Fitness and mysteries illnessess.

[Eclipse]

How does one handle fitness with an illness that causes excessive fatigue?.

After another long battle with the mysterious disease that makes my limbs go numb and makes me sleep excessively ( the thing where my body has trouble absorbing B vitamins) etc I have built myself up to do some weight lifting. My body said it was ready yesterday so I went for a work out.
Are there any guides for weight lifting for abnormal people like me who suffer from mysterious illness?. I have eager to do some fitness while I am able.

Yeah, I think I asked this here before...

Also hoping to cut back on fitness related problems if possible such as wasting away and looking anorexic, high desire for sugary foods/binges, excessive fatigue, feeling faint and other problems which are triggered by being fit.

[karenlovessnow]

While I do not suffer from any mysterious disease, I do have fibromyalgia which causes muscle pain and fatigue. Exercise is supposed to help with the symptoms, but the more I exercise, the worse I feel. I do it anyway. Walking is the only form of exercise that doesn't exacerbate the symptoms. Weight lifting is almost out of the question for me. Pilates with a resistance band is ok, but still causes discomfort. I try and suck it up and exercise anyway, 3-4 times a week. I really need more than that and if I am having a good week or two I do up it to 5 times a week. I'm glad you are feeling well enough to start exercising. I don't know about any specific guidelines. I would think starting out slowly and gradually building up would be the way to go. Listen to your body. Good luck! :)

[zoebird]

yoga is a good choice too. fatigue can be greatly helped by yoga.

right now, i'm in trimester one (one month) and very tired feeling. i'm still doing my yoga, though the last couple of days i've had to cut back on the walking a bit.

[karenlovessnow]

:surprised Yay! Contratulations! :baby:

[Libellula]

congrats zoebird!

[Bios]

It's not all that mysterious, but chemotherapy causes energy sapping and fatigue that could be similar to what you're facing.

My prime finding is that it's important to keep *doing* if you're capable. If you stop ... then you've stopped, and getting going again is very much harder. And although it felt lousy to do it physically, and was psychologically hard to see how much I'd lost since treatment began, it really is important to keep at it. You obviously know why -- it's the best thing you can do to maintain yourself and improve your chances for improvement. If it hurts to see you're not as good as you were, you turn it around and imagine how much worse it would be if you quit.

As to practical matters....toss the predetermined training regime. You assess what you're capable of on a given day, you make yourself do that, but you don't push beyond
it. When I was well, I could push through some muscle quiver while weight lifting and get value from it. When I tried the same trick on chemo, I very nearly blacked out.

I found my fuel level was not as well regulated as usual either, so think about how you're fueled before you start to work out.

Don't skip the rest days. You need them.

I wouldn't skip the cardio either. The best way to keep red blood cells up (prevent anemia) is to use them. Every time my oncologist would read my blood work, he would just shake his head in disbelief and say 'Keep cycling!'.

Best wishes,

Jeanne