Weight Gain: A Sign of Iron Overload?

Back in 2016, I started gaining weight, particularly around the mid-section. Every time I stepped on the scale, the number went up. Two years later with a diagnosis of Hashimoto’s (autoimmune low thyroid) in hand, I thought my troubles were over when my doctor put me on levothyroxine (aka Synthroid aka T4).

If you’ve been on this medical merry-go-round before, you already know the punchline. It didn’t fix the weight.

Sure, the weight gain slowed down a bit, and I was hungrier than I’d been before (which was really nice considering the previous two years had looked a lot like force feeding myself because I knew I needed to eat).

But, within a couple of years, I was struggling with weight gain again. And, this time, it was no longer front and center, my health was deteriorating in ways that made the scale the least of my worries.

Chasing Low Thyroid as the Cause of Weight Gain

By the time I finally found a thyroid-literate doctor, my adrenals were shot, too… or if you don’t ascribe to the term "adrenal fatigue," I was at that state where my cortisol was super wobbly and lower than it should have been for much of the day.

It took years to claw back out of that state. Yet, just when I thought I was finally doing well with a physiologic replacement dose of thyroid hormone (now on a combination T3 and T4 therapy), the foundation cracked again. I had new symptoms and was once again at a point where I had to buy new clothes.

Once again, I was fresh out of ideas. It felt like stumbling around in the dark... again. It's always in those moments where we're ripe to see the light.

And this time, the universe shined the light back to someone that I used to know.

Re-Discovering "Mr. Mineral"

Morley Robbins has been called lots of things. "Mr. Mineral"’s the one I like best.

If you haven’t heard of Morley, his backstory is fascinating: he’s a retired hospital administrator who has a rare knack for looking at the commonly seen and noticing the commonly unseen.

For Morley, it started with a severe case of frozen shoulder. He sought relief the way most of us do… through modern medicine and standard care approaches. Those failed. So, he went alternative. At some point, he started asking the bigger questions:

• Why do people get sick?

• Why does modern medicine frequently manage symptoms rather than cure them?

• How does the body actually create energy?

That last question hits right at the core of my own hard-won perspective. By the time I re-encountered Morley's work, I had firmly arrived at this belief: Disease states start when the body loses its capacity to meet its own energy needs.

Up until that point, I was convinced the solution to an energy deficit was just giving the body the raw materials to make the hormones that drive metabolism… namely thyroid, insulin, and cortisol. It wasn’t that, or what I was doing would have worked.

But it wasn’t working. So, I stopped looking at hormones and started looking deeper: at minerals and mitochondria. If weight loss were as simple as fueling mitochondria, we probably wouldn’t be having this conversation. You wouldn’t be here reading this because you wouldn’t be struggling.

When Inflammation Disguises Itself as Weight Gain

One of the things that didn’t make any sense to me was why my mid-section looked so bloated and felt so uncomfortable in a tight pair of pants. This wasn’t just a little extra padding. It felt like inflammation.

If that had been my only symptom, I might not have connected the dots. But it wasn’t. I was in a state where it felt like I had low oxygen (hypoxia). My heart rate every morning on dog walks confirmed it… there’s no way I should’ve had a heart rate over 120 beats per minute walking a slight incline in 65-degree weather at sea level.

My heart was working overtime just to move oxygen.

So, when I re-listened to a podcast with Morley, what he was saying didn’t just make sense, I actually saw how it was the missing piece in my own health. In his research, Morley made this connection:

The "Rust" Connection: When the body lacks bioavailable copper, iron cannot properly exit the tissues. It becomes trapped, creating oxidative stress inside the mitochondria—essentially causing the cells to "rust" from the inside out and choking off their ability to turn oxygen into energy.

The Ceruloplasmin Key: The body relies on copper-dependent enzymes like ceruloplasmin (also known as ferroxidase) to safely transport and recycle iron to the bone marrow so it can be made into healthy red blood cells. Without enough copper, this iron recycling loop breaks down, leading to tissue iron toxicity even when your lab results point to iron-deficient anemia.

Here is where most people trip up: It’s not as simple as just running out to buy a copper supplement and some Vitamin A.

In fact, for a highly sensitive, inflamed body, doing that blindly is one of the absolute worst things you could do (something I wish I’d known the first time I tried this years ago). If your drainage pathways aren't open, mobilizing that trapped iron is a recipe for a massive inflammatory flare. The body simply doesn't have the capacity to handle it.

This time, though, I was in a prime position to introduce this again because I had spent years figuring out how to support the body’s ability to generate energy and—just as importantly—how to safely clear cellular waste. Since I had the foundation, I was able to use myself as the ultimate test subject.

The turnaround blew me away. It didn’t take long before my pants started fitting comfortably again. That tight, tender tissue around my mid-section stopped hurting under light pressure. The inflammatory "spare tire" look simply began to evaporate because the cellular rust was clearing, and my cells could finally breathe again.

My heart rate went down on morning dog walks. About a million other symptoms improved, too.

Now, is this the end-all for weight loss? No. In fact, if you’re here solely looking for weight loss support, I’m going to send you to my friend Amy Oldfield. But if the reason why you haven’t booked a call with someone like Amy yet (or why it failed when you did) is because you know there’s something deeper driving this weight gain, I’m willing to bet this is the missing piece.

You've suspected the weight gain is tied to something deeper

You recognize yourself in this story... it's not that you haven't tried to lose weight. It's almost like there's something bigger at play.

I've lived this. I've watched my midsection expand while exercising, changing my diet, walking more, finally getting my thyroid hormone dosage dialed in... all the things that should have helped barely moved the needle. What finally changed things was looking beyond the weight itself.

That’s why I created the Reclaim Wellness Intensive.

We start by rebuilding the energy capacity your body needs to do what it already knows how to do. Then we support its ability to mobilize and clear what it hasn't been able to handle.

The order matters. More minerals, more detoxification, more herbs, more supplements for the sake of supplements, another aggressive protocol... none of it matters when your body doesn't have the capacity to handle what you're asking it to do.

Inside Reclaim Wellness, you’ll have a clear progression for what to introduce and when, a tracker to see how your body responds, and the physiology behind each step so you understand why you're doing it.

You already know this is about more than the number on the scale.

[Join me inside the Reclaim Wellness Intensive.]