I have no energy

I know EXACTLY how you feel, I say the same things to myself everyday. I was doing great, getting up in the morning and hopping on the treadmill and I felt great. I stopped because I was sick and the vicious circle has started again. I don't have any thyroid problems and I still can't push myself. My kids and husband consume my time and when I am free I am tired.

Some people are just not morning people. Figure out you best time to commit to exercise. BUT, I have found that if I sign up and pay for a class I am more likely to attend than if I do it on my own. I would not get up and exercise at home but I signed and paid for boot camp 5 days a week at 7 am and I love it and feel better all day long. ( boy that was a run on sentence:-)
Gail

Be patient and keep at it. I began my journey over 6 weeks ago and for the first 4 weeks I still had no energy. I hired a personal trainer because I am just not able to hold myself accountable either. I was so sore and lethargic and unmotivated and crabby and then all of a sudden like 2 weeks ago, I started feeling better and could definitely notice a change in how my body feels. I never thought it would get better and now that it has it is a marvelous feeling. No more going to bed at 8:30 from being exhausted. Now I'm up past 10:00 every night because I have the energy to do so.

I really needed to read that today!! I have been so exhausted since starting to work out regularly about 3 weeks ago (with a trainer who is kicking my butt, LOL) that when I get home from the gym, I have nothing left in me. Not even energy to cook or clean the dishes if DH is so kind as to cook for us. I'm hoping the energy boost will kick in soon. I debated on taking a day off from my workouts today, but rather than doing that, I think I'm going to go in and hit the treadmill for a mild workout and not push myself the way I have been, but just get in some activity.

I was diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue back in 2000, so I COMPLETELY know how you feel! Telling someone with CF to just get up and do it is like telling someone with depression to just cheer up! :grumble: When the doctor told me that one way I could get more energy was to exercise for an hour a day, I thought he was insane. Exercise?? For 60 mins??? I was so tired I couldn't even take a shower, more or less exercise. Back when it was that bad, I just coped until it got better. CF runs in "bouts" and I just had people call me to wake me up for work and class when needed to get through.

But, currently, I have had a few bouts of CF off and on, nothing as bad as it was back then, but I was definitely feeling it. I'm sad to say it did force me to stop exercising in the last year, but I have recently decided to tackle it through nutrition because just the thought of physical activity is exhausting. I have started to "eat clean," by taking out all of the sugar and refined foods from my diet. I have to say, the first week was rough. I would wake up with more energy, but I would literally hit a wall of exhaustion at some point during the day. But, I noticed that as the week went on, that wall came later and later in the day. The second day was 2 pm, the day after that was 6 pm, etc. So now, I actually have energy into the night. I cleaned my house when I came home from work yesterday, which is unbelievable for me! I would have never had the energy for that before I changed my eating. I used to just come home from work and it was all I could do to sit on the couch and read. It took so much energy that occasionally I would lay my book down and nap, then wake up and read some more, then feel tired again and go to bed. I just knew that was not the way a 30 year old should live, so I decided that maybe it was the fuel I was putting in my body that was causing the engine to misfire!:laugh:

I would recommend really looking at nutrition. It is the only thing that helped me. Many places, including doctors offices, have nutritionists that may be able to help. I didn't see one, I just read the book by Tosca Reno about clean eating. While I didn't agree with everything in the book, the concept is simple, get the man-made junk out of your diet. Also a philosophy reinforced by the book called The Sugar Blues. Once you find out what sugar, in any form, does to your body it is SO MUCH easier to give it up!

So, I know how it feels to be too tired to get up from a nap to go to bed, but hang in there. Best of luck!

Thanks so much for this. This is how I feel. It's not just that I feel tired. I can't function after I get home from work. And DH has an endless supply of energy so he does not understand. About 10 yrs ago I had two different dr.'s tell me I had Chronic Fatigue. But I've kind of been in denial because they diagnose it with process of elimination. They just rule out everything else and then tell you that's what it is. It's like the phantom illness that people label you when they don't know what else it is. I've read Tosca's book too. And it does make sense. I tried eating that way for about a month, I did feel a little better. But I fell back into the quick/easy way of eating. Plus DH complains about the price of organic and is very picky about what I cook. I need to do it for me though, to improve my quality of life.

I know what you mean about diagnosis. I was only 19 when I started to go to the doctor because I couldn't make it through the day without a nap. I had 3 different doctors tell me I was depressed. I kept telling them that I wasn't. My grandmother had depression so I knew EXACTLY what it looked like. It wasn't that I didn't WANT to go out with my friends, it was that I didn't have the energy to go out with them!

So, I kept on just taking naps for about 4 months, then I moved and it became REALLY bad. It got to the point that I wouldn't even hear my alarms, no matter how many I set. The only thing that would wake me up was the phone ringing (still the only sure fire way to wake me up! :laugh: ) At that point, I had my mom call me in the morning to wake me up for my 8:00 class, I would come home and nap, then have her call to wake me up for my 11:00 class, then go home and nap then have her call to wake me up for my 1:00 class, etc etc. Finally a doctor told me that I had CF. I was SO relieved not to be told I was depressed again! It made sense. But, to this day, when I fill out a physical history form I will put the diagnosis of CF on the form and doctors still don't believe it. You are right, it is definitely a "phantom illness" that doctors think is just a catch all that other doctors couldn't diagnosis right. It's SO frustrating.

And I totally understand about organic being super expensive. I found that I save a lot of money by shopping the bulk food isle at my local Whole Foods. It is more expensive to by a whole package of amaranth flour than it is to just by the 2 cups you need for the recipe. Plus, the other thing that I found is that while the food is expensive, a lot of the recipes call for the same ingredients. So, once you stock your kitchen, it isn't so bad. It's just the initial bill that is a bit scary.

And, ultimately, your energy is priceless. Your DH might complain about the cost of the food, but I'm sure he would rather have a wife that matched that endless energy level of his so that you can enjoy going out and doing things as a couple. Maybe you could make a deal with him. Try to eat clean and as organic as possible (not EVERYTHING has to be, just the stuff most affected by chemicals) for a period of time, like 5 or 6 months. If you don't notice a change by then, tell him that you will go back to the old way of eating and try a different avenue. Give it enough time that you will be able to see a noticeable change, your body will need time to detox all that stuff out. Then, it's a win/win. Either it works and you have energy and he loves it, or you say "you were right" and try to find something else that might be the cause, like upping the thyroid meds or something. It's worth a shot.

Well, that's my two cents anyway. Good luck!:flowerforyou:

I was diagnosed with a hypothyroid 8 years ago. even with my medication being at the correct level I still sleep more than 8 hours, and I am always cold. Several years ago a doctor told me it was better for my health to get my sleep than to short change my sleep for exercise. I do better when I exercise after work than before.

I have also found that when I exercise, I sleep more soundly, which means I need less sleep. I still sleep for 8-9 hours, if I over sleep, the next night my sleep sucks. Find out how much sleep your body needs.

My other suggestion is to limit the amount of "sugar" you have. When you eat sugar your insullin levels rises. The high insulin levels in your blood stream will make you tired. (sugar crash.) You might find a better explination to this somewhere online

All women should be on a multivitamin that has iron. During the TOM we lose blood, in the blood is iron. We need to be replacing the iron that is lost, this is particularly important if you have a heavy TOM.


Hope this helps.

I have had problems with energy levels too. I started taking One A Day Women's Active Metabolism multivitamin/ multimineral supplements. They help sooooo much. They have B12 in them. I love them. After I take them my attitude is great, and I have lots of energy. I asked my doctor about them, and she said they were fine.

Hello everyone!

I am having so much difficulty working out. I cannot get motivated to do so. In the past it was not a problem but now forget it. I know in order to meet my goals I need to include some form of exercise. Why can't i just get up in the morning and do it?

I do know that I have been having problems sleeping at night and this may or may not be the problem.
I generally fall asleep around 11:30pm - 1:30am and then back up at 05:30 am to be into work at 07:00am.

After work 05:00pm I am so tired to even consider working out in the afternoon. I just want to go home and for no one to talk to me for at lease a couple of hours.

Please advise! I need to get back into shape and it's much harder now than in the past.

Thanks!

My wife and I had the same motivation issues that you are experiencing. We knew that we were too tired to exercise, but is was the not being active/exercising that was keeping us tired all the time. So we set very little goals for ourselves and took it from there. At first, we just agreed to go to the gym for 20-30 mins. max just to get started. We did that for about 2 weeks and then once we felt comfortable with that, we kept bumping it up. After about 3 months now, it's become a habit and we go 5 nights a week for about 1 hour total each night. Our energy levels are now up and we both actually look forward to going to workout or just exercising in general. So my advice is to consider smaller goals for yourself that you know you will be able to achieve. And then from there you will be surprised how little it will take to bump it up in very comfortable increments.

God luck. Hawkeye

I have thyroid problems too. I'm on medication for it, and my doctor says my levels are right where they need to be, but I still have days (like today) where I just want to sleep all day. In fact I think I'll go nap now...