Category Archives: my experience

Experiments with Gluten

Posted on September 30, 2014 | Leave a comment

If you’ve been following this blog for a while you’ll know that my daughter and I follow a gluten free diet (Our experience of going gluten free), and in my last post Dairy Difficulties I talked about our recent experiments with my son, and how he appears to tolerate gluten, but have problems digesting dairy.

With the recent improvements in my health I have been considering testing whether I react to gluten by doing a gluten challenge (eating it and seeing what happens). I didn’t want to do this earlier, because I was still regularly having “bad days” and I wouldn’t have known whether any symptoms were from eating gluten, or a bad ME/CFS day. However, I am reasonably stable day to day now, so I thought I could differentiate between a gluten reaction and my everyday healthy feeling.

I’ve been waying up the pros and cons for a while, and I’ll summarise them as:

My reasons for trying gluten are:

  • I’ve never had a test that showed I was sensitive to gluten
  • I may never have had a problem with gluten, my avoidance of it may not have been part of the reason for my recovery, and I may not need to avoid it at all.
  • I may have been gluten intolerant, but my gut has now healed and I can tolerate it again.

Reasons for continuing to avoid gluten and not try it are:

  • I could be coeliac, in which case even a small amount of gluten will be doing long term damage to my body. My daughter has the gene for coeliac disease, so there is a higher than average chance of me also having this gene. My blood test for coeliac disease was negative (As was my daughter’s and son’s) but this test generates false negatives, so you can get a negative result but still have coeliac disease).  It’s also possible to have “silent coeliac disease” with no gastrointestinal symptoms.
  • I could be intolerant, and spend several hours/days feeling ill following eating gluten.

Having decided to go ahead, last Saturday evening, whilst my daughter was away (I don’t want her to experiment like this because I’m pretty sure it would not be good for her health) I had a tortilla with a normal, wheat containing wrap.

Saturday evening and Sunday morning I felt fine, however Sunday afternoon and Monday morning I was very fatigued and also light headed. It thankfully cleared by Monday afternoon, after a restful morning, but it was an unwelcome reminder of how I used to feel all the time. Unfortunately, having said that I could distinguish between the effect of gluten and ME on my body there is another variable to throw into the equation. I had my period at the same time (I should have thought of this and waited until that was out of the way to try gluten). Whilst I haven’t been affected during my period for quite a while, I have been in the past, and I know it is a natural low point of the month for many women.

I felt OK on Tuesday and Wednesday, and then had two more “bad” days on Thursday and Friday – feeling more fatigued than usual and the general malaise that it so common, yet so hard to describe.  Again I don’t know if this is related to the gluten, or perhaps I was fighting off a cold that my kids have had.

So the results of my experiment are inconclusive.  I definitely felt worse than usual after ingesting the wheat wrap, but I can’t be sure that how I felt was due what I ate.  I’ve realised that there are always other variables at play.  If I’m going to test this properly I think I need to consume gluten at every meal for a few days until either I feel ill or I remain fine. The thought of possibly deliberately making myself ill scares me. It has taken a long time to get to this state of health, and how I felt last week was a most unwelcome flashback.  For that reason I’ve decided not try this at the moment.

Additionally my son has had another run of tummy aches, so it seems dairy free is not the whole answer to his issues.  We are going back to the doctor about his symptoms, but even my husband (who is extremely sceptical about the negative effects gluten can have) has suggested perhaps we should try removing gluten again.  However, this is not something we’re going to rush into, so we’ll wait and see what the doctor says first.

What would you do in my position?

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Posted in my experience, unhelpful foods

Summer Round Up

Posted on September 12, 2014 | 1 comment

I’ve had a really busy, fun summer  with no time for any blogging. Here’s a summary of what I’ve been up to and how that’s impacted on my ME and my diet.

Firstly my health has taken a leap forward over the summer. This had started to happen in June/July when I began to do the school run more and more reliably on my normal (non-electric bike). My physical stamina has continued to increase, and I have noticed that I can now push myself physically with minimal ill effects afterwards.

We have been away a lot over the summer, visiting family and going on holidays.

Visiting Family and Train Travel

The first week of the school holidays we went to visit my family. It’s a 3+ hour drive, and I wasn’t confident that I could drive that distance, so my husband drove us down, then came home to work and I booked train tickets for the return journey.

Travelling by train is something I couldn’t do for a long time because I couldn’t walk the length of the platform, and this train journey involves crossing London, so there’s quite a bit of walking involved. I was thrilled to feel confident that I could handle the journey with 2 kids and some luggage.

Unfortunately my son and husband (who was supposed to be collecting me from the station) both came down with a tummy bug (caught from swimming in a river) so the journey home was more eventful than planned (my son clutched a sick bag the entire journey, but thankfully didn’t need to use it). However, I managed well despite the extra stress and having been up with my poorly boy the night before the journey.

Camping

Our Car, fully laden with camping kit and bikes

We did two weeks camping, with friends, split between Norfolk and the Netherlands.   This was where I noticed the most improvements.  Last summer I was using a mobility scooter to get to the toilet block from our tent and did not join in many activities, spending most of my time lying around.

This summer I took my bike and no mobility aids.  I felt confident that I could walk to the toilet block, and if for some reason I had an unusually bad day, my hubby could drive me in the car.  What I managed exceeded my expectations.  I was pretty much like a normal person.  Here are a few highlights:

  • Helping pack and unpack the car and pitch the tent (As you can see from the picture that’s a big job!)
  • Spending 2 hours in a water-park: – very noisy and lots of stairs to get up to the various flumes  (I did this multiple times as we had free entry every day on our Dutch campsite)
  • Walking round an amusement park and going on adrenaline inducing roller coasters
  • Sightseeing in Amsterdam and Delft
  • Cycling 26 km in one day (bike paths in the Netherlands are a dream come true)
  • Socialising with friends and drinking some alcohol.
  • Shopping for food and cooking (an integral part of camping, and with several teenagers in our group, there was a lot of food shopping!)

There were times that I did need to rest, but they were rare, and did not dictate the pace of the holiday.  All in all this was a wonderful time, and it was great to catch up with friends and have fun with the family.

Delft- a beautiful town for a stroll

Delft- a beautiful town for a stroll

Shropshire Holiday

2014-08-26 15.48.53

Me and my Husband on top of the big hill we’ve just walked up

Yes – another holiday!  I know we’re very lucky and we had a good reason:  my brother and his family are living in England for one year (they usually live in the States), so we are trying to spend as much time with them as possible, and hence grabbed a week away with them.

This holiday was at a slower pace than our camping trip (my SIL is 8 months pregnant), but 8 people in a holiday cottage with plenty of rainy days can be challenging.  I did sneak off for more rests during this week, but I also managed a walk up a really big hill and days out to farms and castles with plenty of walking.

Getting Ready for the New Term

If you have school aged children then you’ll know that inevitably some time has to be spent kitting them out for the new school year.  My daughter has just moved up to secondary school, so she needed completely new uniform.  Of course the boys have also grown so we needed to try their uniform on and work out what new stuff they needed.  Then there is the dreaded shoe shopping and labeling all the new clothes.

I managed all this without feeling completely drained and overwhelmed by it.

My Summer Diet

With all this time away from home my diet had to adapt.  Whilst away I didn’t have access to my blender or juicer.  This meant no green smoothies or vegetable juices.  However, I still focused on getting plenty of vegetables into my diet.  For breakfast I often made frittatas with vegetables, and for lunches/dinner I usually had lots of salad.  We also made Haloumi kebabs when we had BBQs (Haloumi cheese with peppers, onions and mushrooms) – yum.

Additionally I wasn’t drinking Kombucha Daily.  To compensate for this I bought some probiotic tablets (Udo’s Choice Super 8) and had one daily.  I also took 2 magnesium tablets daily (more than I take at home, but an acceptable dose according to my nutritionist), to avoid any constipation that may have occurred with my change in diet.

Whilst sticking to a basically healthy diet, with plenty of vegetables, lean protein and healthy fats I also allowed myself to indulge in holiday treats.  In particular we visited some excellent ice cream parlours in the Netherlands.

The Netherlands seems particularly well adapted to food allergies, with even our campsite shop selling gluten free bread and cereal and all the ice cream parlours labeling whether their products contained gluten or lactose.   We even found a pancake house that had gluten free pancakes.

Recovered?

Most of the time now I feel like a normal (without ME) person, who happens to be quite unfit or a bit lazy.  I feel like a switch has flicked, from ME mode back to normal.  I know I still have less stamina than my healthy friends and I do still need to pace myself a bit, but I don’t think a stranger would guess that I was ill, and I don’t want to use that label myself anymore.

I am hoping that as we move into the term time rush I can maintain my new found status and continue to improve, so that soon I will describe myself as recovered.

 

 

 

 

 

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Green Smoothies

Posted on June 17, 2014 | Leave a comment


2014-06-11 07.53.42What is a green Smoothie?

Smoothies are made in blenders, as opposed to juices, which are made in a juicer.   The difference between the two is that smoothies contain the whole fruit and/or vegetable, whilst juicers extract the juice, but leave the fibre behind.  A smoothie can be as simple as fruit blended with some water, or they can be made more nutritious by the addition of other ingredients e.g. bio-yogurt or  protein powder. A Green Smoothie is a smoothie that’s coloured green,  from the addition of vegetables.

Why Green Smoothies?

If you’ve read my post about vegetables you’ll know I’m a convert to the idea that vegetables contain many micro nutrients which our bodies need in the healing process.  Increasing the vegetable content of my diet is something I am focussed on.  Eating a significant quantity of vegetables at breakfast is tricky.  Sometimes I make an omelette with a mix of mushrooms, spinach, peppers and/or onion, but I don’t always have time for all the chopping that entails.  A green smoothie enables me to get a really big quantity of vegetables straight into my system first thing in the morning, quickly and easily.  Dr Terry Wahl, author of The Wahl’s Prtotocol is a fan of green smoothies, so is Johnathan Bailor, author of The Calorie Myth, and so is my nutritionist.

My Experience

I’ve been making smoothies for years.  I can’t remember where I first read about them, but I found they made a great after-school drink/snack for my children.  I also read about adding spinach and used this as a great way to get my kids to eat spinach without them even knowing.  If you keep the spinach content relatively low you don’t even notice it (honestly – give it a try if you don’t believe me).

When I got ill, activities like smoothie making were far too much energy for me, and we stopped.  My daughter was encouraged to make her own green smoothies by our nutritionist, but this was an unsuccessful experiment as she didn’t like the taste of the recipes suggested (having looked at the recipes they contained a higher proportion of bitter greens and the fruit suggested was less sweet than the berries I use in mine, e.g. kale with apple and lemon).

I’ve been drinking green smoothies for most of my breakfasts for 2-3 months now.  I didn’t start out with  the ultimate recipe that I list below.  I have gradually increased the proportion of vegetables to fruit, and as I’ve read about or discussed other ingredients with my nutritionist I’ve included them.

I use my green smoothie as a meal replacement and I add a whole load of stuff to it to increase my nutrient intake. My recipe is at the end of this post.  By the time I’m finished my blender jug is nearly full, and I generally get 2-3 large glasses full of smoothie.  If I manage to drink all this (and I generally do) it keeps me full until lunch time.

I feel really good when I have smoothies for breakfast.  Of course it could be a psychological boost from feeling that I’m doing something healthy, but I think there is a physical boost from all the nutrients entering my body.  When I think about what I want for breakfast I now often think smoothie and really look forward to it (you may find that surprising when you read the ingredients list).  Partly this is because it’s so quick and easy, but partly it’s because I feel good after I’ve drunk it.

Below are two smoothie recipes: my beginner green smoothie recipe and my Ultimate Green Smoothie recipe.  My Beginner recipe is what I used to make for my kids (and me).  It’s a very gentle introduction into green smoothies and I encourage you to try it as a snack.  If you get on OK with that then you can start gradually increasing the proportion of vegetables, decreasing the proportion of fruit and gradually try adding in some of the other ingredients from my Ultimate Green Smoothie Recipe.   Let me know how you get on.

Beginner Green Smoothie Recipe

 Ingredients

  • 1 cup strawberries (fresh or frozen)*
  • 1 banana (fresh or frozen)*
  • 1 small handful of baby leaf spinach
  • 1 small carton of natural pro-biotic yoghurt
  • ice cubes* and/or water
  • Optional extra: 1 scoop of whey protein powder – this will give the smoothie a thicker creamier texture and flavour as well as adding protein to the smoothie.

*If at least one item of fruit is frozen it improves the texture of the finished drink.  You can also add ice cubes, but frozen fruit gives the best results.

INSTRUCTIONS

Put all the ingredients in a blender jug and blend until smooth.

My Ultimate Green Smoothie Recipe

Please note if you’re new to smoothies I don’t suggest you start with this full recipe.  Use the beginner smoothie recipe above and transition gradually.

INGREDIENTS

  • 2 cups of vegetables.  I aim for 1 cup of green leafy, with the other cup either sulphur rich or colourful, or a mixture (see my Vegetables post for a list of which vegetables fall into which category)
  • 1 cup fruit – a mix of raspberries and blueberries is my favourite, but I also use strawberries, papaya, mango, kiwi, melon, pear etc.
  • 2 dessert spoons Miracle Matcha (or freshly ground linseeds, chia seeds and goji berries)
  • 1.5 scoops whey protein powder.
  • 1 teaspoon of ground nutmeg or cinnamon (or you could try other spices)
  • 3 tablespoons of Pukka Aloe Vera Juice
  • Coconut water (approx half a cup)
  • 1 cup coconut milk and/or bio yogurt (unless you’re dairy free)
  • Nutritional Yeast (excellent source of B vitamins) – approx 1 teaspoon
  • 1 teaspoon Green Nori Sprinkle (a great source of iodine – important for  thyroid function)

 Instructions

Put all the ingredients in a blender jug and blend until smooth.

 

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Posted in helpful foods, my experience, recipes

Vegetable Juicing

Posted on May 23, 2014 | 1 comment

Benefits of juicing

If you want to see an excellent demonstration of the benefits of juicing then I recommend the film Fat Sick and Nearly Dead.  In the film Jo spends a month drinking/eating nothing but vegetable juice and sees massive improvements in his health.  I don’t recommend an approach this extreme if you have ME/CFS.  I used to struggle with blood sugar regulation (another of my symptoms that has dramatically improved) and I found I needed to eat regularly.  I think I would have felt pretty awful without regular meals containing protein.

According to Dr Mercola

There are three main reasons why you will want to consider incorporating vegetable juicing into your optimal health program:

  1. Juicing helps you absorb all the nutrients from the vegetables. This is important because most of us have impaired digestion as a result of making less-than-optimal food choices over many years. This limits your body’s ability to absorb all the nutrients from the vegetables. Juicing will help to “pre-digest” them for you, so you will receive most of the nutrition, rather than having it go down the toilet.

  2. Juicing allows you to consume an optimal amount of vegetables in an efficient manner. If you are a carb type, you should eat one pound of raw vegetables per 50 pounds of body weight per day. Some people may find eating that many vegetables difficult, but it can be easily accomplished with a quick glass of vegetable juice.

  3. You can add a wider variety of vegetables in your diet. Many people eat the same vegetable salads every day. This violates the principle of regular food rotation and increases your chance of developing an allergy to a certain food. But with juicing, you can juice a wide variety of vegetables that you may not normally enjoy eating whole.

Juicing recipes

Jo Cross’s website has several recipes, or you can buy juicing recipe books.  However, I find rather than following a recipe I pick a selection of what I have in my fridge, so here’s my guide, based on experimentation.  Mix and match to find what suits your taste.  Start off with more sweetness and slowly increase the proportions of greens.

Base: Celery or Cucumber (or both)

Sweetness: apple/pear/carrot/beetroot.  Too much of these will increase the sugar content of your juice.  Add enough to get a pleasant flavour, but don’t go overboard.

Green leafy vegetables: Kale, Spinach, Parsley, Lettuce, cabbage etc.  Slowly increase the quantity of these if you’re new to juicing.

Spice: Generally I use ginger, but you can experiment with others

Added Zing: Lemon or Lime.  This is particulary useful if you have added too many green leaves and the juice is a bit bitter, it cuts through that.

Other vegetables:  Anything you want. I like fennel, brocolli, peppers, but experiment.

 What type of Juicer is best?

There are two main types of juicers: masticating and centrifugal.  Generally, centrifugal juicers are cheaper than masticating juicers, but masticating juicers ensure more enzymes from the fruit are retained and also extract more juice from a given amount of produce.

If you are new to juicing I recommend you buy a centrifugal juicer.  This way if you find juicing does not suit you, you have not spent a huge amount of money. If your energy is limited (as mine was when I started) then look for one that can fit whole fruits and vegetables.  It’s a huge benefit not to have to cut up your apples before you add them to the juicer.

Juicers can also be bought second hand, or sometimes found on freecycle.  This would be a great way to try juicing without a financial outlay.

Juicing Vs Smoothies

I haven’t written a post about green smoothies yet (that’s coming soon), but it seems some people question whether it’s best to juice vegetables or blend them.

The answer seems to be that there are benefits to both, and I am currently including both in my diet.  Juices are easy to digest, and provide a concentrated shot of micronutrients, while smoothies contain the whole vegetable/fruit, including fibre and phytonutrients found in the skin.  You can also add protein and healthy fats to  smoothies to provide a meal in a glass.

My Juicing Experience

I’ve been juicing for about 18 months now.  It was something my nutritionist suggested.  At the time I was struggling with adrenal fatigue, despite taking supplements.  My nutritionist suggested that a vegetable juice, containing ginger, in the afternoon would give my adrenals an extra boost.

I was sceptical and had a few concerns about juicing.  I had tried juicing, once, several years ago when I bought a food processor with a juicing attachment.  I remember  the juicing process was difficult and messy and I did not enjoy drinking the resulting carrot and apple juice.

After talking things through with my nutritionist, we came up with a plan;  I would contact my friend Amber at LoveFit – I was pretty sure she’d have a juicer (and I was right)- and ask if she could make me a juice, letting me watch her make it and clean the juicer afterwards.  I was concerned that I did not have the energy to make the juice and clean the juicer afterwards.

Amber made me a carrot, apple and ginger juice, and it was surprisingly pleasant.  She explained that as long as you clean the juicer immediately it’s not a lot of effort.   I then bought a cheap centrifugal juicer and started juicing for myself.  Initially I could only juice on my good days, and I had quite a few days where I simply didn’t have the energy to make it.  Gradually though (as with most activities) it became something I managed more frequently and eventually everyday.

I also slowly changed my juice until it contained more vegetables and less fruit, with a focus on green leafy vegetables.  After a year of juicing consistently I splashed out on an Omega Vert Masticating Juicer.  I bought this second hand on Ebay, but it was still expensive. However, this gets much more juice out of produce, especially green leafy vegetables, and apparently more enzymes are retained in the juice.  I currently juice nearly every day, usually mid afternoon, and I currently get a noticeable increase in energy afterwards, which is helpful when I’m preparing dinner.  I did not get this energy burst when I first started juicing, it’s a relatively recent thing, and one I’m grateful for.

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Posted in helpful foods, my experience, positive activities

PEM – A Survival Guide

Posted on May 16, 2014 | 1 comment

In my ME/CFS Awareness Day post I explained that Post Exertional Malaise (PEM) is one of my main symptoms.  Since I’ve been suffering this week I thought I would share my survival strategies with you.

1. Acceptance

It’s important to accept your current capabilities.  When you have PEM you  feel awful, and can do less activity than usual.  If you try and ignore your body, push through and carry on as usual you will make the situation worse.

You get PEM when your mitochondria can’t provide enough energy to meet demand and switch to anaerobic mode.  It takes time for your body to process the waste products from this and produce more ATP so that you can function normally again (see Dr Myhill’s website if you want a detailed explanation of the cellular processes).  In the meantime, if you push you will be forcing your mitochondria into anaerobic mode again, it will take you longer to recover and you will feel worse because you will have even more lactic acid build up.  So, accept where you are, adjust your activity levels accordingly and be kind to yourself.

2. Cancel Everything

When you have PEM the kindest thing you can do for your body is allow it to recover, the way it will do this is via rest.  Have a look at what you’ve planned for the day and cancel all non-essential activities.  Depending on where you are on the recovery scale this will vary.   For example I used to have to arrange for someone else to take my kids to school, cook dinner, brush my hair etc. .  Now because a normal day is much more active I can still manage basic self care activities like having a shower and putting dinner in the slow cooker.  I cut back on activities like hanging out the washing or going to the supermarket and I do the school run on my electric bike without pedalling.  The level of activity you can manage is different for everyone, it’s really important to listen to your body and not try and do things that increase your symptoms.

3. Drink Water

Your body is struggling to get rid of toxins.  By drinking plenty of water you will help flush everything out.  For variety, or if you struggle to drink plain water, try hot water with a slice of lemon.

4. Eat Good Food

By good food I mean food that is easy to digest and will provide plenty of nutrients.  Some foods need more energy than others to digest.  Your body is low on energy, so the last thing you should be doing is eating foods that need energy to process them.  The same old advice applies here: plenty of vegetables, lean protein and healthy fats.  Avoid sugar and refined flour products, brown rice is a great option for a carbohydrate portion.  You need to make eating good food easy on bad days, so try and have some food in the freezer, or buy pre-prepared vegetables that you can eat with little or no preparation.  Bags of carrot batons and salad leaves are great options for no cook vegetables.

5. Meditation/Relaxation

All those toxins flowing through the body are a stress on your system.  Given that most people with ME/CFS have Adrenal Fatigue, it’s important to try and minimise your stress level.  Meditation or guided relaxation is a great way to do this.

6. Kind Self Talk

When you have PEM you feel awful and it’s easy to get caught up in negative thoughts.  Here’s a few I’ve experienced:

  • It’s all my fault, I was stupid to do …….(the activity that caused the PEM)
  • Why can’t I just pace properly?
  • I’ve ruined my recovery.
  • I’m always going to feel like this.
  • I’m never going to recover.

Actually none of these thoughts reflect the reality.  Here’s a more real version of events:

  • I didn’t mean to overdo things and get PEM, it was an accident
  • You have to “Bounce the Boundaries” in your recovery and try doing extra activities, otherwise you will never improve.  Sometimes these experiments will show you you’re not ready for that level of activity yet.  It’s all part of the process.
  • This is a temporary set back.
  • You don’t feel like this all the time, most of the time you feel better.
  • You will soon be back to how you used to feel and your recovery will continue.

In the first months of my illness I needed my husband to point out to me that my negative thoughts were incorrect.  Now, after all the practise I’ve had, I can usually quickly counteract them myself if they pop up, and they pop up a lot less than they used to.

7. Gratitude

A regular focus on things in your life you are grateful can really help you feel more positive about your situation.  I like to list 5 things I’m grateful for.  When I’m feeling low this is sometimes a stuggle, but I can always think of 5 eventually. They don’t have to be big things.  Here’s a few examples, but everyone’s list will be different.

  • I have a comfy bed to lie in
  • I am warm and dry  in my house
  • I have a husband who cares for me
  • I have plenty of food to eat.
  • I can see a tree out of my window

8. Distraction

When you are physically in pain, or feeling poisoned it easy to get focused on the horrible physical sensations.  A good way to counteract this tendency is to distract yourself.  Instead of focusing on the pain, brain fog, exhaustion etc. do something pleasant.  Obviously you are limited by your physical ability.  Here’s a few suggestions I use:

  • Watch a film (a feel good Rom. Com. or Comedy are best),
  • Listen to an audio book,
  • Lie in the sunshine,
  • Read a book,
  • Chat on Facebook – I generally can’t cope with too much face to face interaction when I’ve got PEM, but I find facebook is a great way to ease  social isolation

The Optimum Health Clinic suggest making a first aid kit for bad days.  This could include your favourite film, book, music, phone numbers of people who can cheer you up, quotations that you find helpful etc.  The idea is that if you put all this stuff together on a good day, then on a bad day you’ve got a box or resources which are going to help you.

9. Epsom Salt Baths

If you’re well enough for a bath, then an Epsom Salt Bath can really help PEM. Bathing in Epsom Salts can ease aching muscles, help your body’s detoxification process and lower stress levels.  Here’s a great post from  SCD lifestyle which explains the benefits and what to do in detail.  Don’t get too hung up on having the perfect bath though; it’s better to do it imperfectly than not do it at all.

These are my coping strategies.  Do you have any other ways to survive PEM? Please share in the comments below if you’ve got any helpful suggestions.

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Posted in my experience, positive activities

Constipation

Posted on March 21, 2014 | Leave a comment

I’ve been struggling with constipation since June 2013.  It’s a pain in the ass (literally), but compared to where I’ve come from, dealing with a bit of constipation seems a relatively minor issue.  I tend to suffer a bout of constipation, get it under control, have some normal bowel movements and think I’ve solved the problem, but then it comes back.  My nutritionist suggested tracking my constipation in relation to my monthly cycle to see if there’s a hormonal link; I couldn’t see any.

I’m working on improving my bowel movements via my diet (more on that soon). I suspect my sugar consumption has not been helping. In the meantime here are some natural constipation remedies which should get your bowels moving if you need a bit of help.

  • Drink 8 cups of warm fluid every day. Include soups and herbal tea.
  • Eat 2 of these a day: asparagus, black sesame seed, cabbage, coconut, figs, flaxseed, papaya, pea, prune or sweet potato
  • Make time! Eat regularly, sit on the toilet regularly and relax, allow 15 minutes bathroom time twice a day to retrain your bowels.
  • Increase the quantity of healthy fat in your diet; try eating more coconut oil, olive oil or avocado.
  • Drink Aloe Vera Juice – I use Pukka, which my nutritionist says is the most palatable, although it’s still not pleasant. I have 3 tablespoons a day.

If you need a bit of extra help then try this Flax* and Prune Mousse:

Put two heaped dessert spoons of flax seed in a small bowl. Cover with half a cup of pressed prune juice. Leave to soak for 12 hours (overnight) and eat with a spoon. Repeat once or twice a day until regular bowel movements are restored. Drink adequate water when including flax seeds in your diet.

Magnesium can help with constipation, and also has other benefits for ME/CFS sufferers.  I have found epsom salt baths – epsom salts are magnesium sulphate – very helpful for muscle aches, and when I took magnesium citrate** to ease my constipation I found my restless legs disappeared completely.

*Flax seeds are also known as linseeds

** Please note that I do not have any medical or functional medicine qualifications, this is based on my own experience, and if you follow this suggestion you do so at your own risk.

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Cabbage Juice Stinks

Posted on March 14, 2014 | Leave a comment

I saw this great post about cabbage juice at the Whole Body Health and Fitness Blog.

I’ve tried some of the slow cooker recipes from this site and they’ve been really successful (enjoyed not just by me, but the whole family).  So, when I read about the cabbage juice, despite thinking that it did not sound like it would end in a tasty drink, I decided to give it a try.

I’m willing to do quite a lot to gain all the health benefits listed in the original article: there were 17 separate bullet points.

However, even before I took the lid off the pot (3 days after setting up the mixture) I had been wondering why the kitchen smelt funny.  Once I removed the lid, the reason became clear.  The juice smelled REALLY bad.  Despite the smell I did try and drink a spoonful of it, but I could taste/smell the stuff for a good hour afterwards and it made me slightly nauseous.  Perhaps my container did not have a tight enough lid, or perhaps I forgot to add the salt, or perhaps it’s always like that.  I do know that this experiment was a fail and this is one healthy drink that I won’t be partaking of.

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Progress

Posted on March 12, 2014 | 1 comment

I’ve decided to share some of the progress I’m making.  I looked back at my post titled Glimpses and I can see I’m much stronger than when I wrote that at the beginning of December.

I’m not fully recovered yet, after some of the activities listed below I was exhausted and had to have a nap or rest.  However, I have managed to sleep well at night after my exertions and wake up the next day feeling back to normal. This is a huge improvement on the time where any little activity could take days to recover from.

Here’s what’s I’ve been up to:

  • a 15 km family cycle ride.  I was on my electric bike and did a mixture of assisted pedalling, and using the throttle instead of pedalling.
  • A family walk along the river, not sure how far we went, but probably about 30 minutes walking.
  • consistently pedalling my electric bike for the school runs.  It has taken longer than I expected, but at last I think I can do this every day.
  • Attending a professional meeting and speaking in the questions section at the end.  I used to do this type of thing as part of my job.  To have the mental and physical capacity to attend this meeting for about 90 minutes and put my point of view across was amazing.
  • Gardening.  I have been doing a little bit of gardening most days.  This has included moving barrow loads of compost, edging the path, weeding and planting seeds.  It’s fantastic to be out in the fresh air trying to make things grow.
  • Laundry – I’m gradually doing more and more of the laundry, but not all of it yet (I prioritise the more fun activities).
  • Cooking – my cooking abilities are much improved.  I no longer have to cook everything in the slow cooker. I’m enjoying sourcing new recipes of healthy food.
  • Socialise – I can now spend several hours socialising with friends.  Good times!
  • Shopping – I can now walk round a small supermarket and do most of the weekly food shop.  I also went shopping and bought a dress for my sister’s wedding without using a mobility scooter.

Each of these activities enables me to feel more like me, lifts my spirits (well perhaps not the laundry) and spurs me on to be able to do even more.

I hope you can see signs of progress in your own situation.  If you are going through a tough time then hang in there and remember it’s temporary.

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Inspiration

Posted on March 6, 2014 | 1 comment

When times are tough it’s difficult to find the mental and emotional strength to keep going.  It can be comforting to hear of others going through similarly tough times and coming out the other side.

I found listening to positive stories really helped my emotional state, and built my belief that I could recover; that I could beat this horrible illness.

For the first nine months of my illness I couldn’t read.  It was too difficult for my brain fogged mind to cope with.  During this time I signed up to the Optimum Health Clinic’s Secrets to Recovery Website;  I highly recommend this resource.  As well as having great information about things that can help your recovery, it has lots of recovery stories from former patients.  I listened to these stories, sometimes multiple times. Slowly they helped me understand that although there is no magic cure for ME/CFS, it is possible to recover.

Later in my recovery, when I could read again I searched for inspirational books.  Two that stand out for me are:

  1. Things Get Better by Katy Piper
  2. After the Crash by Martin Spinelli

I’m currently reading Wild: A Journey from Lost to Found by Cheryl Strayed.  I’m only part way through this, but I’m already inspired by this book too.

These books are not about ME/CFS, but they are all about people working through difficult times in their lives.

I also came across the film Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead.  If you haven’t seen this yet, then make an effort to watch it.  It is a great example of how changing your diet can change your health.

I’d love to hear about other inspirational stories you’ve come across and enjoyed, either books or films.  Please share in the comments below.

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A Low GI Diet

Posted on March 3, 2014 | Leave a comment

One thing that most nutrition advice agrees on is that a low GI diet is better than a high GI diet.  Even the NHS ME/CFS clinic I attended recommended a low GI diet, and they didn’t give much nutritional guidance at all.

What is the GI?

GI = Glycemic Index.  The Glycemic Index is a measure of the speed at which carbohydrates break down in our digestive system into glucose. Glucose is indexed at 100 and all other foods are calculated against this.  For example cornflakes, which contain mainly carbohydrate, are digested quickly and have a GI of 77, whilst yoghurt has a much lower GI of 14.

Why is it Important?

Some carbohydrates break down quickly and flood the bloodstream with glucose, others break down more slowly, only marginally increasing blood sugar levels. (High GI foods increase blood sugar faster and higher than low GI foods).

In my post on sugar I explained how sugar causes a spike in blood glucose levels. Our body responds to this by releasing insulin, which reduces the level of glucose by diverting it into body tissues for short term use or storing it as fat. The surge of glucose followed by the rapid drain leaves us starved of energy, so we search for another sugar fix to bring us out of the slump. By knowing whether a food is high GI or low GI we can understand whether it is likely to increase our insulin levels.

Fat and protein can slow down the rapid absorption of carbohydrates in our digestive system.  Hence foods with higher fat content tend to have a lower GI.  For example whole milk has a lower GI than skimmed milk.

Is all low GI food good for us?

I’m sure you can guess the answer to this: No!

Whilst we should all avoid the highest GI foods (sugar and refined grains), just because a food is low GI does not mean it’s OK to eat huge amounts of. There are other things we need to consider:

  • Do I have a food allergy/bad reaction to this food?
  • Is this food inflammatory? (more information in a future post)
  • Is this food nutrient dense?
  • Am I eating a variety of foods?

What are the main recommendations of the GI diet?

  • Avoid heavily processed foods (these tend to have a high GI)
  • focus on low GI “slow release” foods
  • Eat plenty of wholegrains – many of the recipes add wheat bran
  • Eat regularly  – 3 meals and 2-3 snacks per day
  • aim for your plate to have 1/2 vegetables, 1/4 protein and 1/4 wholegrains
  • avoid alcohol
  • drink plenty of water
  • eat plenty of vegetables
  • exercise is not essential for weight loss, but is good for long term health

I have the GI diet book by Rick Gallop.  Some of the thinking in the book seems outdated, particularly as to which fats we should be consuming. Many of the recipes rely on the addition of wheat bran as additional fibre, to lower the GI of the food.  I have a post about gluten sensitivity which explains the problems that gluten (found in wheat) can cause.   However, there are plenty of naturally low GI foods that we can eat without wheat.

My Experience

I first discovered the GI diet after having my second child.  I wanted to loose the “baby” weight and following the low GI diet worked really well for me.  I enjoyed the food, wasn’t hungry and it was a diet that the whole family could eat (except the baby).  I have recently learned that our family carries the gene for coeliac disease (I don’t yet know whether I have this gene).  As such, with hindsight, adding additional wheat bran into our food was not good for my family. My daughter and I currently follow a gluten free diet and hence avoid wheat.  However, there are plenty of low GI foods that we can, and should include in our diet.

Conclusion

The GI diet has lots of positive aspects, and much of the dietary advice agrees with advice from other diets e.g. my foods to eat more of and foods to eat less of posts. It is a good idea to avoid foods with a high GI, and it’s no coincidence that these are the highly processed foods: white flour, bread, cakes, sugar etc, which every healing diet I’ve read about recommends we avoid. However, whether a food is low GI is not the only criteria we should consider when we decide whether or not to consume it.

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