m.e/chronic fatigue syndrome. underactive thyroid and possibly fibromyalgia
Has anyone else had success on the fast diet with these medical conditions?
This topic contains 58 replies, has 11 voices, and was last updated by triciaruth 10 years, 8 months ago.
Hi petiteandsweet, sorry to hear that you are dealing with many of the same illnesses my family and I are. I’m just starting the fast diet, so don’t have any results to share with you yet. There is a thread about M.E./CFS on page two of this thread. maybe we could be diet buddies and give it a try. I’m planning to start on Monday. We could see what happens and share with our fellow M.E./CFS’s. good luck and take care.
Hi, good for you for loosing a pound this week. I have lost a couple in the past two weeks, I haven’t seriously started the plan yet, just experimenting. I think the reason I lost what I have is I switched from drinking tea and lemonade (half and half) to water with lemon. this past week I only ate if I was hungry instead of the “you must eat within 2 hrs of rising, must eat lunch, etc”.
I don’t know if this will help with energy levels, but my acid reflux is liking what I’ve been doing. Tomorrow is my “official” start day. I figure I’ve been sick for 20 yrs, it’s going to take a while to reverse it. Keep us posted on how things are going. Phyllis
know what you mean about wanting to feel better. I’m not sure about what foods make me feel worse. I don’t think I do well with breads. I have days that my stomach doesn’t empty well, and breads seem to make it worse. However, we did a gluten free diet for several months with no real improvement.
I find that sometimes just eating makes me feel worse. one good thing though, this past week I haven’t had heartburn or reflux at all, and that is not being strictly 5:2. I try to eat a pretty healthy diet for the most part. have done vegetarian diet, raw foods diet, high protein, and just about every thing out there, none really did much for the M.E. I’m hoping that the healing during fasting is true, maybe after a while we will see improvement. good luck on day 5 fasting.
Just wanted to comment, as I have ME, and have had for 14 years. I have been doing the 5:2 since May and have so far lost 2 and a half stone. I don’t exercise either (together with ME I have arthritis in my hips and a dodgy back, but I used to be very fit before the illness and trained 4 or 5 times a week, so maybe there is muscle memory somewhere!).
I would say I got a little over excited when I first started, as my energy did improve dramatically. However, I have found that the same old triggers (doing too much, not pacing and any stress or illness) still knock me for six – although I’ve just lost my dad this year and I’m in the menopause, so no real surprise there. I definitely don’t do well on lots of rubbish carbs and too much sugar, so this has evened out my blood sugar highs and lows, I am pretty sure.
Yes, this lifestyle is also a no brainer in that you don’t have to think too much about a fast day (make soup in batches when you feel well!) and I have found I eat practically saintly on a non fast day (but still have the odd piece of cake, it would be rude not to!).
I would also point out that the more weight we lose, the less we are having to carry and waste in energy (could any of us carry around 2 stone in a bag all day?!), so any weight loss HAS to be good, right?
I intend to keep going with this, despite a recent plateau. I have just got into size 16 Next jeans (unheard of).. and I was much bigger before.. size 26 jeans at one point! So I feel a great sense of achievement, even if a fat bird still haunts me in the mirror some days.
Hi Petiteandsweet, yes, I have tried just about everything. LOL. I was a vegetarian for 10 yrs, the other things didn’t last as long. I’ve tried supplements, GET, CBT, all of it. nothing gave lasting results (boy, that’s a downer). don’t mean to be negative, just want to say I’m not expecting miracles. However, I do expect better cholesterol numbers, weight loss and other improvements. And like AngeYork says, not hauling around pounds can only help. hope you are having a good day.
AngeYork, thank you for adding to our conversation. I’m really sorry that you lost your Dad this year. and menopause does add another dimension to things. I’m really impressed that you are doing so well!! know what you mean about that mirror, sometimes my Mom looks back at me. LOL.
I’m sorry that your increased energy didn’t last. I know that we all want to get our old energy levels back, and resume at least part of our pre-M.E. days. I am having to learn to not try ad make up for lost time on my “good” days, which tends to give me bad days. LOL.
thanks again ladies. good luck to us all!! I know we can do this, heck AngeYork is already doing it really well, and Petiteandsweet is well on her way. blessings
Hi petiteandsweet, I’m sorry that you are dealing with this illness at 29. How long have you been sick? Stress is not a good thing for anyone, and I also eat too much sugar. that is the one thing I have a hard time giving up. I’m still having a bit in my coffee, but cutting way down.
I’ve been declining over the past few months, haven’t been able to stop the slide, I’m hoping this will help. I hope we will see good results that we can share with others. take care
Hi, know what you mean about the brain thing, especially if there are numbers involved. sure hope this new lifestyle helps you. my daughter and I have had it for 20 yrs, she was 16 when she got sick, it has certainly stolen the life she had planned. I’m glad you have learned pacing early, that can only help. I’m hoping for improvement in blood pressure, cholesterol and other chronic situations. really bad family history of heart attacks and strokes. I figure even if it doesn’t do much for the M.E./CFS, it can only help the other things.
good luck with your new lifestyle, the best chance for getting better is early in the illness. there is always HOPE.
I’m sorry to hear that your parents also have M.E My husband only got sick about 5 yrs ago, so he managed to not get it for a long time. With lots of family members getting it, makes you wonder about if it’s contagious (obviously not easily) or genetic or both.
yeah, getting used to limitations is so hard. it’s almost impossible not to push ourselves. there is so much we want to do, my daughter was a dancer, so she had a lot of adjustment. still, I celebrate getting out of bed, LOL. I’m with you, less weight can only be a good thing. good for you and the blood sugar balancing, that can only help. keep me posted.
good morning. made it out of bed again. LOL. I think I over did it on the non-fast day yesterday. we still had birthday cake in the freezer from my daughters birthday last week, I had a piece, then we decided we needed some breaded mushrooms. oops, ate too much, had the first hint of heartburn I’ve had in over a week. ah, well, live and learn. 🙂
How are you doing with your plan. I found the fasting day not too difficult. I do think that eating makes me get the munchies. I think I’m going to try to up the protein and see if that helps. hope you are having a great day.
Hi petiteandsweet, congratulations on making it out of bed. LOL. the heartburn thing I’ve had since the M.E. diagnosis. sometimes just water will trigger it. so I’m pleased with the decrease I’ve had.
sounds like you are doing well with the plan. I’ll have to check into that fitness pal thing. we are doing well here, hope you and your folks are having a good day.
Hi petiteandsweet, we are fasting today, it’s early still, so will see. glad your fast days are going well. having a bad M.E/CFS day, sat up and world started spinning, and I’m falling to the right. nothing to do with the diet, it happens all the time. usually means I’m in for a several day migraine. I’ve been in a slow decline for a while. I’m hoping that things will improve after a while.
are you able to work? I think one of the hardest things about this illness is the forced time sitting around. esp. with the T.V. on, with all the food commercials, LOL. Hope you are having a great day.
I have an underactive thyroid and lots of ME/CFS symptoms which are all linked, I suspect.
I’ve been fasting for about 3 months, and have had to reduce my thyroid meds because I was getting noticeably jittery. There are caveats here, though
1) I haven’t yet asked for a blood test
2)I use natural thyroid extract and not thyroxine and
3)I have also cut down considerably on grains and potato.
So I can’t be sure to what extent its the 5:2 diet alone that is the cause. What I can say is that without the diet I couldn’t have kicked the starchy foods!
Hi Ruthi, good to meet you! thanks for sharing your experience. do you take something like Armour thyroid? I’m on thyroxine, but my daughter isn’t on anything right now. she has no income, no insurance, and we haven’t been able to find health care for her. we tried desiccated thyroid we found in the health food store, but she has cardiac arrhythmias and it’s hard to know when things are out of balance. Have found a doctor who is reasonable, so just have to figure out how to pay for lab work. so, enough complaining about the medical system here.
Did you have ME/CFS symptoms before the hypothyroid? we were both sick for a long time before the thyroid packed it in. autoimmune maybe? glad the 5:2 diet is showing promise. I, too, find that I feel better with less starchy foods.
hope you are having a great day.
P&S I use Thyroid S. The doctors in the UK hate anything natural, but thyroxine didn’t work for me and I had side effects from synthetic T3. So I told them I was taking it regardless and I would like their support, and they ‘let me get away with it’. I still ended up running at the top end of the normal range to feel OK. I have been doing this for 10 years without any problems. To be honest I started simply taking it and working out what does works for me before I involved my docs. I buy it online.
ME/CFS/fibro symptoms started at about the same time, and basically there is so much overlap its difficult to tease them apart. I am not at all sure I had anything other than a thyroid gland damaged by drugs when I was younger. I have a good friend with ME and all her symptoms go if she is on a proper dose of thyroid extract, but she has other stuff going on and daren’t go against her docs!
Hi Petiteandsweet, so sorry you had a bad M.E. day, hope you are feeling better. really glad you had a good fast day, I did well too. yesterday a neighbor gave me a bunch of apples that are for cooking, so I was forced, forced I tell ya, to make apple pies. LOL. I made small hand pies, cooked a few and froze the rest for small treats later. completely exhausted myself. LOL. I’m so sorry you are struggling to work, I did the same for a long time. worked and spent days off resting to go back to work. sure hope that the 5:2 helps with energy levels.
Hi Ruthi, thanks for sharing about your thyroid med. glad it is helping with some symptoms. it IS hard to tell the difference when they start at the same time. How’s it going with the 5:2?
Hope you are both having a great day.
Hi petiteandsweet, glad your fasting is going ok. really sorry you are having a flare. I know what you mean about needing to work, when I got sick we lost everything we had, lived in a caravan for the 2 yrs of trying to get disability started. was not a fun time. when I win the lottery we won’t have to worry about it anymore. my friends and I joke of starting a ME/CFS commune. LOL.
I’m doing ok on the fast. however, when I weighed this morning I had gained just over a pound!! ah, well, should see some loss soon, I hope. still, it’s worth it to not have the reflux and heartburn. shouldn’t have had that pie yesterday. LOL. I don’t do much baking anymore either. just gave it a try. my brain tends to forget that my body won’t do what I want. 🙂 Hope your day was better and that you soon get past this flare.
Hi Petiteandsweet and also MountainMyst, I suffered from CFS almost 20 years ago and although I am better most of the time I do find that if I don’t get enough sleep I eat more sugary foods to give me a pick me up and then find that I need to have more and more to get through the following days and eventually nothing works and I become exhausted. This happens two or three times a year.
It will be interesting to see if the 5:2 diet makes a difference.
good luck to you both.
Hi Pally666, so glad you are doing better. I’m always thrilled to hear from someone who got better. glad that you have learned to listen to your body and take care of yourself. I,too, find that sweets tend to make me crave more sweets. I have for years followed the you must eat frequently to keep a steady blood sugar, etc. and on really bad days I have tended to eat more trying to find energy from somewhere. however, I noticed not too long ago, I feel worse after I eat, especially if it’s something with a lot of simple carbs.
I generally sleep pretty well, if I can get the pain stopped enough. in my younger days I had a lot of insomnia, don’t know if it contributed to the M.E. or not. Hope that the 5:2 helps us all. thanks for sharing your insight as a fellow ME/CFS veteran.
Hi
I also have ME and was wondering about the benefits of the 5:2 diet as the morphine patches I am on tend to reduce my appetite anyway. Well…when I say reduce….I can still manage chocolate for the quick fix. I was thinking that the 5:2 may be the answer as obviously exercise is a no no at the moment, and my weight has increased since being ill so much that I am now ‘morbidly obese’ – hate that term. Just waiting for a ‘good’ day to start…
Hi tigerlily, when I was diagnosed almost 20 years ago I was told to go for a walk every day even if it was for just a minute and to cut out sugary foods, they put me on strong pain killers but I have always hated taking tablets and have a tendency to forget apart from the contraceptive pill.
It took awhile but these days I’m not bad, odd hiccup 3/4 times a year but I don’t believe I’ll ever be completely cured but i think the 5:2 works because you start to listen to your body more.
I hope it works for you too, good luck.
Hi Tigerlily, welcome. I haven’t been on long enough to see if it will help the ME/CFS, fibromyalgia etc. yet. I do know what you mean about always being up for chocolate. LOL. I’m very hopeful that if it doesn’t do much for the CFS/ME it will help some of the other problems I deal with. I also figure the less weight I’m hauling around the better. 😉
like Pally666 said, I am finding that I’m already starting to listen to my body more, I find that I don’t want as much sugar as a rule. might I suggest not waiting for that “good” day. those don’t come along very often around our house. LOL. I think you can do it. we will start our own little research group to see what happens to ME/CFS on the 5:2 plan. good luck and let us know how you are doing.
It’s always good to know that others are facing the same challenges. I have CFS/ME and chronic pain syndrome. I have always been overweight and am now determined that I will remove that from the equation. I heard about the diet on Monday from a friend, downloaded the book onto my ereader and read it Monday eve and had my first fast day Tues and another on Thurs. Next week I will go for Mon and Thurs. I feel better just having control of something in my life. Optimistic that this will work.
Hi AndreaMc, welcome! glad you found us. It is nice to have a feeling of control over something when dealing with this illness. How did you do on your fast days? I find that I’m not really hungry so far, haven’t been much of a struggle, thankfully.
I’m currently spreading the word to my extended family. we have a really bad history of hypertension, stroke, heart attack. so I figure the 5:2 plan can only be a good thing.Most of us are little short round people. LOL. here’s hoping we all see some wonderful improvements. good luck and keep us posted on how you are doing.
Hi Petiteandsweet, so good to see you, I was getting worried! when you last posted you said you were having a bit of a crash, I assume it became a big crash. are you feeling any better? I’ve had a bit of an increase in energy the past couple of days. don’t know if it’s the 5:2 or just a normal fluctuation, but I’ll take it. LOL.
hope everyone is having a good day.
Yes, I got a dog because I was also diagnosed with osteoporosis. There were times when I really had to drag myself around the field(and then to bed for an hour or two) while the dog did all the running. Nowadays I do a minimum of an hour a day of fairly brisk walking. And I feel ill if I miss it for any reason.
Its really difficult to lose weight if you are totally inactive. Even if you feel pretty awful, can you manage 20 or 30 yards along the street just to say you did it, and breathe some fresh air? At this time of the year the extra daylight makes such a difference!
Hi Petiteandsweet, so sorry you had such a bad crash, and had to miss the wedding. that stinks! try not to beat yourself up because you weren’t able to stick to the plan so well this week. even if you didn’t lose weight, you still had some healing time when you were able to fast. walking is good for you if you can do it. I can’t do too much because my legs soon stop working. be sure to start slow and build up, and see how you do. my exercise is mostly trying to clean my house and cook a meal. LOL.
well, I found that my energy increase didn’t last, probably because I tried to do all the things I haven’t been able to. I have difficulty with that moderation thing.LOL. Today is a healing (fasting) day. weigh in Monday, keeping fingers crossed. hope you are feeling better today.
Hi Ruthi, so glad you are able to walk more comfortably now days. the osteoporosis diagnosis isn’t great. hope the walking helps, and the fast will help you heal. wonder if anyone has had improvement on 5:2? I have osteopenia in my hips, but hasn’t advanced.
glad your doggy keeps you company on your walks. our dog makes sure we get plenty of outside time. she is a 50 lb hound mix that is full of energy. sometimes it take two of us to walk her. you can hear me muttering “however said pets make you live longer, didn’t have any. ” LOL.
hope you are having a good day.
MountainMyst, its true the osteoporosis diagnosis isn’t wonderful, but I had a family history of it, so asked for the bone scan when I was mid 40s. I changed diet and got the (first) dog and touch wood, have had no outward indication of it.
As luck would have it, the only broken bone came sort of courtesy of the dog, LOL! I was out in the forest with my two, and a rescue foster, and we met a lovely playful dog, which managed to canon into my knee! Air ambulance, major surgery, 3 months on crutches….. The surgeon said that a 20year old would have had the same fracture if hit by 20 kilos of dog at 20mph and I was lucky that it was the bones that gave way and not my superstrong walker’s ligaments!
First dog was a large (nearly airedale size) black and tan terrier. He died in June this year, and I still miss him terribly, dopey lump that he was. But he was joined over the years by Seamus, the scheming lurcher, and his partner in crime Jimmy (allegedly chi/pom mix, but I think pure yapping machine) so I still have to get out there every day. And I run a dog walking/pet care company although I don’t do so much myself since the broken leg. Some arthritis is inevitable after a tibial plateua fracture and I am putting off the evil knee replacement for as long as possible. So its no more walking six hours a day for me!
Does that sound like I am still suffering CFS/ME symptoms? I think not!
Ruthi, no I don’t think that sounds like M.E/CFS, and that is WONDERFUL!!!! I love hearing about your dogs, really sorry to hear about your dog. so glad you still have your other furry friends.
We got our Maisie about 5 yrs ago. we had moved from Florida back to Tennessee. Stayed with my Mom for a bit while looking for our house. we had an elderly Westie who was about 15 and in failing health. one of her neighbors had a little puppy they pretty much ignored. She bonded with us, my hubby said no more dogs because it’s so difficult physically for us to manage. BUT, when the neighbor asked if we wanted her, and she laid her head in hubby’s lap and looked up at him he said yes. well, we didn’t think she would get very big, and almost 50 lbs later, here we are with a dog that would probably be the dog that ran into you given the chance. Wow, I’m so sorry you were so badly hurt, glad the ligaments weren’t torn.
well, I’ve rambled on enough. thanks for sharing part of your story.
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