I think the biggest thing here is to listen to your body and what it’s saying it needs. If you’ve feeling the fatigue hit you hard for the first time in a while I’d say you’d over done it. When I was really suffering with ME I found that very short but intense bursts worked for me; I’d sit on an exercise bike for 10 seconds as fast as I could stop for a couple of minutes then do it again. And that would be all I did. Gradually I increased that without tipping myself over to edge and went from there. Just tying to find the balance for me and trying to live my life too you know? So, for me, I would use the bits of fast exercise that work for you right now, what your body can do, but it doesn’t mean you MUST use ALL of what the book say; its not a super guide that must be obeyed to the letter. But if you can incorporate parts of it into your life that work with you, then you might find it helps. The only thing you can do is try and if it doesn’t work out, keep looking for the thing that does.

Hi everyone…sorry for butting it on the post…I was just hoping for some advice..
I had a very near death experience with meningitis in February and then it return 2 weeks ago. In the past 3 months I’ve been diagnosed with CMV (an infection that lives in the brain and liver) and CFS.

I’m 23 and up until January this year was an MMA teacher and ridiculously healthy. Now I’m finding it difficult to cut food, brush my teeth and even pull on a pair of jeans without joint paint, fatigue, lymph node pain and all the other glorious symptoms that come with CFS.

The weight is slowly creeping on and whilst I’m still following a low GI diet (I heard it helps with CFS)…i’m still not feeling right in my clothes or myself.

As sufferers of this awful thing for many years, can anyone recommend anything to help keep the weight maintained or exercises that aren’t as strenuous?

Again, I’m really sorry for interrupting.

Hope you can help.

Elle x

Hi Lady J et al.

I’ve had ME/CFS for about 13 years. I’m about to try out the 5:2 diet for a while, see how it affects things.

I’m doing a lot better these days that I did in the first 6 or 7 years of having the condition. I wanted to mention, in regard to weight gain, that it happened to me but was dramatically sorted out by going gluten-free, which also proved a major turning point in my CFS.

I’m not celiac (I’ve been tested) but my specialist describes me as having a severe gluten intolerance and says that a lot of CFS/ME sufferers have or develop that. In a gluten intolerance your body starts to treat the protein gluten as if it were a pathogen, a germ, triggering an immune reaction, often with flu-like symptoms (some of the biochemical bi-products of exercise are treated the same way, hence exercise intolerance and disastrous reactions to overexertion).

It’s definitely worth trying a gluten-free diet. You’ll know within a month or so whether it’s helping. The weight will fall off (I lost 24 pounds in 3 months without trying), most of it from the mid-body area, which is the best place to lose it in terms of life expectancy.

CFS/ME is a condition which precipitates a cascade of symptoms. Intolerances to various foods are common among them. One of the key elements of CFS is that the body’s ability to absorb nutrients from food becomes compromised, so you’re eating but not getting the full nutritional value out of the food. This results in a craving for sugars and refined carbs — cheap energy. This often leads to weight gain. It becomes a vicious cycle. You have no energy, your body craves quick energy foods, but your messed-up immune system treats a lot of these cheap energy foods as though they were pathogenic, causing an infection-like immune response, making you feel worse and INCREASING your craving for things which are harming you.

If you do decide to try going gluten-free for a month, I would recommend going easy on the many “gluten-free” products in the stores these days. Many of them are heavily processed and contain large amounts of sugars which aren’t going to help at all. Going gluten-free is much easier than it’s often made out, even without those products. Focus on whole foods (‘real’ food!) – good quality meat / fish / poultry (free range and organic is best as it’s likely to be hormone and antibiotic free), lots of vegetables. To take care of your starch craving, sweet potatoes (yams) are unbeatable and less likely to irritate a compromised metabolism than regular potatoes. White rice (easier to digest) is good, too. Natural yoghurt with some berries makes a great dessert and never really gets old. If you need to satisfy a sweet tooth, look up Nigella Lawson’s chocolate and olive oil cake and make it with the ground almond option and half the sugar. It’s practically a health food and the best thing you’ll ever taste (serve with a splash of cream and a few raspberries). It’s also very easy to make. Have a loaf of sliced gluten-free bread, such as Udi’s, just for convenience, but try not to depend on it too much. Toast in the morning or a sandwich at lunch, but not both. Certified GF cornflakes or buckwheat muesli are neat for breakfast, too, especially with some fruit / yoghurt or a boiled egg.

Sorry if this is rambling and too long. I’ve been researching / experimenting with diet for years and I’ve got too much to say!

Hope it helps someone.

Lady J,
Sounds like it’s worth pursuing the GF diet for a while, then. It takes some time for your body to adjust, and you would certainly be wise not to change anything else for a while, but so far your experience is much the same as mine was. After a month or two I completely lost interest in sweet and starchy food. When you don’t crave it, you just don’t eat it and don’t miss it. Good luck.
Sarah