Exercise, Sweating, and Nutrition

Over the last five months, I have developed a regular habit of exercise on the recommendation of my Environmental Physician. I participate in a minimum of 20 minutes of a sustained 108 heart beats per minute - six days a week, no matter how badly I feel.  The only exception is when I have migraines because I literally can’t do anything during those stretches of time, which can last 24-72 hours and render me completely incapacitated. When my doctor suggested exercise, I have to admit I was really annoyed with him. I just spent all this time describing my symptoms of fatigue, lack of balance, nausea, dizziness, and musculoskeletal pain and there he was telling me to jump around and get my heart rate up? The audacity!

The truth is that I would do just about anything that he told me to do because he is a very well respected physician, so I made a strong intention to follow his suggestions and treatments with diligence. Much to my surprise, he was right. Exercise really helps me to manage my fatigue and increases my energy. It also creates new pains in my body that make it harder for me to tell the difference between pain caused by my illness and pains caused by working out. Somehow I am experiencing this as positive?!

My body doesn’t sweat. I never realized that this was an issue until I met with my Environmental Physician five months ago. I always thought I was just lucky! I was always that person in the crowd who didn’t sweat at the gym, at the beach, or while dancing at the club in my youth. My clothes never got smelly and I didn’t need to wear deodorant. Ends up that I am not so lucky after all. Sweating is one ways that the body detoxifies itself. My detoxifying system is already challenged and so not being able to sweat just creates a whole other issue for my health! The good news is that last week, after five months of hard cardio workout - I FINALLY SWEATED! This is a massive success for me in my recovery.
 

In addition to exercise, I have also started visualizing and talking to my cells. To be clear, my doctor did NOT suggest this to me, but it came about as a result of our time together. He had drawn a picture of a cell, to assist him in describing the dysfunction of my mitochondria to me. This image imprinted on my mind’s eye and I refer to the image especially during cardiovascular exercise to try to stimulate my mitochondria and support the cells in doing their metabolic work!

Another key aspect of my current recovery has been getting my IBS under control. I was diagnosed with IBS several years ago, but I really hadn’t figured out how to manage it. My Envrionmental Physician suggested the FODMAP nutrition protocol and it has literally changed my life. He also educated me about how my ES/MCS is related to the inflammation in my guts. FODMAPs has transformed my guts in a profound way. The main culprits for me were onions and garlic. Every meal I have ever made or enjoyed eating started with onions and garlic! Removing these two foods from my nutrition regimen has paid off in big massive ways. IT IS ALL ABOUT THE GUTS! I have worked hard to reduce inflammation through nutrition and supplements and I have increased my green vegetable intake to between 8-11 servings per day. I have also increased my good fats, amino-acids, magnesium, and fermented foods. My nutrition is spot-on these days and the last five months of committed focus has really paid off. I really have my doctor to thank for that.