Muscle fatigue

[Patricia H]

I am on Day 14. I have had surprisingly little trouble sticking to the Whole 30 eating plan. I am never hungry which leads me to think I am eating enough. Most nights I am sleeping better. My chronic constipation has begun to improve. My prior eating had deteriorated to lots of sugar in the form of cookies and chocolate. My primary goal for starting Whole 30 was cutting the sugar and resetting my eating to healthy, and well.... WHOLE foods. 

My issue is tiredness and extreme muscle fatigue, to the point it frightens me. It is so bad I cannot get through my fairly gentle 30 minute aerobic morning routine and it seems to be getting even worse with even normal activities. DAY 11 at work I tried to walk up my ordinary flight of stairs and my muscles were too weak to continue and I had to resort to the elevator which I never, ever use. This was followed by rapid heart rate, shakiness, breaking out into a cold sweat and feeling very light headed. My co-workers insisted on a trip to the Emergency Room. Labs and vital signs were done and nothing came back abnormal, so it was reassuring to know things like sodium and potassium levels were normal. I took it easy the remainder of Day 11. On Day 12 attempted aerobic exercise and muscles weak again but completed workout with lots of slowing down and modifications. Day 13 started aerobic workout and had to stop a few minutes in; major muscle fatigue, rapid heart rate, extreme overall fatigue-just want to lay down and go to sleep. Day 14 (today) slept through the night which is an amazing positive change, but just the effort of getting out of bed and getting dressed brought on muscle fatigue, rapid heart rate and overall profound weariness. Again very frightening and forget doing my aerobic workout.

Note: I have tried adding a preWO and post WO strategy despite this is an extremely gentle aerobic routine that I do. I figured it couldn't hurt to try.

Example food diary:

Day 12: preWO- 1/2 HB egg+tsp Almond Butter. PostWO-1 sweet pot = 1/2 HB egg, a little later a clementine. Early lunch: Chicken breast, broc, green salad with o&v, Carrots with Almond butter. Clementine. Dinner: Chicken with cooked veg/carrot/tom/celery+green salad, Avocado. A little later some blueberries. 

Day 13: preWO 1/2 HB egg+a. butter. PostWO 1/2 HB egg, sweet pot, tsp a. butter. Lunch: Chicken/carrot/tom/celery, green salad with o&v, carrots w/a.butter. Clementine. Late on/snack: almond/raisin mix+an apple. Dinner: hamburger, salad with o&v, avocado, olives. Note: adding salt and pepper to season most meals. Later/eve snack: mint tea and handful of blueberries.

I should note that I am having a hard time adding the fats that is why I am doing a bit of each as you might have noticed: some a. butter, some olives, some avocado, some nuts. I cannot tolerate a lot of any one of them at one time so use a combo. Also as far as quantity of food; I do not feel I can increase it.....I am never hungry and feel full after each meal. I used to be hungry all the time, now I am eating a meal sometimes just because I know i have to eat.

Looking forward to thoughts and/or feedback. Thank you.

[SugarcubeOD]

Sorry to hear that you're not feeling well. Immediately what stands out to me is that you're only eating two meals a day plus the pre and post workout... pre and post workout are in addition to your three meals a day so is there a reason you're not eating breakfast?

The way you list out the rest of your meals its hard to tell exactly how much protein and fat you're having but have you been following the template?  Do you drink 1/2 oz of water per pound of body weight? Are you generously salting your food?

As far as feeling like you can't increase your food, try leaving off all the fruit and dried frut and nuts/nut butters you're using as snacks and eat three template meals a day - that's the recommendation anyway and fruit and dried fruit and nuts and nut butters are recommended to be limited and eaten WITH meals, not as snacks.  I suspect that making the two changes of adding breakfast and making your meals larger with no need to snack will help.