Hi, nice to meet you. I have fibromyalgia and other stuff that causes pain and fatigue.
We all have different things here but we're all doing our best.
Where are you from? I'm in the uk, in Essex.

I've got a walking thread called just walking, quite a few people are commenting and sharing photos of their walks. It's in the fitness section if you are interested.
Look forward to chatting x

Hope you get some answers about your knee. I so understand the shoulder pain caused by the crutches, I try not to use my sticks unless I really need them. I find any bit of tension goes straight to my shoulders and fills them with knots.
Don't worry about not exercising, Weight loss is entirely down to calories. There are a couple of people in the success stories section who are wheelchair bound and have lost huge amounts of weight. Very inspiring

Honey relax, I have weeks where I'm bedridden or in a wheelchair and I'm still losing. I've put the scales away as I get too fixated, but I'm monitoring my measurements and clothes fit. I can't wear my favourite jeans without a belt and pretty soon I'll have to chuck them for a size down. I'm in a size down knickers as my bigger set were falling down

The way the medical community points the finger at us, blaming us for being overweight, telling us that if we directed, and exercised, all of our problems would be fixed! Many, like me, aren't able to exercise without terrible pain, but they don't want to hear that! They just want to blame us, instead of looking at their advice that's led to the problems!

Approximately thirty years ago our government really began to push the low fat diet. When they did, they replaced the fat with sugar, to keep food tasting good enough to eat. Well, can you see the diabetes, and obesity epidemic we are facing here in the U.S. and in other countries too? It's because of the sugar they added to our diets! How many of us have tried to eat low fat diets, and just starve the whole time (raising my hand here!)? This hungries comes from the continued onslaught of sugar! It causes an insulin reaction after eating, then the blood sugar drops from the insulin spike, and within an hour or two, we are hungry again, so we eat more sugar.....becomes a vicious cycle. People say they are afraid of fat, but imo we should be very afraid of sugar! Look at the carbohydrate counts on the packages of food you eat! For those that don't know, carbs are a form of sugar, and they can affect your body just like regular sugar! Know what you're putting in your body and how it affects you!

Eating fat is what the body needs to be healthy! Last year our U.S. government released the results of the Womens Health Initiative that was an research study done over a ten year period that showed that a low fat diet did nothing to reduce the incidence of heart disease! Eating a higher fat diet leads to the best satiety (you don't get hunger very often when eating it!) I've ever experienced! This leads to a natural reduction of the amount of food we eat, and leads to weight loss, without exercise (that we can't do, right?)!! Plus the decrease in sugar consumption can lead to wonderful pain relief! I'm in another group here, and there are a bunch of us that have seen drastic reduction in pain levels! There are far too many of us for it to be disputed and we want others to know about it too!!

Best of luck!

Yeah I try and avoid it. I much prefer fresh, natural foods

i just found this group, glad that i did. I have MCTD, a mix of symptoms for RA, lupus and scaladerma. It comes with pain, fatigue and is a auto immune disease . Every time they test my RA factor gets higher. Right now I am on minimal meds (thankfully) but i do get a lot of inflammation due to this . I just recently figured out that i am also diabetic. Ugh. I am eliminating high fructose corn syrup from our home. there is now a couple of ketchups that have not got it . Hunts and a new "simply Hienz" . it is so hard to eliminate, my husband has fatty liver disease and i would not be supersized if i did also. but we are working on it.
Finding foods with out it , and that are low sodium or sodium free , turns a normal shopping trip into a nightmare.

Another EDS girl here, I actually know a fair few people with it! It can be hard to do exercise when you can't do high impact and just staying alive requires tremendous amounts of energy! Sometimes I dream about floating in jelly, because then I could rest completely with no pressure... Ah bliss!