That soy thing sounds exactly like me! I was a vegetarian for 12 years and back in March I started eating a lot of soy because I decided that I wanted to lose about 4-5 pounds and I thought that eating high protein would help. Instead, I gained about 14 pounds in 4 months! Over the past 5 months, I've managed to get about 10 of the pounds off, but that's only through fairly extreme dieting (1200 calories/day, no sugar or fruit, under 50 grams of carbs/day). Also, I haven't managed to shake the feelings of fatigue. I also have extreme water retention, my weight can fluctuate by 5 pounds in a day and 8 pounds in a week. My hands go numb at night because of the water retention in my wrists and hands. I also recently found out that I'm anemic!

All of my symptoms point to hypothyroidism, but the relatively low TSH and complete lack of antibodies make me think that maybe my estrogen levels are affecting my thyroid. I stopped eating soy in June and stopped bc pills in August, but my symptoms haven't gotten much better. I'm going to ask the doctor for some prometrium (oral progesterone) to try to balance myself out. I'm hoping that I can take this for three cycles or so and then I'll be okay. I'm hoping that I didn't permanently mess up my hormones with soy and bcp!