What the Heck Happened to My Metabolism?

First off... sudden weight gain is a sign of a number of things... and you've already got your answer:

Your hormones were out of whack.

As soon as your thyroid meds are where they should be, you metabolism will return to normal.

As far as easy things to do for general health?

MOST EFFECTIVE) Sit up straight. Don't slouch, lean on things, curl up. Ramrod straight. You'll feel it for about 2 weeks (it will hurt). The vast majority of calories even ATHLETES burn is from your muscles holding you vertical as you sit or stand. Look at how hard babies have to work to even sit up unaided. That's how hard our muscles work, too, we're just used to it. So stop leaning back in chairs, and when you're standing, shoulders back, stomach in.

1) Park farther away. It may not seem like much, but it adds up.

2) Cut each meal in half and eat every 3 hours, instead of every 6 (yes, cheating after an hour in the beginning is FINE).

3) Put spinach on your sammies instead of lettuce

4) Buy WHOLE FAT products. You'll eat less of them for one thing after the first week or two, and the extra sugar that is in low fat things (they make things creamy with starch, which is just sugar) won't just go to your bum. Fat has more calories, but it also BURNS LONGER because it takes longer for your system to store it. So you have all day to burn it off instead of about 15 minutes like you do with sugars.

5) Use real sugar (fake sugar makes cell membrane walls less permeable. Which both makes it harder for your body to burn existing fat, as well as your other cells don't get the nutrients they need

There are 6 easy things :)

One you hit a certain age, your metabolism slows down.
For my female friends, they noticed a slight difference at 30 and a marked difference at 40.

Do what you can whenever you can:

-walk when you can
-exercise when you can
-do push ups, ab crunches, tricep dips, lunges (don't let your knee go over your toe), squats at home 3 days a week minimum
-eat well balanced, low fat diet
-ideally it is best to eat 3 regular meals (breakfast, lunch, dinner) w/2-3 mini healthy snacks in btwn. For example,
brkfast: piece of whole wheat toast, boiled egg
snack: piece of fruit & 2 slices of cheese
lunch: tuna on whole wheat bread, carrot slices
snack: low fat yogurt, 10 almonds
dinner: chicken breast, green beans, salad
snack: 6 whole wheat crackers w/peanut butter

The idea is to have low fat food WITH some protein.
Also, the idea of eating 6 times a day (3 reg meals w/3 small snacks) is to
boost your metabolism).

So 2 key words that are very improtant:
exercise & diet (diet meaning what you eat)

You need some muscle mass to help burn calories. As we get older, we lose muscle. When we were younger, we had more.

Believe it or not, weight loss is 80% diet and about 20% exercise. If you are pretty overweight, cutting out soda, juice and other extra things will result in weight lose. BUT if you don't have any muscle mass you'll have to eat less and less as you lose weight. You'll get frustrated and quit, gain your weight back, plus a little more. It's called being skinny fat. Thin, with no muscle.

You need to count your calories. You'll be surprised how much you really eat throughout the day. Eventually, you'll know what's what and you won't have to be so strict about it. Use myfitnesspal or sparkpeople.

So my advice to you is start out by cutting out extra high-calorie foods. Just don't go from cheeseburgers to tofu overnight because it won't work. Also, get moving. Do some cardio, but please, please don't overlook strength training. It's very important. Start off with what you feel comfortable doing, but don't cheat yourself. Break a good sweat and keeping sweating for at least 20 minutes, in the beginning. Then increase over time.

This time last year I couldn't jump with two feet off the ground. I couldn't make it up the steps without having to stop and catch my breath. I was depressed, sad and frustrated. So I did something about it. Now I can run about 5 miles without stopping, and I feel a lot better about things. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a skinny minnie, probably never will be, but at least I feel good. You can do it!

I know that you've already gotten a lot of great advice. I'm over 50 and I recently saw something on Dr. Oz about the myths we believe about our metabolism and his guest was Chris Powell from Extreme Makeover Weight Loss Edition. He had some really interesting things to say and I bought his book "Choose To Lose". You can check it out on Amazon. I really liked his concepts and my husband and I feel it's something we can follow that's not a diet.