Food & Fatigue

Hi, I’ve found that if I eat anything around 2pm, my fatigue in the afternoon is a lot worse and by 5-6pm I’m too tired to walk. New plan - don’t eat anything after 12 noon just to put this theory to the test. At least I have a good breakfast! Anyone else found this? Heather

Hi Heather

I do think that food has an affect on fatigue. These days I tend to have my lunch fairly early and eat very little for tea. I try and stay away from stodgy food as it does tend to make fatigue worse and eat mainly fruit and veg, with a little fish and chicken. This also helps to keep the weight down.

Wendy x

I personally find if i eat bread in the afternoon, my energy slumps dramatically - even before dx. GP tested me once for coeliac disease, but the test’s came back clear, so think i just have trouble digesting it. I avoid it after midday, but have not noticed it being a problem with other foods.

Let us know if your theory is succesful! Good luck.

Laura

I started off with tummy problems and my Mum has coeliac so I cut out gluten, it initially helped a bit with my stomach but after about a month I noticed a huge difference in my quality of sleep - I started waking more naturally in the mornings (previously I would easily have slept til lunchtime if no alarm!).

I each a little gluten now but I really limit it… I tried experimenting and the day after I ate that amazingly good pizza, I felt hungover but I’d had no alcohol! So when I say I’m back on it, I mean I don’t worry if it’s in a sauce but I don’t eat bread or pastry now unless it’s a gluten free version.

I still get fatigue with the MS but I’m relieved I learnt to avoid gluten when I did as gluten definitely made me bad before - Like Laura says about trouble digesting it, I think it’s hard work for our bodies to deal with.

It’s not good cutting back on your diet too much as you will feel lethargic from hunger alone. Please go careful but maybe try just eating ligher meals later in the day and things that are easier to digest like soups etc.

Good luck Heather :slight_smile:

Sonia x

Hi, I’m very heat sensitive so don’t have hot drinks, just water, and I tend to eat cold or raw food during the day, with a hot meal in the evening. However, I sometimes let it go cold before I eat it, like now when the weather’s hot. Hot weather + digesting a meal = no energy for several hours. I start in the morning with quite a large breakfast, a bowl of raw spinach or something like that, with seeds, blueberries, bananas, raisins with a sprinkling of cacao on top. I’ll just have the odd apple if I feel peckish til tea time, when I have more veg, sometimes with fish or seafood. I’ve learnt over the years not to have potatoes - they completely wear me out - and I’ve been following the Best Bet Diet since 2008, so no dairy, gluten or legumes. I also don’t eat processed sugar, yeast, grains, peppers, most oils and other stuff because it irritates my bladder and causes cystitis-like symptoms. It can be very restrictive, especially when I see others tucking into cakes, pizza and burgers and guzzling wine (alcohol gives me a bad headache and makes me dizzy, even a small amount), but I’m trying to get nutrition into my body and you can’t do that eating junk. I always do best when I’ve not eaten much. It’s just the way my body seems to be. My husband works full time in London and stays over on a Tuesday and Wednesday night, so I have the responsibility to get my boys up and off to school, get tea ready etc. When my husband is around, he leaves the house at 6.15am and gets back around 7.10pm, later if he collects our youngest from cricket on his way from the station. My whole day is geared around being able to look after the boys. I can’t do that if I can’t walk cause my body has diverted it’s energy to digestion. Just time for an apple then nothing til tea! Heather

Has anyone looked into different diet options for managing MS? There is a programme on Channel 5 tonight that although isn’t specific to MS deals with auto immune disease. This chap Joe Cross was overweight and had this disease but turned to juicing to help him. He not only lost a tremendous amount of weight but it improved his health no end. Any views?

With me, the trouble starts when I don’t eat often enough. If I have got absorbed in something and have not eaten for hours, I just crash and burn, energy-wise. Once that has happened, I’m out of it for the day - however much food I then take on board to try to compensate. We are all so different!

Looking at what you have said about your diet, Heather, I can’t imagine how you manage to get enough calories on board - do you take lots of olive oil on/with everything, for instance?

Alison

Hi again, Thanks for your replies and suggestions. The thing to remember with eating mainly fruit and veg is the need to increase the quantities so that you get enough calories. My husband finds this concept very difficult to grasp, and initially would leave an empty place on my plate where the meat or potatoes would go. The idea of increasing the veg portion never occurred to him, probably out of routine from what usually goes on a plate, and in what proportions. I can’t use fats or oils because, even though they have a very low acidity (I think olive oil is under 1%) it’s still too acidic for my poor bladder and causes cystitis symptoms. I use coconut oil for frying and roasting. I saw that programme on Channel 4 last night about living on juice for 60 days, and thought it was very good. Sadly, we’ve grown up eating certain foods believing we were eating a good diet, and telling people now that what they’re eating is causing illness just results in disbelief and ridicule. My belief is that we’re victims of a world that just wants to make as much money as possible. Food manufacturers and meat/dairy producers aren’t bothered about our health. If today’s world is so good, why is everyone sick? I don’t set out to “convert” people to my way of thinking - I know people are too set in their ways and aren’t open to consider views they currently think of as stupid, until like me, they get MS…or become obese, get heart disease, cancer, Alzheimer’s, have a stroke, etc. When reality hits, it’s very sobering. Heather

Hi Heather I think there is something in what you have written, if everyone ate a little less some of the diseases that are becoming the norm in the western world would not take hold. Don’t get me wrong I am a bit of a chocoholic but only eat a small piece of dark choc per day, belive me it’s not that difficult, if I really feel like binging I eat a raw carrot or apple, that does the trick.

Take care Wendy x

hi Wendy,

I don’t think I could eat a carrot or apple and get rid of the cravings for chocolate. If i don’t eat junk food for a few days, i start to crave it less. My treat is then grapes or blueberries, but then if I’m persuaded to have a slice of pizza, ice cream etc it is then a very slippery slope.i know i feel rubbish if i eat rubbish , so why do I keep doing it?

lynn

Hi lynn

I still have the chocolate but am able to stop at one or two pieces instead of a whole bar. I did overdo it after a particularly stressful visit with my elderly dad the other week, when I got home I had a nasty attack of MS hug and had to retire to bed for a couple of hours, another reason (for me anyway) not to eat too much chocolate.

Wendy x

I prefer vegetarian food so lots of veg. you have to introduce protien into your diet otherwise your muscles will no be fed so introduces pulses instead of meat which are high in protien This was not doone because of mz MS I have alwazs disliked meat.

Rick.

Yes veg is good, I have been a vegie for over 15 years, I was always consious that as a female I need to keep up levels of B12 and since dx I do eat some fish. B vitamins are important especially B12.

Wendy x

Hi, Thanks for your supportive posts. I personally like Booja Booja raw chocolate. Expensive though, so definitely a treat not an every day thing. I’ve just started reading “The Hundred-Year Lie. How to protect yourself from the chemicals that are destroying your health.” By Randall Fitzgerald. Good so far. My husband showed me an article in the Evening Standard yesterday, where it had been found that salt/sodium is a trigger for MS. Interesting. Heather