I am reading a book about anti-inflamatory diet and they mention periodic fast as one of the really good ways to keep the inflammation away. I do a lot of other things to keep a anti-inflamatory diet but not this because I don’t feel I am ready to starve during my illness. I need all the energy I can get. Is there anyone in here who has succeded doing periodic fast on Pred and PMR?
In Sweden periodic fast is fashion right now in serveral forms like 5:2, 16:8 and so on. I tried it before my PMR started, but now I can not come up with motivation enough to do it.
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Pirnilla
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It sounds great, but if you are in tip top condition with a normally functioning metabolism. Even then, it isn’t for everybody as we all have our own body type. I’d say if you don’t feel great on it, it’ll be stressing your body, so don’t continue because physiological stress is probably not ideal for PMR/GCA, but that’s just my opinion. My approach is to try to give the body the best nurturing and not beat it with a stick, because it is the body that has gone into a distressed state for some reason and not some rogue inflammation that had taken up residence as needs to be smoked out. However, some may say that fasting gives the body time out.
This is exactly what I would say by instinct, that my body needs the best of vegetables and other great things but my mind sais that casting is to tough right now, even if it is great in handeling inflamation. Or maybe it is just me not wanting to be off good (but nurturous) food.
I have been recently diagnosed (6 or so weeks ago) with PMR-GCA. I'm on 20mg prednisone. I am currently on a modified anti-inflammatory diet (no grains, legumes, dairy) after having done an extensive elimination diet (completed before I was diagnosed). I follow a periodic fasting diet. There are many different ways to do this. The version I follow is to fast for 14-18 hours several days per week. It works well for me as I don't feel deprived in any way. An example of the pattern is to finish my dinner by 6:30pm and wait to eat breakfast/brunch until 10:30am. When I wake up, I drink 2 large glasses of water (also recommended) which leaves me feeling full enough that I don't want food for a while. I honestly don't know what kind of difference this is making as the pred keeps the pain at bay. I do know that intermittent fasting is highly recommended by those who promote natural approaches to managing autoimmunity. Since it doesn't create any problems for me, I've added it to my treatment protocols. Hope this helps!
Periodic fasting does not mean starving. I started periodic fasting originally with the 5:2 diet where on 2 non-consecutive days a week you are restricted to 500calories if you are a woman. That is far from starving providing you choose your food correctly. Now I intermittently fast from dinner at night at about 8pm to lunch next day at about 1.30pm. I do, however, have 3 cups of tea with milk before even getting out of bed! I find it helps me maintain my weight despite being on pred. Whether it has anything to do with having relatively few PMR problems I don't really know - but I am never hungry..
But if you haven't the motivation, you don't have the motivation. You have to WANT to do any form of dietary restriction and trying to force the issue isn't a good move with PMR.
Yes, that’s totally what I mean. I wish I was motivated to do it, but I am not. Make it’ll come later, I have been pain free for like 10 days now and been working too much the whole autumn. I think I just need some time to settle to take the next step towards self care like that.
If you don't feel you have the motivation to do , and you need to de-stress and relax starting any new diet is a bad idea ( unless a medical necessity).
You won't get to find out if it of real benefit to you if you are already feeling run down or unrelaxed and you may end up giving up the idea of it as ineffective for the wrong reasons .
Diets and diet changes are best made when your body and mind are prepared for it, you have had 10 pain free days, enjoy a few more weeks of that and allow your energy to build up with what sounds like less inflammation.
As PMR Pro says , fasting diets are not starving , but you can at the moment choose to have a couple of days a week when you eat vegetarian, or homemade soups and salads , poached fish or chicken steamed vegetables, which are filling without the calories, clean eating .
This plus an increase in your vitamin and mineral uptake will make you more used to lighter calorie meals so when you do feel ready to try a fasting diet it will be easier to do.
Take care and just enjoy some relaxing low pain days.
I already do a kind of anti-inflammatory diet with loads of vegetables, good proteins and allmosa none of sugar and carbs. I have been eating like this since a first startsignal taking Pred a year ago and like it a lot!
Maybe I will try 5:2 eventually but I can’t find that someone in here has answered my question, telling me that it actually helps with pain or faster tapering.
That isn't the main reason for us mentioning 5:2 on the forum - it is a good way of adjusting portion sizes to lose weight and in conjuction with low carb helps to avoid the pred-associated weight gain and pred-induced diabetes.
Does it help inflammation? I wouldn't think so since I intermittent fast on a permanent basis and still have PMR symptoms when it decides to flare!
In one of the books I recently read about anti-inflamatory strategies, they mentioned intermittent fasting as one of them, actually. That’s why I brought it up here to see if it actually helps when you already got your PMR. Maybe it’s more efficient in preventing diseases like this.
Don't know - except I do know there is a lot of guff on tinterwebs about management strategies for inflammation. Most of which are probably selling supplements to go with the book and the cookbook and everything else...
There is a single study that found that a strict vegan diet reduced joint pain in RA for 50% of patients but any reintroduction of even tiny amounts of animal protein brought the joint pain back. Most gave up because it was too extreme a diet. That was a few years ago so would be far easier now with vegan having become a lifestyle choice and food manufacturers having jumped on that bandwagon. But that was RA and, as I say, it only worked for half. It may be worth trying - my granddaughter went vegan and her asthma is normal instead of life-threatening. But it hasn't gone altogether.
Me neither - apart from anything else a lot of the vegan stuff is based on wheat and I have a wheat allergy! But what concerns me about vegan stuff is that so much now is highly processed - and, dare I say, chemicals? I eat loads of vegetables and salads and next to no processed carbs (plain chocolate anyone?) but I do like meat, fish and cheese. But we rarely eat more than 4oz meat a day, either of us. Makes for cheap eating out - doggie bags mean 2 meals for the price of one or we share with an extra salad.
Exactly. I combine my eagerness to eat in an anti-inflamtory way with an environmental friendly goal which means that processed vegan products is a no-no in the later sense. I rather eat a smaller amount of good meat or fish than a veggie-Burger that is highly processed.
There was a program on TV recently about Vegan diets. It seems you need quite a lot of supplements to keep healthy such as B12. I had someone who worked for me who was vegan, she was always ill!
I feel a bit like you about intermittent fasting - I kind of want to do it, but can't summon up the motivation or discipline to do so. In all the information I've gathered on the subject it does seem that it's considered a 'good thing' at least to have a fairly large gap between meals from one day to the next, so I do try to eat breakfast at 8 am, lunch when convenient and finish dinner before 6 pm - no snacks later on. If I go out for dinner with friends I forget about it, but I eat nearly all meals at home. It's a preparation of sorts for the day when I feel I can start a truly demanding régime of intermittent fasting... if that day ever comes.
And Pirnilla, the next diat will be the Pioppi one, as far as I know a successor of the Atwood diat in a Mediterranean coat. It may sound a bit soft but would it not be a good idea to be very kind to your body and only give it the best food you can think of, but in small portions. Otherwise it is all so confusing.
I personally would not fast. I need all the strength I can get and also have gallstones, if you fast with gallbladder problems you will be in a whole lot of pain.
Except with diabetes type 2 when you may encounter the dawn phenomena when upon rising your blood sugar will soar - until you eat! Which stops the blood sugar rise in its tracks - and then you can begin to fast!
the 5-2 diet does not really involve fasting as fasting really means 'no food' but limiting eating hours has apparently also seen good results.
But, whether it helps with inflammation - well you would need to go off pred to test whether fasting works wouldn't you?
That's the problem of course, that even if I would manage to do it I wouldn't know if it really helps as my symtoms now is masked by Pred.
And in the book I read about thing that helps with inflammation, this is a popular topic in Sweden right now, they say that you might prevent inflamatory diseases with the right diet and so on but you can not make a illness like PMR go away with it.
But if it helps me to taper lower or be more crisp during my illness I am willing to try a lot. Waiting for inspiration to do the fast though.
Fasting as "no food" is just medically speaking. Fasting may vary: "Fasting is the willing abstinence or reduction from some or all food, drink, or both, for a period of time. An absolute fast or dry fasting is normally defined as abstinence from all food and liquid for a defined period. Water fasting refers to abstinence from all food and drink except water, but black coffee and tea may be consumed. Other fasts may be partially restrictive, limiting only particular foods or substances, or be intermittent."
And no, you wouldn't have to go off pred altogether to test if fasting works. If it worked then you would find reducing the dose easier.
Not sure about fasting like that. However I am on a gluten free program and as organic I can go. It’s the glutens that cause the inflammation. Just saying 😖
I saw a dietitian recently and she recommended “intermittent fasting “ She divided the day into 3 x 8 hour periods . You sleep for 8 hours, for the next 8 you fit in your meals then for the last 8 you eat nothing. It’s easy once you get your head around the kitchen being off limits after about 4 pm. Have to say it’s usually 6 hrs for me but once I got used to it, I found I was sleeping better and I’m losing some weight too.
Ah yes, she said it can be moved around to suit and of course, use the 80:20 rule as there’ll be social occasions etc. But before I started it, I had a tendency to skip lunch and then eat loads at about 8pm. Then fall asleep in frog the telly, hauling myself to bet after 12.
I have lunch at about 1.30pm and dinner at 7.45pm (husband seems to like to stick to the time we ate in the UK, NHS lunchtime, and after working with a beer when he got home). Then that fits with Lodotra within 3 hours of dinner before bed...
I fast regularly for up to 20 hours a couple of times each week. Probably no benefit for PMR but no I’ll effects either. It has lowered my cholesterol, blood pressure and glucose intolerance.
I found the 5 2 diet helped with the pounds I put on with the sterioids really bad on my tummey it was hugh .went down to 6 mg but now up to 15 mg so every little helps the thing that gets me is every thinks I look really well Ha Ha little do they know x
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