Chronic illness with chronic fatigue is difficult to describe if you’ve never experienced it. The best way I can explain it to people is that it’s like having one sixteen-ounce glass of water, with no access to refill the glass. When you’re glass is empty it’s empty until the next day. Or maybe for a few days until the water comes back on to refill your glass. This doesn’t mean you can’t do things. This does however mean you have to do things more intentionally. Deciding how and when your water gets used. If we stop and think about it, that’s not just an issue for someone with chronic fatigue. With chronic fatigue, our bodies may get more say in our physical limits, yet we all have cups that come up empty and need time to refuel. We just might not recognize it for what it is.
Not being one to do well being told what I can and can not accomplish I am continually striving to work with my illness to make the most of how I live. Where I used to be able to work with tiny humans all morning then run to four different stores to pick up groceries or other items, pick up kids from school, cook dinner, you know the drill…..I can’t operate like that anymore. Yet I can still do what I need to accomplish if I plan well. Over the past eighteen months, I have found resources and processes that have saved my sanity and reduced the usage of water from my sixteen-ounce glass.
One of the biggest being around meal planning, food preparation, and grocery shopping. Now there are a million resources, great bloggers, cooks, and meal planners out there. I love to cook but my goal here is not to advocate for one right way of doing your meal planning, prepping, and cooking. My desire for sharing is to identify how sometimes we get overwhelmed and stuck but we don’t have to stay there. There is life beyond feeding our people.
While there is no one diet to treat MS there are several common factors in many recommended diets for autoimmune diseases. Many people have found huge improvements in not just MS but chronic fatigue and other autoimmune issues when they have adjusted their diets. So after much research, I came to the conclusion that changing the way I ate was one way I could potentially help myself live better with MS. I started paying attention to what I ate and how I was feeling. I eliminated Gluten, Dairy, and Legumes from my diet. Very strictly at first and later learning what my body seemed ok with as sometimes foods. Then came the big question. When you are fighting chronic fatigue (which was much worse earlier in my diagnosis) and now your diet has pretty much eliminated processed foods, how do you manage to make that happen? Thankfully I stumbled upon a cookbook that my kids hated but I absolutely loved. Cook Once, Eat All Week. The way this book worked is you have several meals with the same base ingredients that you could prep ahead of time. Come dinner each night you would still cook but everything was all ready to go, you simply cook and serve. But following the plan meant every week we were trying new recipes. Which my husband and I loved but my kids well not so much. Yet they did a great job and powered through it. Over time with practice and skills I began to move from following the weekly meal plans to using the skills to incorporate the meals we loved and worked for us. With the ability to order groceries online and pick up the order I can save time and energy on grocery shopping. Once the groceries are picked up I spend a couple of hours in the kitchen cleaning and prepping veggies and food for the week. I prep grab and go veggies for the kids to add to their lunches. Salads for my husband and I, side dishes, or items needed for meals throughout the week. Now that I have bigger kids, if the food is prepped it means they can be self-sufficient for breakfast and lunch, but even with smaller kids having things prepped makes meal times way simpler.
Like most moms by dinner time, my energy level is super low. Especially in the middle of a pandemic where we are all home, all day most days of the week. At the beginning of the pandemic because we were home I got lazy about my food prep. It felt unnecessary since we were home, I should have time to cook dinner. But time and energy are not the same and I quickly realized that meal planning and food prep is saving my life. Life happens and we are flexible. If something comes up or it’s been a rough day we might vote for pizza night and move that night’s dinner plans to another night.
Having a plan doesn’t lock you in. Having food prepped does help you to use the food you have and not let it go bad. It does help you engage your kids in cooking meals in the kitchen. It does help you hold on to some much-needed water in your reserve tank.
