From Fog to Focus: Rebuilding My Fitness After Hypothyroidism
How I found the motivation to move more and sit less.
When I first started working from home, the thyroid-related weight gain didn’t take long to arrive (although I didn’t know that’s what it was at the time). A few pounds at first. Then a few more. But honestly, the weight wasn’t what concerned me the most.
It was everything else creeping quietly alongside it.
Constant fatigue.
Permanent low-level brain fog.
Tiny work problems triggering outsized frustration.
A growing sense of not quite feeling at home in my own body anymore.
I wasn’t just sitting more I was operating on low power mode almost constantly. Snapping at colleagues for things that wouldn’t have bothered me six months earlier. Feeling like every small task drained my battery completely.
At first, I blamed it on lockdown. The pandemic had changed everyone’s routines. Everyone was tired. Everyone was out of sorts. I assumed this was just the collateral damage of working from home during covid.
Except... it kept getting worse. I started to need more sleep and more sugar and more caffeine to make it through the workday.
When Coffee and Naps Weren’t Enough
The more exhausted I felt, the more I needed sugar and caffeine to stay functional. Which worked brilliantly for about 45 minutes. Then came the next crash, requiring more sugar, more caffeine, and, eventually, a nap.
During lockdown, my routine quietly reorganised itself into a cycle of survival:
Drag myself out of bed for the first meeting.
Mainline coffee at the first available break.
Power through a morning of back-to-back calls.
Collapse into bed at lunchtime for a quick nap (otherwise known as a full system shutdown followed by a frantic five-minute Zoom re-entry).
Finish work, eat whatever required the least cooking, and promptly fall asleep again on the sofa.
Wake up at 10pm just long enough to brush my teeth and go to bed properly.
I kept thinking it’s just work-from-home exhaustion. It’ll get better soon.
Spoiler: it didn’t.
It was at this point, almost four months after this pattern of eat, sleep, repeat and I realised this was something a little more than just “working-from-home exhaustion”. These were early signs of hypothyroidism fatigue, and I needed to speak to the doctor.
The Diagnosis That Changed Things
Eventually, I booked a doctor’s appointment.
Diagnosis: hypothyroidism.
Turns out, my thyroid took one look at 2020 and said, “Nah, I’m done.” Not dramatically, not even with warning, just a quiet systems shutdown, like a laptop that decides mid-Zoom call it has had enough and shuts down mid-sentence, no warning, no apology.
A relatively straightforward diagnosis later, I left the doctor’s office with a prescription for levothyroxine. As soon as I took the first tablet I immediately, I felt better. Not quite like myself, but definitely better. The fog lifted slightly. The exhaustion wasn’t quite so heavy.
But this was just the beginning. What followed was over a year of regular blood tests testing my hormone levels, adjusting dosages, waiting, retesting, adjusting again. Eventually we found a level that worked for me.
My Thyroid Wasn’t the Only Problem
As my brain started to clear, I noticed something else: my habits weren’t exactly pulling their weight either.
I’d defaulted to the lazy option for dinners more often than I’d like to admit: ready meals, takeaways, whatever required the least thought or effort.
Whether I was sitting at my desk, binge-watching Netflix, my physical activity levels had shrunk to almost nothing.
I didn’t have the strength to carry deliveries of coal to the boat without needing a break every 10kg bag.
The less I moved, the worse I felt. Not guilty. Just weak. Fragile. Wobbly.
And that’s when I realised this wasn’t just about weight gain, an under-active thyroid or my increasingly short fuse during afternoon Zoom calls.
Yes, the hypothyroidism was currently playing a starring role. But layered underneath was twenty years of suboptimal routines, default settings, and quietly accumulated bad habits, undermining my ability to feel like myself.
Making time for Cake (and Lunchtime Walks)
The first real change? I started moving again. And like most of my best decisions, it involved cake.
At first, it was just a short walk, ten minutes or so, to the café by the river. Hardly the stuff of fitness blogs. But I was out of the boat. I was upright. I was moving. Technically, I called it “getting some fresh air.” In practice, I was on a mission to acquire baked goods.
My local café makes the most amazing homemade cake, from marshmallows to dangerously good banana and chocolate loaf.
On the days I made it out of the boat to get cake my mood improved, I was less irritable, I had more energy. But it was more than just delicious cake and coffee that were changing how I felt.
The real benefit came from taking an actual break. Leaving my desk. Moving my body. Letting my brain reset instead of diving straight from one Zoom meeting into another. Those breaks became a welcome relief in the otherwise uninterrupted marathon of online meetings.
Before long, this became the routine I looked forward to every day. I’d find myself going a bit further, taking a longer loop, building in a little more fresh air and extra steps into my lunchtime walk. If I timed it right, I could finish my walk, sit on the bench overlooking the river, enjoy my coffee and cake, before heading back to work.
The Power of Slow Change
My lunchtime excursion for cake, and the incidental walk that accompanied it, doesn’t sound like it would be transformational. But it was.
I found something I genuinely enjoyed (cake, obviously) and quietly used it as motivation (or let’s be honest, bribery) to build a habit that got me out from behind my desk. The reward was instant: excellent homemade cake. And because the café had an endless supply of dangerously tempting options, there was always a reason to keep going back.
But here’s the bit I didn’t expect, over time, the walk started to matter just as much as the cake. As my thyroid levels evened out and exhaustion finally loosened its grip, I noticed something shifting. I felt better after the walk. I looked forward to moving. Some days, I even skipped the cake entirely, radical, I know. (Don’t worry, the cake shop is still in business.)
The secret wasn’t motivation, or willpower, or some grand plan. It was repetition. Building small, repeatable health habits that helped me feel better. Familiarity. A routine that didn’t feel overwhelming. A reason to keep showing up that didn’t require a spreadsheet or personal trainer. The cake got me out of the door, the habit kept me going.
And none of this happened overnight. It took months of daily walks, cake walks, in every kind of weather: rain, hail, shine. But it worked because it was doable. Because I never once had to psych myself up for “exercise.” I just had to fancy a bit of homemade cake. Everything else followed.
What Actually Worked (and Still Does)
If there’s any great secret to how I’ve started rebuilding my health, it’s honestly a bit underwhelming, and that’s kind of the point. No radical overhauls of my life. Just a few small adjustments to my workday routine that I could repeat often enough to make some new habits.
- The Cue: Lunchtime would arrive, and my brain would start whispering its usual: "You’re exhausted. You deserve a break. Also: you have earned a slice of cake."
- The Routine: I’d get up, leave the boat, walk to the café by the river. A few minutes of fresh air, a change of scene, a bit of movement. Not exactly a fitness regime, but I was on my feet, not in my chair.
- The Reward: Coffee. Cake. And surprisingly, a body that felt less heavy by the afternoon. A brain that didn’t feel quite so foggy. Fewer snappy moments on Zoom calls.
My progress wasn’t linear. It still isn’t. Some weeks the walks are longer, some weeks I eat more cake. But slowly, this somewhat unconventional motivation for exercise has become my fitness routine, my sustainable version of self-care, and my version of consistency.
And that, more than any diet, detox or “summer shred challenge” actually made a difference to how I feel.
If You’re Starting Over Too…
Here’s what I’ve learned:
Find something you enjoy. When you enjoy something, you’re far more likely to keep doing it, even on the days you don’t feel wildly motivated.
Do it as often. The goal isn’t perfection, it’s frequency. Do it often enough that it becomes part of your daily rhythm, not another item on your mental to-do list.
Let it be messy. You’re not building a perfect routine, you’re starting to rewire years of habits. Some days will be more successful than others, that’s normal, keep going.
Living with hypothyroidism can feel like wading through treacle but so can sitting at your office desk from 9 to 5 for 20 years.
So, start today. Start small. Start with what feels doable. Start with a walk. Or a stretch. Or cake. What ever it is that you will enjoy.
Consistency doesn’t have to be impressive to be effective. It begins with movement that feels good enough to repeat tomorrow.
And if today’s movement is a ten-minute walk for banana loaf, congratulations, you’ve officially joined the cake-based wellness movement. Perks include a clearer head, a body that creaks a bit less, and the quiet satisfaction of doing something kind for yourself.
This isn’t a transformation story.
It’s a permission slip.
To begin. Gently. Imperfectly. And possibly with baked goods.
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