I am dealing with a huge obstacle - fatigue. I was hedging a bet that many of the folks on here also have this problem. It's not my thyroid, I don't have apnea. Although it could be depression, I don't feel that I am overall depressed. I do have a lot of enjoyment. I usually wake up tired, go to bed tired, feel tired on the way to work, and on the way home. It started before my dieting efforts and has been going on for years. I used to work 7p-7a nights as a nurse, and it allowed me the excuse to sleep all the time. Through this I was able to make excuses for it. Now with job changed, hours changed, and less physical, I am just as exhausted.

I have found it interferes with my dieting/health plans as I want to eat when I feel tired and cannot sleep (because I'm in public, at work etc.) I find that I am so tired I don't want to cook, and thus eat poorly.

I am undertaking some experimentation/efforts to overcome this fatigue and find a normal life underneath it. I will post my efforts/outcomes here if anybody wants to come along with me.

Last night I started using a set bedtime. I am on vacation, so I didn't set an alarm this AM on purpose. I slept from 1007 to 0947 - after having trouble going to sleep (which is unusual for me). So I need almost 12 hrs sleep? Really? I did feel better when I woke up. I will test this again tonight, and maybe will be able to go to sleep more easily (and normally) to see what I get.

OK, I suk at this. I stayed out shopping, saved a bunch o cash with my couponing pal, and have stayed up too late. Goodnight. Try again tomorrow.

Oh geez, you sound like me! At least, how I used to feel. I discovered I was allergic to soy. Before that discovery, I was seriously fatigued nearly all the time, for years. It got progressively worse over the course of 15 years. I couldn't exercise at all, keep a job, get housework done. I had all sorts of tests done, on thyroid, for diabetes, etc. Thyroid was low-ish, but not low enough to get me feeling so awful. Type 2 diabetes, but not bad enough that I couldn't deal with it through diet and exercise.

I noted that some days, when I got up, I felt really good! Then I'd eat breakfast and things went south from there. I would get so frustrated with my dieting efforts that I'd choose to not eat, and I noticed that I felt really good till the end of the day, when I was ravenous. Then I'd eat and I'd feel bad all over again. I felt so bad that I went to a health spa in Vermont for three weeks in order to lose weight. I felt great while I was there, but as soon as I came home, I went back to feeling bad again.

I got stuck with the weight-loss efforts so I decided to go on Medifast. I stuck to the plan faithfully, but after a week, I was so weak and achy. Plus, instead of losing weight, I gained. I started doing research and discovered that some people couldn't do Medifast because most of their products had soy in it and some are allergic to it or soy sensitive. The best way to figure that out was to do an elimination diet. So that's what I did. I didn't eat for a day, with the exception of water and pear juice. Then I slowly added foods that are considered the least allergenic, starting with vegetables, and worked my way up to foods that are known to be more allergenic. Soy kept popping up. I discovered I was so sensitive to soy that I couldn't eat poultry and eggs from chickens that had been fed soy feed.

I scoured my pantry and fridge for soy and tossed it all out! I stopped buying almost all processed foods and cured meats. Even chocolate! One manufacturer of diet shakes tried to tell me that they only used soy lecithin and that I shouldn't be allergic to soy. My body was telling me something else. I had to stop going out for meals altogether.

I had to give up a lot of cosmetics as well. I had been having allergic reactions to most eye makeup, all sun screens I had tried, and soaps and scents. I had to find soy-free hair products. I also started taking kelp, which helps nourish the thyroid. Soy depletes the thyroid.

Since going soy-free, my energy levels have really increased. I went from not getting anything done to going to a Pilates class daily, going back to college, and caring for my family and elderly parents, all at the same time.

There are times when I make stupid food choices and I suffer for it. Over the weekend I had some breakfast sausage at a hotel restaurant. It had soy in it, like most sausage. I'm still struggling with feeling lethargic. I had arthritis-type joint pain for two days. Today I chose to clean out my gut and ate dark leafy greens most of the day. Tonight I'm starting to feel better.

Good luck. I hope you find that you have a food allergy, because then you can set out to clear it all out of your system and avoid it. Processed food is easy to give up when you're getting your life and all your health and energy back in return.

ArkansasKel, I worked 12 hour rotating shifts for 15 years. I quit that 5 years ago and am working a "day job" now. It took me 2 years to adjust.
I have been diagnosed with fibromyalgia. Chronic fatigue syndrome is common with that. There isn't a clear cut test for fibro but you might mention it to a health care professional. Good luck

Warning: My experiences aren't typical fatigue. So much or most of it may not apply to you, but I don't know what you will and won't find helpful, so I'll include it all, and let you sort it out.


Fatigue can be life-altering. I'm on disability for chronic pain issues, but it was really the fatigue that did me in. I'd had chronic pain for 10 years or more before I had to stop working. Pain slowed me down a little, but fatigue made any job impossible. When I started the job, dealing with morning emails took 10 to 20 minutes. When my symptoms were at their worst, it would take me two hours. Fatigue almost completely short-circuited my short-term memory, and without short-term memory information doesn't make it to long-term membory.

I'm slowly digging myself out of the whole that my obesity and the untreated fibro got me into. Their are routines and medications that have helped.

A sleep routine - I still find this difficult, because of insomnia issues. My doctor warns me that sleep medications have horrible consequences, but not as bad as chronic sleep deprivation. So knowing when to medicate is more art than science.

Listening to my body - this is difficult too, when symptoms go wonky. Which symptom do I listen to. If I'm fatigued and restless, do I listen to the part of my body that says sleep, or do I listen to the part that says "go do something."

Diet - for me that means getting rid of wheat and processed foods almost completely. High carb foods wreak havoc on many of my symptoms, but especially fatigue. I don't think everyone has the same food issues though, so I think a food journal is key in finding your personal patterns.

Exercise - this is really hard when you're fatigued and in pain, but it helps too much to avoid. I use water exercise, because it's the least painful. Iin fact, unlike almost everyhting else, for me it's virtually pain-free (at least while I'm in the water, I can get very sore once I get out, so I do have to make sure I don't overdo it. I can increase my routine's duration or intensity but if I decide to one day double my work-out I'd be in big trouble).

Medications and supplements. Ironically, I always believed in taking as few prescription and otc meds as possible. I don't even drink. So using medications was a dilemma for me, until I realized how much functionality they returned to me. Every one must be weighed by it's benefit-to-risk ratio.

Ironically (or maybe not) prescription meds haven't necessarily been better than the otc drugs and supplements. It pays to try the cheapest and most available first.

Three supplements I swear by for fatigue - fish oil (1,000 mg two to three times a day), Vitamin D (2,000 units once per day), and folic acid (1,000 mg once per day).

As with drugs, I'd suggest talking to your doctor about supplements, their effects and appropriate doses. (My doctor recommended a higher dosage of the fish oil and vitamin D than is recommended on the labels). If you're on prescription meds, you also need to talk to your doctor and pharmacist about possible interactions.

I also use caffeine, but stop within 5 hours of bedtime. I went almost a year without caffeine and artificial sweeteners (after a well-meaning friend convinced me that my diet Mountain Dew habit was causing or worsening my fibromyalgia).

My current doctor had me add back in caffeine so that I could avoid taking a less-safe prescription medication (he said after a year's break, if I had a problem with caffeine or artificial sweeteners I would notice immediately).


Keeping Journal - If you try any suggestion, this would be the one I'd recommend first, because this will help you find your own patterns. I highly recommend not only a daily food journal, but a comprehensive health journal like the HealthMinder journal or something very much like it. You can see the journal pages by searching on amazon.com and using the LOOK INSIDE feature.

I would have never thought to document the weather or my body temperature, and through doing so I discovered that my normally very low body temperature increases to almost normal on low-carb dieting (it might explain why I lose better on 1800 calories of low-carb than 1800 calories of high-carb).

I also learned that weather has a huge influence on my symptoms including fatigue - and not in the way I would have imagined. It's actually any large, especially sudden change in weather that affect me the worst. We think it's probalby barometric pressure change, because I start to get "weird" before there's any noticeable change in the weather.

I say "weird" because it's not always pain and physical fatigue. Sometimes it's mental cloudiness or spaciness. If I'm not in physical pain or fatigue, my judgement may be off. Literally I'm so absent-minded that my hubby is afraid at these times that I'll walk into traffic - I'm that distracted.

I appreciate your support here! I started a journal today, tracking foods, mood, fatigue, pain, bloat, focus, day of cycle, weather, pollen (I have seasonal allergies anyway). I am tracking things on 1-10 except weather/pollen. So far today I'm an average 5.4 with 10 being excellent, and it doesn't even seem like a bad day. It's subjective, but I think it's fairly on point for how I am feeling right now.

I looked at the healthminder to the degree I could on amazon. I took the idea of weather and pollen from kaplods and them. I thought cycle day could be related also, as I'm quite hormonal and on clomid right now as we are TTC still. But dear God, if we have a child I cannot be this tired all the time. My mother was an absolute moody, demanding, recluse, and I am so close to being just like her (ok, I don't think I'm that demanding or angry as she was). But I was taught that staying inside day after day, eating large meals, drinking soda, watching TV, and sitting was acceptable. Where do you go from there? I've struggled my whole life to overcome these patterns.

OHOH, and I'm adding time outside and time exercising to my journal. Sunshine wouldn't kill me, and neither would at least some light exercise.

Thanks for the support guys. It means a lot. I'll find my way, I just don't want to be in the nursing home when my epiphany comes.

Arkansas Kel, I have had the same problems, and the doctor says my thyroid doesn't overact or underact, but I found this comment in another thread talking about adrenal exhaustion. lifarre . com/socialnetwork/pg/forum/topic/3248/what-is-causing-my-fatigue/ I looked it up and its mostly diet-based. My first steps were to work out a lot to get on a better sleep schedule and that has helped a little. Are you feeling better now?

Nursing is hard work, and the night shifts could actually be causing quite a lot of problems. Night workers are known to have higher rates of various problems, including hormone-related conditions such as breast cancer. I'm always raving on about how I hugely helped my sleep problems with light therapy and darkness therapy, but seriously, look into them. Your light/dark signals will probably be a mess, and that has a knock-on effect on serotonin levels and energy and hormones and all sorts of things. It definitely affects eating and hunger. I used to be on a 25 hour body clock, sleeping at varied times and always getting woken up by noise or light or something, and my eating patterns lost all routine whatsoever and I ended up putting on 35lb. I couldn't even think about sorting out my diet before I sorted my sleep out, it was that bad.

I'd also suggest looking into which conditions cause chronic fatigue. Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS/CFIDS/ME), which I also have, is only one of them, and not the most common. However, as a (former?) nurse and night shift worker you're at higher risk, and at the very least, CFIDS websites usually have excellent resources on all the possible causes of chronic fatigue and how you should get yourself checked out for them.

Meanwhile, can you cook in bulk and freeze it, so that at least you're not stranded without food when you're too tired to cook? Buy in healthy but easy nibbling fodder?

I was also diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, but at a VERY early age...actually at 13. I still have what appear to be relapses and symptoms of it, and do have problems sticking with long-term exercise because of it, but I'm praying that this time I will have no conflicts.

At our local fibromyalgia support group, we had a rheumatologist who reported that most of her fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue patients are or have been swing shift or night shift workers or working multiple jobs at some point in their lifetime (I believe she said it was something like 60% or 2/3).

I found that rather interesting. She asked our group how many of us were or had been swing shift workers, or had worked more than one job or a lot of overtime, or routinely worked more than 10 hour shifts in the last 10 years. It seemed like almost everyone raised their rands.

All of my adult life I worked the equivalent of at least 1.5 jobs. In college I worked part-time while taking or exceeding the maximum course load (I had to have wavers signed to take the extra classes my third year, so I could graduate in three years). Then I worked swing-shift jobs while going to graduate school, and after graduate school started in the community college teaching part-time while working up to 60 hour work-week (not counting traveling).

She also told us that she's never had a patient get better while working swing shifts. She said with a consistent night shift, it's possible as long as the person keeps to their regular schedule (sleeping during the day on days off too). That's hard to do, though.

We're a "burn the candle at both ends" culture. People brag about how little sleep they get, and don't realize the potentially harmful consequences of sleep deprivation, especially when paired with other unhealthy habits like, poor diet, lack of exercise, stress, obesity... It all adds up, eroding our energy bit by bit.

Went gluten-free and felt like a cloud was lifted off of me. When GF for GI reasons but found that I have the most amazing energy. Felt better than I had in years. Do your research first, it's a real committment!

Also check out a book called, Tired and Wired. Really shed some light on things for me.

Ciao,
LFG