Moving into TwentyFive Percent Better with Chronic Fatigue

I started this Chronic Fatigue journey in September.  After 17 years of complete debilitation, suffering and lack of any zeal for life, I am awakening, enlivening, becoming whole.  I’m nearly in tears to think where I’ve come from and now where I stand, yes, stand! 

It was about a month ago that I began to see some real improvement in my CFS symptoms, I noticed I actually ‘wanted’ to do the dishes and attend to daily living matters.  Prior to this, everything – every single tiny motion was a forced struggle.  Simple things that normal people do, like brushing my hair or teeth, were a monumental task that required a pep-talk and dredging for inner motivation to accomplish.  I’m now proud to admit that wearing underwear, brushing my hair and teeth, showering are just a daily part of living – no pep talk required!

I’m no energy whirlwind by any means.  I still tire easily,  I can’t stand for more than 10 minutes.  But I’m coming from a place where I couldn’t stand on my feet at all.  There are things about having chronic fatigue syndrome that I didn’t even know I was missing.  Let me explain further.  I didn’t realize that my capacity for any emotional depth, perception, experience was entirely lacking.  All of a sudden, I can Feel!  When this first started happening, I thought it was my hormones going crazy or something, but then I realized, it’s emotional energy that I’ve found.  Amazing.  Who would have ever thought that being happy or sad or pissed off was tied to physiology? 

In this blog, I’ve often said that I’m filled with hope – now I’m filled with expectation.  I feel like I’m among the living once again.  I look forward to experiences, activities, adventures.  Now I am certain I can recover and regain most of what has been out of reach for so many years.  Thank you Chronic Fatigue Scientist and Researcher Guys!

For those of you looking to recover from this nastyass illness, these are the things that I did:

1. Changed my diet:  I have blogged about my diet here, and have excluded all sugar, white flour, processed foods.  I’ve adopted a diet of mostly veggies, some chicken and beef.  Me no likey seafood.
2. Cleansing program:  I did Colonix for 30 days, with no real visible results, although I’m sure it helped me.
3. Nutritional Supplements:  I attribute at least 60% of my improvement so far to two nutritional aids – NT Factor and D-Ribose.  I’ve blogged about how these two supplements have been clinically proven to reduce chronic fatigue symptoms, by affecting mitochondria on the cellular level.  I can wholeheartedly attest to that truth.

I’m not the most disciplined person on the earth.  I still waver in my diet and eat crackers and pretzels and drink coffee – all naughties.  I don’t take my supplements religiously or even as often as directed.  While a 20 minute walk would be good for me on a daily basis, I usually save my energy for housecleaning (yes I’ve been cleaning my house!) or sexual delights with hubby.   I still can’t report that I sleep any better either.   It’s fair to say that my sleeping problems existed long before I was cfs weary.

And while I do engage in online marketing of various things (mostly toys), I’m not trying to sell you anything.  So freaking often on the net, when you read some blog that sounds promising, you get to the bottom to find that they’re just hawking some product.  I’m not –  I’m bound and determined simply to get the word out that improvement, feeling better exists.   Feel free to contact me.

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You’re invited to visit my newest sites:
Kung Fu Panda Toys
It’s a Merry Penguin Christmas
U.B. Funkeys Explained
Christmas Novelty Stringlights
Shrek the Third Toys and Games
Ratatouille Toys and Games
Best 2008 Calendars
Skull Gift Headquarters
Spiderwick Chronicles Movie Toys

I’m Feeling 10 Percent Better!

I’ve noticed a 10 percent reduction of my CFS, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome in 35 days!  Smiling to myself,  I imagine you’re thinking : “What’s she so happy about? 10 percent is next to nothin.”  It’s huge to me, after wallowing in self-pity and ‘dissaustion’ (as my nephew used to say) for years.

How can one quantify a ten percent improvement?  Well..  I still feel like crap-o-la, but I notice that when I’m on my feet, I can do a couple of extra things without even thinking of the challenge.  For instance, last night I was making spinach casserole for dinner (mmm yummy I should post that recipe) and while the spinach was on the stove cooking, I just did the dishes – boom! done.  I must have stood there for 10 minutes without realizing it.  Typically, I’d be wholly mindful of any 10 minute standing session and at the forefront of my mind would be when I could sit down, where is the chair, I feel like I’m dying.   Not only that, but doing the dishes would not be my first choice of activity if I were presented with 10 free minutes of standing time.  I notice other little things too, but they’re still on the little scale. 

To compare, a prior spinach casserole cooking session would go like this:  put the spinach on the stove, go sit down immediately. rest.  go open the tomatoes and get the parmesan cheese, taking the spinach off the stove. go sit down. rest.  go complete the spinach recipe, putting it back on the stove. rest. 

What did I do to achieve this minor change?  I attribute this change to three things:  

• Being entirely off of sugar, processed foods, white flour, most carbs for 30 days now. 

• NT Factor 

• Hope  

The transition to a no sugar, no processed food diet was difficult.  I got myself off of sugar first.  For the first three days, I allowed myself to eat anything under the sun that didn’t have obvious sugar in it.  I kept my tummy filled with potatoes, big mac’s, nachos, steak and diet pop.  (Advice to those of you that want to try this:  BBQ sauce and/or alcohol will cause your downfall – I consider them both obvious sugars.) The idea here was to distract my body’s craving for sugar by overloading on carbs and fat.  Then after 3 days, my body wasn’t absolutely demanding sugar – I could think relatively straight.  Then I began the strict diet of steamed vegies and one serving of meat per meal.   There’s another trick here too.  I eat my vegies first.  If I begin by eating a piece of steak or some chicken cacciatore, I can’t eat all my vegies.  The large servings (usually 3 cups) of vegies are what keep me from being hungry later.

NT Factor has been shown to clinically reduce fatigue among CFS patients by improving mitochondrial/ATP function.  I’ve discussed these clinical studies in an earlier blog, Oxidative Stress, under Mitochondrial Anarchy.  The product that I use is called NT Factor Energy.  I purchased this from Dr. Hoffman’s website.  NT Factor is available in a couple of different health supplements, but I wanted to take it as a stand-alone product, simply because I had already purchased my vitamin formulas separately.  Within four days of taking these pills, I could feel my brain fog clearing.  I’ve now been on this supplement for 10 days.  My condition has definitely improved.  I think in the clinical studies, patients were placed on this supplement for 12 weeks before their energy levels were compared.

Hope – I can’t say enough about the psychology of hope.  Languishing under the CFS onslaught, I was mourning so many losses: no hope of ever being on a trail in the Yellowstone wilderness and coming upon a moose again.  No hope of ever gliding my canoe across that pure silken coal-black water in the Boundary Waters  again.  No hope of finding a gold or diamond necklace under the sand while metal detecting at the beach.  Things have changed.  I’m starting to dream!

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Feel free to see my other worlds:
Coffee World
For the Love of Acid Cigars
Harley Davidson Gifts
Spiderwick Chronicles Movie Toys

An Amazing Transformation: Detox vs. Diet Psychology

Something truly amazing has happened to me during the past 30 days.  I have no craving for sugar or junk food! none!  When I first starting this program, all of my friends and family were encouraging me with kind words and cheers of support.   The forefront of their encouragement has been: “As long as you can stay off of sugar, you’re sure to succeed.”  The underlying inference is the constant threat of sugar craving.  It’s true for many of us.  Most “diets” fail because sugar cravings and the sense of personal deprivation becomes overwhelming. 

In the past, when I have been on diets to lose weight or improve my health in general, my sugar cravings have been outrageous.  I constantly struggled with a huge sense of self-pity, the seeming loss of all the things that made me “happy”.  In some specific location in my brain, my psyche was telling me that ALL of my happiness was derived from chocolate cake and soda pop.  I couldn’t shake my feeling of tremendous grief over the loss of all the goodness in my life.  I know it sounds ridiculous, but it’s true nonetheless.  It’s amazing to recognize how our cravings can manipulate our brain, re-routing our logic pathways, subverting our impulses, directing us toward failure.  Just how powerful are these yeasts and blood sugar fluctuations? Powerful enough to continually overcome any logic, any commitment, willpower, my dreams, my health.   Time after time, diet after diet failed under my body’s screaming toddler-like tantrum for sugar.  This endless sugar feeding cycle has kept me in a stupor for years upon years.

In the past 30 days, my mind and body have gone through an astounding transformation.  I no longer have even a twinge of sugar craving.  I believe that this is 100% attributable to a change in my psyche.  My brain realizes that I’m not dieting :  I’m detoxing, cleansing, becoming healthy.  The psychology of this process is so interesting.  It’s as if my focus on this treatment program is coming from a completely different place in my brain.  I don’t have any sense of deprivation or denial.  I have no feeling of loss or mourning.  There is no food in my mind (other than lemons, oddly enough) that spells ‘happiness’.   I don’t even think about food much anymore,  now my body responds to the sense of hunger and the need for sustenance. 

I’m absorbed in positive thoughts of improving my condition.  I’m entirely focused on only those foods that afford the best nutrition while killing off the nasties that grow inside me.  It’s a different consciousness altogether, a different synapse pathway,  my logic is finally in control.  My mind now recognizes when it’s being manipulated by my blood sugar, or the yeast crying out for carbs or sugar.  Moreover, I smirk because I know that my diet is killing them off and they’re crying out in pain.  They’re not gonna win this time.

I am so happy to be relieved of that constant heavy burden of cravings.  That sense of “woe is me” has vanished.  Happiness does exist without chocolate cake, dr. pepper and pizza.  I’m filled with anticipation for the time when my days can include rigorous exercise, fishing, metal detecting on the beach and some serious housecleaning 🙂   Those days are coming, I know!  I finally have hope!

 

 

Thanks to: http://www.palmyria.co.uk/art/art.htm for the Dawn photo. All rights reserved.

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You’re invited to visit my newest sites:
It’s a Merry Penguin Christmas
U.B. Funkeys Explained
Christmas Novelty Stringlights
Shrek the Third Toys and Games
Ratatouille Toys and Games
Best 2008 Calendars
Skull Gift Headquarters