Welcome to my blog! This is a place of information and hope for fellow Canadians who are suffering from Lyme disease. I want to share with you the knowledge I have gained during my fight with this debilitating, frightening, and misunderstood illness. I hope you will be blessed.

Thursday, July 12, 2012

Thank you, Lord, that I can exercise

OK, I can hardly believe that those words went through my head earlier today!  I must be fevered or something!  I am not a person who loves exercise......never have, likely never will.  But I was truly thankful that today, I was able to take a 25 minute walk!  Wow!  I haven't done that in about 20 months.

Before I became ill with Lyme disease, I used to walk about 3 times a week, mainly to maintain my weight or lose weight when necessary.  Once Lyme got a hold of me, exercise, even mild exercise, was absolutely impossible.  I was too weak.  I remember taking a light, slow stroll around the block with my husband and kids after I had been ill for about 4 months, and my head started to pulsate and I was so fatigued.  I had to make my way back to the house to lay down.  It was just awful.  This was before I received my diagnosis, and I wondered what could be causing such bizarre symptoms.

I've been avoiding exercise these past few months, because I'm still suffering from some fatigue.  But I realize now that exercise and healthy eating will be necessary to get me into the home stretch of my recovery.  Exercise gets everything moving inside and helps the antibiotics to better circulate through the body.  It helps with lymphatic drainage, and with boosting immunity.

I'm also going to re-commit to a YF SF diet (yeast-free, sugar-free).  And I'm going to do my best to get those 'whites' out of my diet, too:  white flour, white pasta, white rice, white potatoes.  They're all so bad for you, as they convert quickly to sugar in the body.  Sugar feeds Lyme (and cancer, by the way), so it's best to eliminate those foods for optimal health - even if you're not sick.  If you're going to mow down on a baguette, you might as well just have a Mars bar!  Very little difference in the effect they have on your body.

I'm hoping that my commitment to exercise and healthy eating will help me shed these unwanted pounds I've gained.  When I first got sick, I lost 13 pounds very quickly which brought me to my desired weight.  Once I started on meds, I started to put weight on rapidy, and gained 23 pounds.  Yikes!  I've never been heavier in my life, except for pregnancy.  It's time to get serious about this.  It's going to be very hard to shed the pounds, I think, because the meds are working against me.  So, we'll see how it goes. 

I decided to try another supplement to help in the weight loss department.  I can't believe that I'm voluntarily adding ANOTHER supplement to the regimen.  Here it is - raspberry ketones.


Maybe you heard about these on Dr. Oz.  I figured that he really does his research before recommending something to his viewers, so I'm going to give them a try.  They are totally natural, extracted from raspberries.  They apparently help immensely with weight loss and appetite control.  Do your research before purchasing, as you want ones produced in Canada or the U.S. to ensure purity.  Here are a couple of links to check out to learn more about raspberry ketones.



The dietitian in the second link recommends a particular brand.  I decided not to order that brand because there are other ingredients included in the capsules, such as grapefruit powder, which might interfere with my medications.  I wanted one that was 100% raspberry ketones.

I'll let you know how it goes!