Exercise Intolerance Dysregulated Nervous System Part 1
This explores the interplay between exercise intolerance and chronic fatigue, a challenging issue for many dealing with a dysregulated nervous system.
Boy, oh boy, do I miss the days when I could just take a simple walk outside. I especially miss the times when I could lose weight once I set my mind to making positive changes. When I started getting really sick, I gained about 60 lbs. I tried everything to lose weight, but with digestive issues, my best bet seemed to be starving myself. Even eating less would trigger my body’s flight response, making it want to store fat.
Admittedly I probably wasn’t doing this in the proper fashion. I was skipping meals and not eating enough. For a short time, I was doing intermittent fasting. I don’t recommend that for people who have a dysregulated nervous system disorder, but everyone is different.
In January 2025, I decided to try again to focus on losing weight. The timing couldn’t have been more perfect for this. I made a big declaration to my ex-fiancé while we were in the midst of rekindling that I was going to lose weight. The conversation went in a wild direction. I was told by him that he was never physically attracted to me. It probably shouldn’t have been a surprise to me. There were very obvious signs of this, but I really reacted quite negatively to this news. Glad I know, though. Needless to say, the rekindling quickly stopped and I have been managing my broken heart ever since. I was already off to a stressful and traumatized start.
I signed up for a program that tracked my eating, where I had to weigh my food and follow exercise routines. Well, as you can imagine, that didn’t work out well for me. Where I live, there are a lot of hills. I was excepted to walk at least 10,000 steps a day. Back in the day, I used to walk 10 miles for fun on my days off, but 4 miles now was a lot for my body.
The exercise routines were another story. What’s really disheartening is that the routines weren’t difficult at all. They were designed for people who hadn’t worked out in a long time. I expected to struggle a bit during the first try. But I wasn’t improving and was instead experiencing intense pain, especially in my upper body. A few of the routines included planks. I was nervous about doing those so I decided to cut the time in half compared to the recommended duration. Eventually, I had to reach out and ask the person who created the plan to remove any floor exercises. Anything that required me to be on my hands kept messing me up. My left shoulder was in so much pain. It got so bad that I couldn’t even type comfortably on my work computer.
After many attempts to stick to a regimen, my body kept collapsing. It kept giving me the usual signs that it didn’t like what I was trying to get it to do. By the end of February, it couldn’t handle it anymore, and I became extremely sick. For some reason, when I overload my body, it responds by making me throw up uncontrollably. It like getting the stomach flu, except I’ve always questioned whether or not it is. This is how it’s been for me for many years now. This issue became more frequent between 2020 and, eh, well, even the present time. The only difference in this most recent time, is that I’m not throwing up mucus. That happened a lot in 2022, but it seems to have stopped—I’m still not sure what that was about.
The only thing that I can think of as to WHY my body goes into this collapse much faster than when I don’t work out, is it might have something to do with the breathing. When you work out, your breathing is more rapid and this does activate the sympathetic nervous system. It could be, that my body is sensing regular exercise with some increased breathing, as a possible threat. I don’t know.
It’s been a slow recovery process since that incident. I realized I needed to stop pushing my body to do things it didn’t want me to do. I needed to let my body find its balance on its own. This meant making some tough decisions. I decided that I was going to reduce my work hours to part time. Working in an office for 40 hours a week was beginning to start to affect me negatively. I also decided that I was only going to focus on the food portion of the program. Getting worked up about anything else wasn’t worth it. I can’t do them right now, and maybe I won’t be able to ever again… But here’s what’s funny; since I’ve stopped the exercise, the weight is coming off more easily. I don’t look toned, but the weight lose is better for me overall.
Coming to Terms With Exercise Intolerance
The most difficult thing to reconcile has been the emotional toll of exercise intolerance. I want to be active, to keep up with the exercise routines and activities others enjoy. Over time, I’ve learned that my body simply doesn’t respond to exertion as it should. Rather than adapting as most bodies would, it becomes overwhelmed and struggles to recover properly. This difference in response is not just a matter of fatigue, but a physiological dysfunction where the body fails to handle stress in the expected manner. It’s frustrating and isolating to watch people around me engage in physical activities without issue.
The only thing I can do is just continue to focus on the things that I can do. I can eat, that’s a good thing. So the focus is to try and eat as healthy as possible and to eat a balanced meal. I would like to eventually start taking walks again once I start working my part time hours but I know that I need to practice pacing. Pacing is a whole new world for me. We’ll see what happens as we trail on into the spring.
Exercise Intolerance Dysregulated Nervous System Part 2 – Astra Speaks
News: Protein may be linked to exercise… (NIH Research Matters) – Behind the headlines – NLM
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