Ever had a situation, where you are trying your very best, but then some little inconvenience comes along and makes your everyday life hard in form of low energy?
I know that my hard is not nearly as hard as life could be. I have a great job, lovely family and I’m somewhat healthy. My health challenges are migraines, light overweight and low ferritin. All of them cause low energy and most days I feel I must struggle to get everything done. And it makes me sad because I know, that at my best I’m very productive.
Migraine
I’ve had migraine ever since I was a teenager. It got worst after I had my child, which happened over 20 years ago. Sometimes I can go a whole week without any seizures, then again, some weeks I get them almost every day. Most of the seizures are such, that if I only take my medicine in time, I can function, but sometimes it gets really paralyzing and all I can do is lie in bed and suffer awake. I have tried several daily medications for migraine over the years, but all of them have caused nausea, high heartbeat, and dizziness. My mother said her migraines ended at menopause, so there is hope for me too.
Low ferritin
When growing up, I had anemia, and I ate medicine for it for a long time. When I got pregnant, I needed to eat iron supplements for low ferritin, and after that, I needed supplements pretty much all the time. This summer I had 4 weeks pause, and after vacation ferritin had dropped low, and the doctor ordered a fourfold dosage of iron supplement. Low ferritin causes devastating tiredness and overall low energy, and it takes a long time to fix it even with supplements. If you have or have had low ferritin, what are your best practices to deal with it?
Overweight
Until I got pregnant at 23, I was always at a normal weight. During pregnancy I gained a lot and getting rid of it has not been easy and it gets harder every year when getting older. I’ve been up and down with my weight ever since.
My nutrition method has been low-carb for many years now and couple of years ago I started to read about the ketogenic diet. It has been the first method that has helped me to lower my weight permanently. Of course, I’ve had my ups and downs with that too, but the longer I’ve done keto, the easier it is to get back on track after some slips. Now when I have done keto for about three years, I can sometimes add some fruits and non-keto vegetables to my meal without spiraling totally off the wagon and starting binge eating bad carbs.
My ketone readings also stay higher now if I eat some non-keto food items. So, the tolerance for carbs seems to grow too when my body has learned to use fat as fuel instead of sugars. I don’t measure every day anymore, some checkup points here and there. I measure ketones from the blood because I have understood, that it’s a more reliable method than a urine test. I measure blood sugar levels also with the same measuring device. At the beginning of the keto journey, it was very helpful to learn to understand the consequences of different foods, and it was rewarding to get good readings after smart food choices.🏅
Fasting
Fasting longer times is still hard for me, but I do a lot of intermittent fasting (IF). It means, that you have a longer period of a day, when you are not eating, but you can drink liquids. Black coffee, tea, and of course lots of water and electrolytes. I fast usually for 14-18 hours, but 10-12 hours is good too. I don’t fast every day, and sometimes I do OMAD (one meal a day). The longest I have fasted is 72 hours.
Fasting has the biggest impact on weight loss for me. I can melt away one- or two days of poor eating with OMAD during the weekend. If you are interested in fasting, I recommend following Dr. Mindy Pelz, who has a lot of things about fasting, especially for women. The hormone cycle affects fasting too.
Bad carbs
When you are tired, it gets harder and harder every day to make healthy food choices. This week I was on a business trip, and I made a mistake and ate one regular cheese sandwich. Why, oh why! From bad carbs, I get symptoms:
- more migraine seizures
- terrible bloating and discomfort
- gas
- skin impurity
- I instantly feel fat
- more tiredness
- risk of binge eating more bad carbs
- stronger body odours
So if I don’t find anything acceptable to eat, why don’t I fast when I have that ability? But I’m not going to beat myself about it, I just need to make better choices again tomorrow. Be kind to yourself❤️
You should read also our Toxic carb carousel– post.
We’d love to hear your story!