Interview with Shannon Davis, RD
A personalized diet for Hashimoto’s starts with your goal, your labs, and your daily schedule, not with a food list someone else built. Registered dietitian Shannon Davis uses those three inputs to decide what a person eats, because the same food can help one woman and leave another feeling worse. This post walks through how she does it.
Every morning I had organic cacao. It is a superfood, right? Every morning I also had chia seeds, for the fiber and the healthy fat.
Then I learned that both of them are very high in oxalates.
I sat there with the same question you have probably asked out loud in your own kitchen. So what am I supposed to eat now?
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Why there is no one diet for Hashimoto’s
In the Hashimoto’s world we hear so many dogmas. You have to do this. You have to restrict that.
Some of those rules are in direct contradiction with other experts telling the same women the exact opposite thing. You are not confused because you are not paying attention. You are confused because the advice does not agree with itself.
I asked Shannon how a dietitian sorts through that. Her answer was short.
There is no one size fits all. There is no perfect diet. There is no magic.
That sounds like bad news for about two seconds. Then it becomes the most useful thing anyone has told you in years.
If there is no universal answer, you can stop hunting for it. What you need instead is a way to decide.
That is what a personalized diet for Hashimoto’s actually is. It is not a list of approved foods. It is a decision you make on purpose, using real information about your own body.
What happened when a dietitian followed her own advice
Shannon is a registered dietitian with 18 years of experience. She has worked in organ transplant, bariatrics, and nephrology. She told me the things she was taught in school are still being taught today.
- Eat every two to three hours
- Lots of whole grains
- Lots of fruit
- Lean protein
- Fat free dairy
She followed her own advice. She is an avid CrossFitter and she exercised a ton. Her triglycerides went through the roof.
Her doctor wanted to put her on a statin. Shannon said that should have been the first red light, because statins do not lower triglycerides.
Triglycerides come from sugar and carbohydrates, she said. It was the whole grains, the fat free pretzels, and all that fruit.
So she went looking on her own. She named Dr. Ben Bikman, Dr. Robert Lustig, Dr. Jason Fung, and Dr. Ken Berry as the people whose work changed how she thinks about food.
The one she told my listeners to read is Bikman’s Why We Get Sick. She called it a very easy read, and she said your jaw will be on the floor by the time you finish it. (Affiliate link. If you buy through it I earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.)
Why eating less stopped working
Shannon said our bodies do not have calorie receptors. We are not a closed loop system.
Shannon pointed to The Biggest Loser as the clearest example. Those contestants cut calories until they could not cut anymore. They exercised until they could not exercise anymore.
They gained it back.
They worked so hard at exactly what they were told to do. They had temporary success. Then it all came back, and they felt like they wasted their time, their effort, and their hope.
It is a hormone problem, not a calorie problem.
If you have counted every bite and still watched the scale climb, you did not lack willpower. You were following instructions that were never built for your body.
We are not weak. We do not lack discipline or willpower. Her words.
Where a personalized diet for Hashimoto’s actually starts
Shannon starts every person in the same order, with three questions.
1. What is your goal?
She asks this first, every time. She said about 98 percent of the people she works with want to lose weight. That is their goal, not automatically yours.
Her own goal is different. She wants to be metabolically healthy, insulin sensitive, and lean without being too thin, and she wants to put on muscle.
Your goal changes what the right food choice is. Nobody can pick your food for you until you have named what you are actually after.
2. What do your labs say?
Shannon likes to look at labs because they show what is happening on the inside. She said she went for years thinking she was in pristine health while her triglycerides were terrible. You do not feel that.
3. What does your life actually look like?
She asks whether you work nine to five. She said a lot of people get anxious trying to figure out what to eat and what to pack and how to fit it in.
A plan that does not fit your Tuesday is not your plan.
Goal, labs, lifestyle. That is the order. Everything after this is details.
The labs Shannon looks at before changing anything
I have been an RN for 25 years. In that time I have watched a lot of women get told their labs looked fine while they felt anything but fine.
These are Shannon’s markers and Shannon’s targets, from her practice. Bring them to your own doctor and talk them through together.
Fasting insulin. She said this is the one she loves and almost nobody has. Her optimal is 6 or less. She noted that lab ranges may go up to 20, and she does not consider that optimal.
HDL. She wants it above 55. She pointed out that most people do not talk about HDL because there is not really a medication to raise it.
Triglyceride to HDL ratio. She looks for 1.5 or less. She said if your HDL is high and your triglycerides are low, you are pretty metabolically healthy.
LDL and total cholesterol. She does not look at these as closely. She said LDL becomes an issue when it is small and oxidized, which happens with high inflammation and insulin resistance.
hs-CRP. This is a measure of inflammation. She said high inflammation often travels with high cortisol, more visceral fat, and a harder time losing weight.
A1c. She looks at it, but ranks it below fasting insulin. You can have a normal A1c and still be very insulin resistant.
Thyroid. She said this is huge, and she does not skip it. She also said people get put on Synthroid too fast, before anyone looks at the other things going on.
If you have been told your labs are fine and you still feel awful, you may simply not have run the right ones yet. I walked through how to get the thyroid labs you actually need in Episode 39.
[GRAPHIC NEEDED: Lab marker reference card, vertical format for Pinterest. Six rows: Fasting insulin, HDL, Triglyceride to HDL ratio, hs-CRP, A1c, Thyroid panel. Include the phrase “Shannon Davis, RD, targets. Discuss with your own provider.” Dusty Denim accent, Prussian Blue text, Antique White background.]
What Shannon recommends for almost everybody
There is no universal diet. There are a few starting points she uses with nearly everyone.
Some form of time restricted eating. She said everybody can go 12 hours with gut rest. She teaches a 12 to 16 hour window and then adjusts based on the person. Her goal is to get insulin low and keep it low.
If fasting makes you nervous with Hashimoto’s, I talked through that question in Episode 82.
Cutting ultra processed food. Shannon said this is the one thing everyone can agree on, whether you eat vegan, paleo, vegetarian, or carnivore.
Food is information to your body.
Your body knows how to process information from real carbohydrates, proteins, and fats. When food is ultra processed and chemicals and dyes are added, your body does not know what to do with that information.
The hormones that control hunger and fullness do not get released the way they should. So you can eat 2,000 calories and still be hungry.
More protein. Shannon said we do not eat enough of it, especially women as we age, and that we absorb less as we get older. Her target is one gram per pound of your goal weight.
She wants it from animal foods where possible. Not a lean chicken breast, but a chicken thigh with the skin. Eggs with the yolk.
Better fats. She named seed oils as highly inflammatory: sunflower, peanut, safflower, canola, vegetable, and cottonseed. She recommends avocado oil, olive oil, coconut oil, real butter, ghee, lard, and tallow instead.
She also asked what kind of pan you are cooking in.
She was talking about nonstick pans and the forever chemicals in them. She called them obesogens and said they affect hormones and thyroid.
Fiber you can actually tolerate. She listed avocados, asparagus, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, zucchini, yellow squash, cabbage, and cucumbers.
What you tolerate is individual.
Where the personal part fits in
This is where two women with Hashimoto’s stop having the same plan.
Shannon said plants have anti-nutrients. Lectins, oxalates, and phytic acids that can block absorption of other nutrients. She noted that plants cannot bite or kick or run away, so what they have is chemistry.
I had Sally Norton on to talk about oxalates in Episode 136, and I got more feedback from that interview than almost any other. Women wrote in saying the same thing. I was eating all the spinach and the almonds and all of these superfoods.
That was my cacao and my chia seeds.
Shannon sees the other side of it. You are achy. Your stomach looks like you are nine months pregnant.
And you keep eating the food, because somebody said it was healthy.
Her point about fruit was similar. Fruit today is not the fruit of a few hundred years ago. Grapes and apples have been bred to be much larger and sweeter than they used to be.
She does not tell people to cut fruit out. She tells them not to snack on it all day, and to eat it at the end of a meal after protein and fiber, which she said lessens the glucose spike.
She leaves vegetables as a personal preference, which is not something most people in this space will say out loud.
Not everybody does well with a lot of plants. That is not a moral failing. That is information about your body.
What Shannon tells women thinking about carnivore
I asked about this because a nurse practitioner once told me to go carnivore, and my first thought was that I would starve. I eat meat. I do not particularly enjoy eating meat.
Shannon is a big advocate for carnivore when someone has an autoimmune condition. She described it as an ultra elimination diet, and she said that when someone objects that it is extreme, her answer is that autoimmune is extreme.
In her words, “animal proteins are very healing. They’re very anti-inflammatory.”
That is her language, her position, and her clinical experience. Not mine.
She tried it herself last year so she could speak to it honestly, and she said she failed it.
Her words. “I failed carnivore. Carnivore did not fail me.”
She is a dietitian who has done food and nutrition for 19 years. If she got it wrong, plenty of people are going to get it wrong.
How Carnivore goes wrong, especially for women:
You have three macronutrients. Carbs, protein, and fat. Only two of them are energy sources, and those are carbs and fat.
If you remove carbs, fat is your only energy source left. And Shannon said women fear fat more than anyone.
So women cut the carbs, do not add enough fat, and end up energy deficient. Shannon said that is what happened to her. She ate a lot of chicken.
She said the ratio needs to be close to one to one. If she is eating 130 grams of protein a day, she needs to aim for at least 100 grams of fat. She was honest that this is very hard to do.
Her example: one egg has about 5 grams of fat and 7 grams of protein. Six eggs gets you to 30 grams of fat, and six eggs is very filling.
That is why she said carnivores eat ribeyes, cook in fat, and then put more fat on top.
Electrolytes. She said most people miss this completely. When you cut carbs, insulin comes down, and insulin is what tells the kidney to hold onto salt.
So the salt goes, and water goes with it, along with potassium and other minerals. She said you have to replace them.
Salt your food liberally. Put salt in your water.
How long. Shannon suggested 60 to 90 days with an autoimmune condition, then reassess.
The goal is to give it a chance to produce effects. And she recognizes that people are leery of stepping into a forever way of eating. So she says to start with 60-90 days.
Structured experimentation with an end date is a very different thing from lifelong restriction.
Frequently Asked Questions About Creating a Personalized Diet for Hashimoto’s
The next thing to do with this
You do not need another food list. You have several already.
A personalized diet for Hashimoto’s is not something somebody hands you. It is something you build.
What you needed was a way to decide, and you now have one. Name your goal. Look at your labs.
Match the plan to the life you actually live. Then test one change at a time and watch what your body is telling you.
That last part is the piece nobody teaches. Anyone can hand you a protocol. Almost nobody teaches you how to tell whether it is working for you.
That is exactly what we do together in Hashimoto’s Discernment Coaching. Six one on one sessions where you learn how to evaluate supplements, diets, labs, and protocols against your own body and your own circumstances, so the next time two experts contradict each other, you already know how to decide.
Shannon Davis, RD, LD, is a registered dietitian with 18 years of experience, and the recommendations and lab targets described here are hers. Talk with your own provider before changing your diet or your medication. I am an RN with 25 years in healthcare and I have Hashimoto’s myself. This post is education, not medical advice. This post contains an affiliate link. If you buy through it I earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.