fat.

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I like to walk 10 to 15 minutes

after eating after each meal to

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help regulate my blood sugar.

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Stable blood sugar equates

to stable cortisol.

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Stable cortisol equates to better

thyroid hormone conversion, which

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then leads to easier fat loss.

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Okay, lemme say that again.

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Stabilize your blood sugar.

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Eat your protein, which helps stabilize

your cortisol, your stress hormone,

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which then helps with thyroid hormone

conversion, and then fat loss your gut.

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It is where your autoimmune

disease begins and ends.

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I'll say that again.

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Your gut is where autoimmune

disease begins and ends.

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So I would check myself, 'cause I

was really bloated back in the day.

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I was tired after I ate,

like 15 minutes after I ate.

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knowing what I know now is like, hello?

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That sounds like h pylori.

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I would check for h pylori

back then, I didn't know.

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I would check for sibo.

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If I had lower belly bloat, like belly

button down, I would check for parasites.

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If you're someone who eats sushi

has traveled, you know, I went

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to India, Nepal when I was 20.

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Hello.

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I was sick for three months.

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All three months I was there

after eating street food.

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if you have pets, all those things

would point to check parasites.

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And then potential yeast overgrowth,

some sifo, which we talked about

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last episode or two episodes ago.

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Then I would follow the right

order of operations for healing.

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Open up your drainage pathways,

lymph, liver, bile, bowels.

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You can open up your lymph through

sweating, workouts, dry brushing,

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stepping on a vibration plate.

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You can support your liver with castor

oil packs and certain supplements.

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Liver support supplements.

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You can get the bile flowing.

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The bile is, is what binds to fats.

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Also binds to mold, gets squirt

out from your gallbladder.

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You could support your bile production

and flow with the phospholipid complex

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or tudca, and then bowel movements

moving your body, getting enough fiber.

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If fiber's aggravating you,

you gotta check for sibo.

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Magnesium oxide at night does wonders

for bowel movements in the morning.

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I would address gut infections

that came up on that GI map.

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I would rebuild my digestion with

digestive enzymes and stomach

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acid support like betaine, HCL.

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So heal the gut, calm the immune system.

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You will see thyroid antibodies drop.

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My old workouts were like cortisol bombs.

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Now I work out thyroid strong

style, so I do three to four.

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Workouts a week.

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If I do three workouts a week,

they're full body sessions.

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If I do four, it's an upper lower split.

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I like to range between three to

eight reps on the heavier side.

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Nice long rest breaks like two to

three minute rest breaks between sets.

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I like my workout to be under 35

minutes to really maintain my energy.

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If you are chasing sweat, you

are going after the wrong thing.

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You do not need to be in a puddle

of sweat after your workout.

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Yes, sweating is great for lymph,

but I would be chasing muscle.

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You want to build muscle.

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Muscle is harder to maintain

when you have Hashimoto's.

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That low thyroid function, low

hormone conversion, makes it way

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harder to keep muscle on the bone.

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Me muscle is our metabolic engine.

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It is a glucose sponge.

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It helps improve blood sugar

regulation, improves mood, supports

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thyroid hormone conversion.

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There is no downside to

having too much muscle.

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Alright, let's talk about food.

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Undereating is the fastest

way to crash your thyroid.

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I used to eat, like I said, coffee

and croissant for breakfast, and

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then steak and broccoli for dinner

and would go working, seeing

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20 patients throughout the day.

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For like a 12 hour day, I was probably

getting, I don't know, 600 calories a day.

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Great way to crash your thyroid.

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So now I eat enough protein.

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I eat one gram per pound

of ideal body weight.

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Right now I am in a muscle

building phase 'cause I have

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under eaten for a long, long time.

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I'm actually in a reverse diet, which

we'll do a whole nother episode on.

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Um, so I'm eating about 145 grams of

protein per day right now for you.

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If your BMI is 30 or above, you

are gonna shoot for like 0.8

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grams of protein per pound

of ideal body weight.

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If your BMI is below 30, you're

gonna shoot for one gram per

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pound of ideal body weight.

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I would include healthy fats,

strategic carbs, which we will

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talk about in a different episode.

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Um, we are more insulin

sensitive in the morning.

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It's better to push those

carbs towards the morning and

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then use them to build muscle.

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In your workouts and use your

carbs for muscle recovery.

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For fat loss, I would probably put

myself in a 10% deficit unless I was

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undereating, then I would get back

up to maintenance and then reassess.

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I would try not to be in starvation mode.

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You cannot heal if you

are chronically under fed.

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I see this all the time.

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Women eating 1100 calories a day.

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And they're lifting weights,

and they're walking and they're

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hanging out with their kids.

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They're undereating and they

don't have their hunger cues.

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They're like, I'm not hungry Em,

because their cortisol is dysregulated.

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So if you address the cortisol, get

them feeding and fueling properly,

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their hunger cues come back.

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They actually wake up and

they're like, oh, I'm hungry.

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It's a great thing to come

back to before any gut.

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Removal or mold protocol

removal, kill phase.

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We open up the following.

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We get you sweating.

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Daily sauna workouts, dry

brushing before showers.

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Cast your oil packs over the liver.

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Upper right quadrant of the abdomen,

we make sure your pooping every day.

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We give your liver some love.

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So maybe it's beets, arugula,

dandelion, digestive bitters,

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tudca, alpha lipoic acid.

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We open up the drains before you detox.

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We open up the tubes, the

pipes that things flow through

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before you detox your thyroid.

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Well, thank you so much

for doing this first.

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So when I hear people doing a mold

detox and they start with binders, I

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almost fall outta my chair because I'm

like, wow, you probably feel terrible.

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And they're like, yes.

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How did you know?

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I'm like, I know, 'cause I've done it.

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You have to open up the

drainage pathways first.

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Once these foundations are solid,

sleep, nutrition training, gut

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drainage, then I like to consider

peptides as an accelerator.

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Peptides are not magic.

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You still have to lift the weights, eat

the protein, unless you just wanna be a

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smaller size of yourself like some people

are like, I, I did peptides, like GLP

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ones, like Tirzepatide or semaglutide

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And now I'm just a smaller

version of myself, but I'm

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still kinda like skinny fat.

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I'm not toned and defined.

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It's 'cause you have to do the basics.

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The foundations lift the weights, eat

the protein, regulate the blood sugar

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and peptides help regulate blood sugar.

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But they are signaling molecules

that remind your body what

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to do when it's forgotten.

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They're not the magic pill.

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Here's how I like to think of 'em.

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GLP ones like.

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Semaglutide Tirzepatide can help with

blood sugar control, can help with

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appetite control 'cause it slows the

gastric ene from the stomach, but only

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if protein and lifting are dialed in.

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Otherwise, you will lose muscle

instead of fat, sometimes up to 40%.

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Another peptide, I like to use BPC

1 5 7 for tissue repair also great

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if you're healing from an injury

or if you have gut inflammation.

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thymosin Alpha one or TB 500 for immune

modulation during, an autoimmune flare.

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Great for recovery.

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So I would use these strategically

and always under medical supervision,

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but I pair every peptide phase with a.

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Macro plan macros and calories.

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In a strength training program,

you do not do those separate.

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They're done together because the

goal is not to be smaller, is to be

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stronger, toned, resilient, robust.

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More energy peptides can amplify

these results, but only when

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the foundations are in place.

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So hormones reactive like you

heard in the last episode.

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But when you fix your gut health, blood

sugar, regulation, stress, estrogen,

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progesterone often can rebalance.

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In a natural way, I say quote unquote,

because I do believe that there is

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power to taking HRT when indicated.

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So don't chase hormone numbers.

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Let's stabilize the systems

that they respond to first.

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And I like to build from the ground up.

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That's what I've shared.

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Test, don't guess.

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Regulate the nervous system, train

hard, fuel the body properly, detox

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and then refine with hormones and

peptides to support your body.

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And your body will then start to

trust you again, your energy return.

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Your brain fog will lift you.

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Feel strong, lean.

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You feel vital, alive.

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So if you're starting from scratch

and you wanna lose weight and

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reverse your Hashi symptoms, remember

this order one, test don't guess.

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Two.

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Bring safety to the body.

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Regulate your nervous system.

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Three, balance that blood

sugar, no naked carbs.

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Ladies, heal your gut.

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Oftentimes we need to use a test stone

Guess approach by using a GI stool

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map or a more specific parasite test.

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Lift them heavy weights.

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You know, I'm a big proponent of that.

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Harder to maintain muscle,

tissue with Hashimoto's.

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Lifting weights is a non-negotiable.

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Eat your protein, open

your drainage pathways.

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Use peptides, but still do the basics

and then balance your hormones and

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do it in this order, and your thyroid

metabolism and your energy will.

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We will line up and if you wanna see

how the sequence looks like with my

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clients, I have a masterclass on this.

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It's a gut masterclass.

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The link is in the show notes, or you

can DM me on Instagram gut mc, and

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I'll send you the link if you want

this work done in a personal way.

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I'm gonna drop a link in the show

notes to jump on a call with me

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to see if I'm a good fit for you

and you're a good fit for me.

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To do this work over a six month

period inside of my thyroid Strong

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functional Medicine program.

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This is where we dial all these, like

everything I just shared, we do this

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with support, messaging, support, so

that you never fall off the bandwagon.

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You always know what you're doing.

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You're never Googling, Hey, what

should I do if this happens?

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You are supported step by step, and it is

customized and it is personalized to you.

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So if that's interesting to

you, link is in the show notes.

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Ladies, I will see you next week.