Q: Profile: I am a 36 year old female from India, weight is 120 pounds, Height 5ft. I am a housewife, so my activity level is moderate. I have been diagnosed with hypothyroidism & high cholestrol(237). But the Plus point is that my LDL is low and HDL is high. Currently I am on medication - Levoxyl(75mcg). I work out 45 min/day, 5 days a week. This includes 30min cardio & 15 min strength training. Q1 : Do I need to avoid any particular food eg. Iodized salt, on account of my Hypothyroid condition? Do I need to cut down on foods with iodine content? If so can you name some foods of the kind?Q2 : How much calorie intake do I need to lose some wt (10 pounds or so)? Do I need to alter or lessen my current diet?Q3 : What is the minimum protein requirement for an average individual of my age?Any other tips to help me lose weight, lower my cholestrol and control my thyroid condition would be highly appreciated. Thanks.

A:It is good to see that you are concerned about yourdiet and health. Diet alone can make so muchdifference in the blood cholesterol levels. I amanswering your questions one by one in the order ofyour questions:1. You can keep consuming iodised salt and do notworry much about the iodine content of the food.2. You definitely need to lose some weight which willhelp treat and further prevent both your problems.Usually a low fat and low calorie diet plan providingyou 1200 KCal is good to lose weight gradually and ina healthy manner. After obeserving your diet schedule,I would like to suggest following changes.(i) Try to make your dinner smaller than your lunch.You may begin with taking 2 chapatis for the dinnerand slowly go down to one. Emphasise more onvegetables especially as salads..(ii) How you prepare food and what ingredients you usemakes a lot of difference. You should try to useminimum oil possible for the preparation. Try cookingoptions like steaming, baking, boiling, grillinginstead of frying.(iii) It is good that you take fruits couple of timesduring the day. Substitute juice with a fresh fruit.This will help you cut down few calories.(iv) Adding sweetner instead of sugar in your tea andcoffee will also help cut down few calories. Rememberever tea spoon of sugar you use gives you 20 KCal.(v) Another good point in your diet is that you eatchicken or fish and not much of red meat which is highin fat and calories.3. Protein requirement of and Indian adult is 1g/1Kgbody weight. This means if you weigh 50 kgs yourprotein requirements are 50 g per day. However proteinrequirements may go up incase of pregnancy, lactation,and certain disease conditions.