Welcome to The Tonic, a light-hearted, heavily resourced newsletter for folks interested in learning about long COVID, ME/CFS, and other chronic illnesses.
Figuring out fasting when taking medications/supplements 4x/day with some needing to be fasting and others needing to be taken with food is much like a logic question on the GRE. I found eating 10am-6pm works best for me. I honestly can’t remember if I’ve been doing it 1 or 2 years now and I’m not sure if it has made a difference. It’s really hard to tell when I keep changing other interventions, but I’m also too sick to pace interventions which could possibly help me one at a time with a reasonable amount of time in between them. Despite my efforts in eating clean & adhering to my fasting schedule, my cholesterol soared (normal pre-covid) and I can’t lose the post covid weight (likely inflammation). I wish there was a more obvious sign that this helps me, but I stick with it anyway.
The struggle is real re: medications/supplements and how to time them all. And apparently autophagy for the brain is most beneficial during overnight hours, so stopping at 6pm is a good idea. I just heard today that stopping your eating 4-6 hours before bed will ensure that you’re maximizing autophagy of glial cells and neurons. I say if you are handling 10-6 okay, I’d stick with it even if you don’t feel particularly different. It’s still benefiting you behind the scenes.
Gosh, I have such a turbulent relationship with food and body shape and all the reasons to fast or diet or restrict food. Yeesh. I did juice fasting years ago when it was popular and relevant. Two things I noted. 1, my teeth felt awful NOT chewing regularly. 2, by somewhere around day 2 I was always hit with an extraordinary sense of peace and stillness in my gut, like it could finally rest. Bottom line, I don't think I really have the right personality/mental state/zodiac sign or whatever it takes to say no to my body when it is hungry or tired or cranky. So instead I'm slowly learning to listen to it and follow those cues.
I support your take on this; the last sentence especially. I read a book once called Intuitive Eating that seems to align with what you’re saying. It’s really all about listening to what your body is asking for.
Your juice fasts reminded me that for a few years, I drank Isagenix meal replacement shakes for breakfast and sometimes for lunch too. And I think in hindsight that probably messed up gut biome and potentially laid the tracks for either the Long COVID I have, the gut dysbiosis I have since getting COVID, or both. I should have just eaten real food. <sigh>
They’re incredible insights! I’ve come to love the idea of giving the gut a rest and how xx important this is to us and how we feel as well as continued and improved health. Yes to the listening and eating intuitively. Big wins of mine too. My body tells me everything I need to know.
I'm also a pretty consistent (shocking!) intermittent faster, usually 16:8-ish, but occasionally 20:4. I rarely eat lunch because I wasn't awake long enough in the past; why try to cram three meals a day in a smaller window of time when two meals and a snack serve just as well? A friend of mine once pointed out we don't need to eat as much as we are invited/pressured to by society, and I have come to agree.
The one thing I make sure to do is nourish myself before going out of the house for a long period of time. Having a panic attack at a Denny's right before New Year's because I wasn't thinking straight drove that home for me. Plus, I'm less likely to want to rip my husband's head off in public if I fill up my tank first.
PS - sister vegetarian here. Maybe that helped my dodge the Covid bullet for two years before I finally got it? Who knows at this point??
I wholeheartedly agree with your eat-before-you-go approach. My husband will sometimes say to me “we’re going out to eat, why are you eating that?” And I’m like, “we’re driving for an hour and then it’ll easily be another 30 minutes after we sit down before any food lands on the table.” I reserve the right to meet my needs, especially when his sense of time is often warped 🤭
I’m so glad you saw the Dear Diagnosis episode. It was a doozy of vulnerability and truth. I wish I had known you back then to include you in that series, you would’ve had a lot to contribute! Thank you for sharing.💛
I lived for years with my body forcing me into 72 hour periods of food and water fasting during migraine attacks (2018-2022) - pain being agonising and the symptoms severe. (As a side note, I really hope medically we might start asking the question “how much pain does someone have to be in to not be able to eat food or drink water for this long over telling them they must have a low pain threshold - something I got told again recently🤯). Since then I’ve moved into fasting until lunchtime (or whenever I’m hungry) naturally. My body has been wanting to for years (since adopting an anti-inflammatory way of eating) but I had this conditioning that breakfast is the most important meal of the day and that “I should eat before I go to work”. The point you make of “listen to your body” cannot be over emphasised enough. This is so important when it comes to making big dietary changes and allowing our body to guide us instead of what we think we want or think we should do.
There is so much conditioning around food! And the breakfast thing is a big one, along with “eat ALL the fiber.” I am having such trouble digesting the huge amounts of fiber I’ve been eating these last few years.
Thank you for sharing about the forced fasts associated with your migraine attacks. I’m really sorry. I can empathize to a degree; I had 20-25 migraine days a month for eight years. Fortunately for me, I don’t get nausea and vomiting with mine (but visual and vestibular issues as well as cognitive processing issues - like one time when I stopped at a green light 🤦🏼♀️). So generally food was helpful to me during my migraines, but I know it could easily have been worse. I’m glad you’ve found an eating rhythm that works for you nowadays.
Ooofff cognitive issues I’m connecting with much more nowadays. There were 2 occasions I couldn’t remember which side of the road I was supposed to drive on (I’ve only ever driven in the uk). The other month I was asked a question and the response I gave was gobbledy gook! I’ve also noticed I appear clumsy. Before I will have been labelled as clumsy. But now I realise it’s a symptom. Along with so many others. Food is now definitely helpful but I notice I need and crave much more carb based food around this time - which also goes against what we’ve been told. Listening to my body has been the biggest pay off though and I will never live to regret giving my body permission to lead the way.
Oh my, this resonates so much with me. I remember during the height of my chronic migraines the feeling that my left arm was not really part of my body, almost like a reverse phantom limb syndrome or something. My headache specialist was worried and sent me for an MRI, but of course, it uncovered nothing. I also had trouble sometimes with my gait and having to consciously think about which foot comes next. Such worrisome symptoms. I took so many NSAIDs and triptans during those years that I also worry about the long term effects.
That must’ve been pretty terrifying. I’ve occasionally thought about the packets and packets of painkillers I’ve taken in a 20 year period, eating them like they were sweets. Eating them even long after they stopped working in their entirety (out of desperation). Then moved onto thinking it was a devastating blessing when I found out about medication overuse and completely stopped the Triptans (they stopped working quite quickly after starting them too). The more I heal, the healthier I get, I don’t even consider it anymore. It’s like the ms/strokes thing. Let’s ask ourselves what we can do to reduce the risk of the long term effects. I reckon a lot of the big (long term) practices we are doing will help with this.
I read a book some years ago called Heal Your Headache and the writer (a doctor) talked about the rebound headaches you get when you take headache meds too frequently. I stopped cold turkey then too. Now that I get infrequent migraines, I only take the triptans when I can’t sleep off the headache and it’s not going away with just an NSAID alone.
I have questions! How do you like it? Has it made any difference with your symptoms? Also, is your cheat day just eating whenever or is it also an eat whatever you want day?
I basically was already doing it aside from one egg for breakfast. On cheat day I eat whenever and whatever I want. They say it takes up to 10 weeks, but I think it has seen some minor improvement
Figuring out fasting when taking medications/supplements 4x/day with some needing to be fasting and others needing to be taken with food is much like a logic question on the GRE. I found eating 10am-6pm works best for me. I honestly can’t remember if I’ve been doing it 1 or 2 years now and I’m not sure if it has made a difference. It’s really hard to tell when I keep changing other interventions, but I’m also too sick to pace interventions which could possibly help me one at a time with a reasonable amount of time in between them. Despite my efforts in eating clean & adhering to my fasting schedule, my cholesterol soared (normal pre-covid) and I can’t lose the post covid weight (likely inflammation). I wish there was a more obvious sign that this helps me, but I stick with it anyway.
The struggle is real re: medications/supplements and how to time them all. And apparently autophagy for the brain is most beneficial during overnight hours, so stopping at 6pm is a good idea. I just heard today that stopping your eating 4-6 hours before bed will ensure that you’re maximizing autophagy of glial cells and neurons. I say if you are handling 10-6 okay, I’d stick with it even if you don’t feel particularly different. It’s still benefiting you behind the scenes.
Gosh, I have such a turbulent relationship with food and body shape and all the reasons to fast or diet or restrict food. Yeesh. I did juice fasting years ago when it was popular and relevant. Two things I noted. 1, my teeth felt awful NOT chewing regularly. 2, by somewhere around day 2 I was always hit with an extraordinary sense of peace and stillness in my gut, like it could finally rest. Bottom line, I don't think I really have the right personality/mental state/zodiac sign or whatever it takes to say no to my body when it is hungry or tired or cranky. So instead I'm slowly learning to listen to it and follow those cues.
I support your take on this; the last sentence especially. I read a book once called Intuitive Eating that seems to align with what you’re saying. It’s really all about listening to what your body is asking for.
Your juice fasts reminded me that for a few years, I drank Isagenix meal replacement shakes for breakfast and sometimes for lunch too. And I think in hindsight that probably messed up gut biome and potentially laid the tracks for either the Long COVID I have, the gut dysbiosis I have since getting COVID, or both. I should have just eaten real food. <sigh>
They’re incredible insights! I’ve come to love the idea of giving the gut a rest and how xx important this is to us and how we feel as well as continued and improved health. Yes to the listening and eating intuitively. Big wins of mine too. My body tells me everything I need to know.
I'm also a pretty consistent (shocking!) intermittent faster, usually 16:8-ish, but occasionally 20:4. I rarely eat lunch because I wasn't awake long enough in the past; why try to cram three meals a day in a smaller window of time when two meals and a snack serve just as well? A friend of mine once pointed out we don't need to eat as much as we are invited/pressured to by society, and I have come to agree.
The one thing I make sure to do is nourish myself before going out of the house for a long period of time. Having a panic attack at a Denny's right before New Year's because I wasn't thinking straight drove that home for me. Plus, I'm less likely to want to rip my husband's head off in public if I fill up my tank first.
PS - sister vegetarian here. Maybe that helped my dodge the Covid bullet for two years before I finally got it? Who knows at this point??
I wholeheartedly agree with your eat-before-you-go approach. My husband will sometimes say to me “we’re going out to eat, why are you eating that?” And I’m like, “we’re driving for an hour and then it’ll easily be another 30 minutes after we sit down before any food lands on the table.” I reserve the right to meet my needs, especially when his sense of time is often warped 🤭
I’m so glad you saw the Dear Diagnosis episode. It was a doozy of vulnerability and truth. I wish I had known you back then to include you in that series, you would’ve had a lot to contribute! Thank you for sharing.💛
It was so, so good! I loved the diversity of people and of illnesses, as well as of the letters they chose to write to said illness. Great work!
I lived for years with my body forcing me into 72 hour periods of food and water fasting during migraine attacks (2018-2022) - pain being agonising and the symptoms severe. (As a side note, I really hope medically we might start asking the question “how much pain does someone have to be in to not be able to eat food or drink water for this long over telling them they must have a low pain threshold - something I got told again recently🤯). Since then I’ve moved into fasting until lunchtime (or whenever I’m hungry) naturally. My body has been wanting to for years (since adopting an anti-inflammatory way of eating) but I had this conditioning that breakfast is the most important meal of the day and that “I should eat before I go to work”. The point you make of “listen to your body” cannot be over emphasised enough. This is so important when it comes to making big dietary changes and allowing our body to guide us instead of what we think we want or think we should do.
There is so much conditioning around food! And the breakfast thing is a big one, along with “eat ALL the fiber.” I am having such trouble digesting the huge amounts of fiber I’ve been eating these last few years.
Thank you for sharing about the forced fasts associated with your migraine attacks. I’m really sorry. I can empathize to a degree; I had 20-25 migraine days a month for eight years. Fortunately for me, I don’t get nausea and vomiting with mine (but visual and vestibular issues as well as cognitive processing issues - like one time when I stopped at a green light 🤦🏼♀️). So generally food was helpful to me during my migraines, but I know it could easily have been worse. I’m glad you’ve found an eating rhythm that works for you nowadays.
Ooofff cognitive issues I’m connecting with much more nowadays. There were 2 occasions I couldn’t remember which side of the road I was supposed to drive on (I’ve only ever driven in the uk). The other month I was asked a question and the response I gave was gobbledy gook! I’ve also noticed I appear clumsy. Before I will have been labelled as clumsy. But now I realise it’s a symptom. Along with so many others. Food is now definitely helpful but I notice I need and crave much more carb based food around this time - which also goes against what we’ve been told. Listening to my body has been the biggest pay off though and I will never live to regret giving my body permission to lead the way.
Oh my, this resonates so much with me. I remember during the height of my chronic migraines the feeling that my left arm was not really part of my body, almost like a reverse phantom limb syndrome or something. My headache specialist was worried and sent me for an MRI, but of course, it uncovered nothing. I also had trouble sometimes with my gait and having to consciously think about which foot comes next. Such worrisome symptoms. I took so many NSAIDs and triptans during those years that I also worry about the long term effects.
That must’ve been pretty terrifying. I’ve occasionally thought about the packets and packets of painkillers I’ve taken in a 20 year period, eating them like they were sweets. Eating them even long after they stopped working in their entirety (out of desperation). Then moved onto thinking it was a devastating blessing when I found out about medication overuse and completely stopped the Triptans (they stopped working quite quickly after starting them too). The more I heal, the healthier I get, I don’t even consider it anymore. It’s like the ms/strokes thing. Let’s ask ourselves what we can do to reduce the risk of the long term effects. I reckon a lot of the big (long term) practices we are doing will help with this.
I read a book some years ago called Heal Your Headache and the writer (a doctor) talked about the rebound headaches you get when you take headache meds too frequently. I stopped cold turkey then too. Now that I get infrequent migraines, I only take the triptans when I can’t sleep off the headache and it’s not going away with just an NSAID alone.
Yaaas!!!! I've been on a 16:8 since December, with 1 cheat day.
I have questions! How do you like it? Has it made any difference with your symptoms? Also, is your cheat day just eating whenever or is it also an eat whatever you want day?
I basically was already doing it aside from one egg for breakfast. On cheat day I eat whenever and whatever I want. They say it takes up to 10 weeks, but I think it has seen some minor improvement
Interesting! And do you have any COVID-related gut issues or are you doing it to try to alleviate non-gut LC symptoms?