Still Feeling Froggy – Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, CFIDS

In my continual wonderment at how much my Chronic Fatigue Syndrome has improved, I’m also just as perplexed at my own ever-present toxicity. I still feel foggy, which I call froggy (cuz I’m insane) and I know it’s because I’m no where near healthy. The pursuit of health seems so complicated by so many factors and yet at the same time, the answer seems universal to nearly any health issue.

My complications include: sugar addiction, wavering hormonal flux, reliance on caffeine, the energy that’s required to create natural well-balanced meals on a daily basis.

The Universal Health Answer: Have ya ever noticed that the natural response to nearly any health difficulty on earth is the same? The Dr. Dean Ornish Heart Health Diet, Cancer Recovery Diet, Detox Diet, Chronic Fatigue Diet, Losing Weight Diet, Yeast Ridding Candida Diet, Athletic Diet – Simplified: Eat mostly fresh veggies – both raw and cooked, and some fruit. Brilliant!

Gee that sounds so easy – Why is it so difficult? I know from my own experience that sugar is one serious evil-doer, complicating my blood sugar levels, hampering my efforts through continual cravings and overwhelming any rationale to eat my veggies. Supposing I’ve gone off sugar for three days to overcome that monkey on my back, I still become weighted down by an inexhaustible yearning for starchy carbs. I think that’s just my blood sugar screaming out for more, more, more. Wouldn’t it be great if I could tell my blood sugar to just shut up already?

The Pursuit of Happiness: My goals never change – I’d like to be able to work, play, and think like a normal human being! To quote Scripture for a second here: “As a man thinks, So Is He” – This is the first key to success: Point your mind in the right direction, and your body will follow. In order to achieve my goals of feeling better, acting like a normal person, I need to focus my thoughts on the detox veggie diet and stop revelling in fantasies about chocolate cake and brownies.

In this vain, it’s always most helpful for me to view sugary and starchy foods as “poisons” to my goal, and the veggies as “cleansers”. It’s not too extreme to call the cakes & candies poison – they’re literally robbing me, and have robbed me of my life for 17 years. So sad to even consider the complete effect of sugar addiction in one glance like that. I’ve also proven to myself that the cleansing effect of the natural vegetable diet is dramatic and enervating. And it’s always my thoughts that create the motivations to change or languish, resulting in good or bad behavior. I feel like Winnie the Pooh: “Think, Think, Think”….

Mitochondrial and Other Supplements: Imagining that I’ve managed to maintain a clean veggie oriented diet and that my blood sugar levels aren’t making me a slave to their whims, I know that nutritional supplementation is essential to create my health. I feel like I owe all of my CFS improvement to NT Factor – Lipid Replacement Therapy. Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Research has shown damage to the Mitochondrial Function of the cell, the area responsible for fueling energy in the body. While the phosphoglycolipids in NT Factor don’t repair the mitochondria directly, they do provide the pre-cursors for ATP production. This same treatment protocol has been adopted for fatigue among cancer patients as well with amazing results. D-Ribose helps with the fibromyalgia pain of daily living too, and although this has never been my primary complaint, I know it’s a major factor in many CFIDS sufferers.

Continual Health Resolve: Here I am again, still pressing on toward winning this life long battle. “Keep going Carrie, You Can Make It! – Think These Thoughts!”

1. Stay away from Sugar and Starch. They’re the nasty creeps causing your downfall!
2. Eat 5 Mighty cups of Veggies per day. (Other people can eat fruit too, I can’t – blood sugar.)
3. Maintain a constant influx of Supplements. This is where your energy is coming from, you ninny.
4. Drink 64oz. of water daily, before 8pm – I hate peeing all night.
5. Walk 3 times a week for 20 minutes – even if it kills ya.
6. Control Your Thought Life – stop thinking about Aunt Grace’s Brownies, think about swimming instead!
7. Go on a juice fast, gallbladder flush, or colonix cleanse again. I promise you’ll feel better if you do!

Ok, I’m done lecturing myself…. I’m striving to do better… I gotta get serious to get my total life back – I believe it’s truly possible now!

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Visit my latest toy pages: Ice Age 3 Dawn of the Dinosaurs , Terminator Salvation Toys and Transformers Revenge of the Fallen Toys

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Notes: Thanks to Marilyn’s Toy Pages for that amazing frog cut out picture. Also, “feeling froggy” in the urban dictionary actually refers to feeling lively or upbeat. If you’d care to know how one lovely girl that has lost her job due to CFS earns a seriously tiny income, you’re welcome to visit my Wall-E Toys. Thanks!

Google Questions on my Blog: Diet, Sugar Addiction, Chocolate, Chronic Fatigue

I’m fairly analytical and I take the time to read my blog dashboard to find out how people found my bloggyland.  Some of the google searches are really hilarious.  One question was: “How much beer can I drink while on the chronic fatigue diet?”  uhmmm..  you can’t drink any beer, darling.  One of the major components of chronic fatigue syndrome is intestinal dysbiosis, or leaky gut syndrome.  For normal people, the intestine is a churning, chomping, marvelous machine that absorbs nutrients and propels goopies from our bodies.  It does this through a combination of bacteria – good guys like acidophilus and bifidus.  In most chronic fatigue patients, the good guys are vastly outnumbered by the bad guys – mostly candida albicans, or yeast.  Beer is made from yeast, therefore it simply repopulates and happily feeds the bad guys.  Moreover, typically chronic fatigue sufferers also have weakened liver function.  Alcohol in any form just perpetuates the difficulties.

One of the most frequently posted items that direct google queries to my blog is Sugar Addiction and/or Chocolate Addiction.  I did a blog about this, not too long ago.  “Amazing Transformation: Detox vs Diet” under Diet & Supplements category.  My sugar addiction kept me in the dungeon of despair for 17 years, it’s the reason for this blog in general –  I must get better!  My sugar addiction caused the failure of countless attempts to heal myself.  It also made the benefits I derived from taking Diflucan entirely moot as soon as my prescription ran out.  It sickens me to realize how long I was in the sugar addiction stupor, and how much of my life I’ve lost.I’ve come to realize that whatever the sugar does in my body, it’s one of the most powerful substances on the earth – I truly believe that I could have licked a full blown heroin habit in far less time. 

I’m not sure of the mechanism, but without a doubt sugar controlled my every waking thought.  I had no control over my life. none.  Everday I woke by taking an inventory of sugary goodniks in my house, planning when I would eat them and where I would get more. It was sick.So many factors come into play in ridding yourself of sugar addiction, that you really need to decide to go on the warpath.  Here is my warpath strategy that worked for me.

What to do about sugar addiction:   Realize that you have to stand and fight this thing.  It’s not going to be easy.  Start thinking that sugar is poison and it’s ruining your life (if you’re entirely debilitated like me, anyway).  For the first three days, I ate anything that I could think of that didn’t have any sugar in it.  This included steak, potatoes, Big Macs, french fries, nachos, pizza, etc.  The idea is to keep your tummy so full of fats and carbohydrates that your sugar addiction isn’t at the forefront of your thoughts.   During this time, I indulged in diet pop, sugar free ice cream and any other sugar free treat one could name.

After three days, you should be able to recognize that you have some of your brain function and control back.  Now you should be able to manage what you eat, with a clear rationale toward solving this problem.  But, you are by no means done or cured of your addiction yet.  You’ve only just started.  One of the difficulties in grocery stores today, is that nearly everything has sugar in it.  I’m not a purist in terms of food labels, but it is important to know the danger areas.  Sauces like catsup, bbq and salsa can cause derailment.  Alcohol is also a substance that converts to blood sugar and will cause your downfall.  McDonalds, sad to say, is another danger zone –  they put unbelievable amounts of sugar in most of their products.  The two items from McDonalds that don’t have sugar are: french fries (I can hear you screaming YAY!) and salads. 

The other thing that will increase your craving for sugar is white flour.  This is a high glycemic index food, meaning that during digestion, your body converts most white flour products into blood sugar very fast.  It’s a good idea to research high glycemic index foods and stay completely clear of them.  Learn to choose whole foods, whole grains, natural selections.

If you’re struggling with sugar addiction, fruit and fruit juice are probably not a good idea.  This is for the short term – I’d recommend at least a couple of months.  I know eating fruit is healthy for most, but again fruit and juice will raise your blood sugar and boom! you’ll be back to eating twinkies in no time.  It’s not your fault, I swear that sugar cravings control your mind.  It’s not about willpower – at all – it’s about body chemistry.

Chocolate: I’m one of those people that adores chocolate.  As a matter of fact, studies have shown that chocolate actually helps chronic fatigue sufferers feel better.  But I’m not about to go grab a candy bar.  Nor am I going to buy a candy bar at the health food store – they just hide the sugar better.  Sugar is poison to me.  The good news?  I can have Cocoa! Yay!  When I’m craving chocolate, I add cocoa powder and stevia (a health food natural sweetener – no calories) to my coffee.  That takes care of any chocolate craving for that day.  If I were a milk drinker, I’d make sugar free hot chocolate with stevia.  

Artificial sweeteners:  These are good for a short term fix to help you get over your addiction.  If you do research on the topic in various health forums, you’ll find that artificial sweeteners of any kind are bad news to your body.  At times though, I still indulge in a diet pop – I don’t ever want to feel “denied”. 

If you go off of sugar for three days, you can succeed!  You can get your mind back and make your own choices.  I’ve been sugar free now for 48 days and I don’t plan on going back.  I convinced myself that sugar is the worst thing for me, and if I indulge, I’ll never feel better.   I hope this article helps you.  Feel free to comment!  carrie

10/21/07 Update:  I’ve done some thinking about this article and wanted to add a comment or two.

When you go off of sugar, probably for the first week, you’re just gonna feel lousy.  You’ll be achey, tired, grumpy.  You may suffer from headaches.  You’ll certainly notice that you’re hungrier – you were probably getting a huge calorie boost from sugary things.  My advice for the short term – eat more fat.  Just for the first week, it will give you more satisfaction, replace some of the calories you’re craving and probably calm your nerves.

Also, one diet trick that weight loss proponents use for hunger pangs: make sure you’re drinking the recommended 64oz of water daily.  This idea can be useful for getting off of sugar too.  Drinking 8 ounces of water before you eat will help you get that full tummy feeling and help your digestion.   The diet guru Michael Thurmond recommends drinking much more water – as much as 128oz per day.  That will keep ya from being hungry for sure.

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It’s a Merry Penguin Christmas
U.B. Funkeys Explained
Christmas Novelty Stringlights
Shrek the Third Toys and Games
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Best 2008 Calendars
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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