There has been such an avalanche of allergies, reactions to foods plus more and more publicity on the relation between food, a “healthy gut”, our “gut feelings” and the link to our minds but also to the depth of our cells throughout our body

My first step towards my health was giving in to stopping work – basically I was just too ill to even try and continue. So I ditched the guilt and took on acceptance. I think acceptance is also an important step with an illness rather than fighting. However, that is not giving up on getting better, it is learning to live with the way you are second by second with hope that it will improve. Plus on course in building my platform for health for me away from ME.

My next step from 2nd January was to stop eating any processed foods and consumption of sugar. My sugar consumption was not in adding a spoonful to porridge, tea or coffee (which I do not drink anyway), but to eradicate sugar from my life unless it is part of a fruit or added in the form of honey to a recipe, but to absolutely avoid consumption of sugar or see if in a recipe it can be excluded totally or another flavour added in to replace it. I did this with home made flapjacks made of gluten free oats, banana instead of sugar, nuts, seeds, dried fruits (which themselves have natural sugars which are quite concentrated), some grass fed butter and a spoonful of honey. I will work towards a recipe without the honey / dried fruits. I then froze the delicious results and in January enjoyed one as a small occasional treat.

For me giving up sugar, has meant no chocolate, no squash – that was a multi-drink a day staple, no processed foods amongst other things, but also cutting down on the amount of fruit, plus of course no fruit juice!

Actually I did not find this difficult to do. I also gave myself a day off on my birthday, but was amazed then at how ridiculously sweet the cake tasted. I do not think I will lead a sugar free life, but certainly will aim for 99% no sugar and 90%-95% no processed or overall bad foods / calories.

I think being able to look after my poor ME attacked body in January, letting go of work, sleeping and resting and just getting used to being at home and switching off was a good stage one.

I have loads to write but it is working out where to start. I will give more history on myself in a bit but to let you know how I got here.

I became seriously ill with ME – myalgia encephalomyelitis in 2006. However, I think I have had under-currents of ME for many many years. But 2006 was the year when it revealed itself in all its ugliness, robbing me of my health, much of my life and affecting my family and friends plus of course my work.

Despite a short fight I had to give in and stop work as I became too ill to even walk to my car parked close by to the office in Reading. I had no idea what was happening to me, it was frightening. However, here I am all these years later, definitely older, with more knowledge of ME, more acceptance but at a loss on what to do next.

During my journey with ME I have read and read, tried various approaches in hope of a “cure” but I have come to accept that without knowing what ME really is, it is currently difficult to have a cure. However, in my web of discovery I have read more and more about food, the change in our environment, health, processed foods and all the demons that come with that.

Finally I have decided that the best thing that I can do for myself is to give my body a healthy platform which gives it the best possible chance of improving. The platform to be multi faceted whereby I approach it via food and nutrition, a healthy mind and looking after my physical body to my utmost.

FOOD AND NUTRITION
Firstly with food I am taking the course of an isolation eating regime, healing the gut, reintroduction of food groups and then ending up on Paleo eating regime for 90% of the time. However, I am and will be going into great depth by looking at ME to see what ME needs – as many illnesses do seem to respond to food regimes. Trying to identify my metabolic type and basically anything that affects my food needs as an individual. I do not believe that one size fits all and therefore want to look after my body accordingly.

SUPPLEMENTS
Part of this will be looking at supplements – again that seem pertinent to my body but also to ME.

HEALTHY MIND
This is all a journey of discovery, so at present Mindfulness is part of my healthy mind approach which hopefully in turn will help my body and also my digestion. I am at the start of the healthy mind journey so this will develop although I have been practicing mindfulness for over a year but now with a more serious discipline.

As I learn more about the existence of the mind body connection, it will be interesting to see what this reveals. I also want to ensure my mind remains as healthy as possible, even if not working, even if sleeping a huge amount of time. There are so many elements of living in keeping things like our mind going that we just take for granted so I will check all of this out further.

PHYSICAL BODY
Elements such as sleep, movement (those with ME will appreciate that), the air I breathe, my environment, family, friends, what I do, how I do it. For me at present this is basic items. I am applying for a Blue Badge to help with parking as I can only walk a few steps before the ME yells at me to stop. I have a wheelchair and mobility scooter but cannot lift them out of my current car. So I am looking at another vehicle … but step by step – bit crazy to use that phrase as an ME sufferer.

Again there are so many elements as part of this overall process. But I am hoping that by gently tackling the above elements slowly and surely but at the same time that I will make progress. The isolation eating regime is underway and I will update on that separately.

So at the very least a start and I hope to chart my progress via this blog.