Overview

With fibromyalgia symptoms come also weight gain. Some people, including me, are frustrated by the discomfort that fibromyalgia brings.

Losing weight with fibromyalgia is really a struggle! But as you start your journey to recovery, you become more eager to continue what you’ve started!

What is Fibromyalgia?

Fibromyalgia is characterized by a widespread musculoskeletal pain associated with fatigue, sleep, mood, and memory issues. It is believed to intensify painful sensations by affecting the brain’s way of processing pain signals.

Fibromyalgia symptoms begin after an infection, surgery, physical trauma, or significant psychological stress. But sometimes, symptoms progress over time even without triggering events. Many people with fibromyalgia also suffer from temporomandibular joint (TMJ) disorders, anxiety and depression, tension headaches, and irritable bowel syndrome.

No cure for fibromyalgia is available but there are various medications to help control its symptoms. Relaxation, exercise, and stress-reduction measures may also help.

Weight Loss Indicates Healing!

Weight loss, on the other hand, is an outcome of a much more important goal—healing. Thus, it is important also for you to lose weight as you try to manage your illness—but you have to overcome some barriers along the way.

Most people affected by fibromyalgia are frustrated by how they look, how they feel, how they are treated by others, and frustrated at the doctor’s advice to lose weight. Also, the pressure on the bones, muscles, and joints are somehow really depressing.

As fibromyalgia is almost always associated with fatigue, pain, confusion, frustration, brain fog, and growing symptoms, it must be treated seriously.

I, myself, have struggled from fibromyalgia and it was indeed frustrating! So I decided to start walking the path to fibromyalgia recovery—and it was really tough! But it was worth it.

Fibromyalgia Weight Loss Success

I started to completely let go of my unhealthy eating habits by simply removing packaged and processed foods from my diet and replace them with dairy-free, gluten-free, sugar-free, preservative-free, and grain-free foods!

When I still didn’t have an official diagnosis for fibromyalgia, the doctor I had seen for several times said he had an answer for me. He declared that my entire problem was high cholesterol and that one more medication would treat me. But I didn’t want more; I’ve had enough medications.

I slowly reduced my cholesterol numbers, and I noticed that my fibromyalgia symptoms also began to reduce a lot. When I reduced my internal inflammation, I experienced less muscle and joint pain. I also had better sleep, fewer intestinal and gastric problems, and my digestion improved. My hands, wrists, and teeth stopped hurting, and I was able to think more clearly!

Along with the reduction of my fibromyalgia symptoms was also a weight loss. I dropped about 15% of my weight in just 4 months.

Weight loss is somehow an elusive and bright outcome of my healing process. But of course, not everyone who experienced fibromyalgia diagnosis had stubborn weight concerns. Research suggests that majority of the people with fibromyalgia are obese or overweight—and this article is for them. Although I’m not overweight, I still struggled with the fact that I was carrying more weight than I’d like.

Fibromyalgia and Weight Loss

So let’s talk about the connection between fibromyalgia and weight loss.

The founder of Holtorf Medical Group, San Francisco, and a leading fibromyalgia specialist, Kent Holtorf, MD, held that the appetite-signaling hormone leptin may be working badly when you experience fibromyalgia. This sends inaccurate hunger messages to the brain, which makes you eat more.

Or the thyroid could be dysfunctional. This can slow the ability of the body to burn calories considering that the thyroid regulates metabolism. Also, some medications for fibromyalgia such as pregabalin increase appetite.

Dr. Holtorf said that patients with fibromyalgia have a 25% lower metabolism compared with someone (of the same age and body weight) without fibromyalgia.

Weight Loss Barriers

Most people are having trouble with achieving weight management goals due to the following barriers: food sensitivities, dehydration, medications (such as steroids, antibiotics, antidepressants, etc.), other diagnoses (such as autoimmune conditions), chronic dieting, eating often, eating quickly, whole body inflammation, chronic stress, emotional traumas, leaky gut syndrome, family/caregiver pressures and influences, lack of sleep, skipping meals, blood sugar imbalances, lack of physical activity, excessive exercise, macronutrient ratio imbalance, distracted eating (eating while working or in front of the TV, etc.), excessive alcohol consumption, frequent business travel, exposure to xenoestrogens found in plastics, and hormonal, adrenal and/or thyroid imbalances.

These factors are somehow related to fibromyalgia. For example, (1) fibromyalgia patients need assistance at home; thus, they become greatly influenced and pressured by their family or caregivers, and (2) a person with fibromyalgia often has sleeping problems at night which leads to lack of sleep.

Having healthy snacks that need no preparation can help you, and these include fruits, vegetables, yogurt, cottage cheese, and nuts.

How To Overcome Weight Loss Barriers?

Many people with fibromyalgia struggle on losing weight (I had the same struggle too!). But don’t worry because you can control your weight, and you better should! As per the recent University of Utah study, overweight or obesity can worsen the symptoms.

However, it’s hard to start working on losing weight when you are sore and exhausted. Here are some tips on how to overcome weight loss barriers:

Pain is all over your body

You might wonder how to lose weight with chronic pain. Fibromyalgia pain travels to different parts of the body, and it can vary daily.

According to the executive director of the National Fibromyalgia Association, Rae Marie Gleason, with light but consistent workout, you can be able to move better throughout the day because if you are more active, you’ll feel less pain.

Although light and consistent workout does not reduce fibromyalgia pain, it makes it easier for you to function with less pain while performing your day-to-day activities.

Make sure to exercise consistently because if you stop, your muscles will have to rebound with each new beginning.

You can also relieve muscle pain with warm water; thus, as a solution, try to exercise in a heated pool. But if you can’t find warm-water pools, you can take a warm shower to warm up the muscles—and never stretch without having a thorough warm up first to avoid straining muscles.

Exercise leaves you sore muscles

Having an intense exercise in the beginning might leave you too sore and you might be unable to move afterwards.

Therefore, slowly start and gradually increase your daily workout. You can start for just three minutes and then slowly shift to a more intense workout after a few days.

To safely start exercising, you can find a personal trainer or physical therapist experienced in diagnosing and treating patients with fibromyalgia.

If you’ve already gone too far with muscle pain, you can have a therapeutic massage—post- and pre-exercise—from an expert masseuse. According to the National Fibromyalgia Association, it relieves muscle spasms, reduces trigger points, and helps loosen muscles.

Exhausted from lack of sleep

Most women suffering from fibromyalgia fall asleep and then wake up several times at night, leaving them exhausted the following day. Common causes are sleep apnea and restless leg syndrome.

To overcome this, it’s better to visit your physician so he can refer you to a sleep lab to determine the underlying problem. Make sure that the lab is run by a neurologist—who can check your brain patterns using an EEG test.

Too depressed to exercise

All fibromyalgia symptoms can leave you feeling frustrated and depressed. Unfortunately, feel-good chemicals such as norepinephrine and dopamine are likely not working when you have fibromyalgia. It can play a role in depression.

Exercise releases endorphins—neurochemicals that block stress and pain—which helps improve your mood.

It is recommended to visit a healthcare professional who recognizes depression as part of fibromyalgia symptoms.

To somehow overcome the stress and depression, try doing mind-body practices; it offers the dual benefits of exercise and stress reduction. Again, find instructors who have been working with fibromyalgia patients.

Be patient as it may take weeks before you can have intense exercise for you to experience the mood-lifting effect of endorphins.

Constant sweet cravings

Some people turn to comfort food packed with refined sugars, sweets, and carbohydrates to ease the pain of fibromyalgia.

However, these foods release a hormone that packs of fat called insulin, and sugar is addictive which makes you crave for more.

A deficiency of minerals and vitamins such as magnesium, chromium, and B vitamins may also reduce your metabolism and cause food cravings. To prevent constant sweet cravings, it is important to take a complete multivitamin so as to keep your energy levels high.

Also, avoid drinking sodas and eat fruits instead of sweets.

Headache and feeling groggy

People with fibromyalgia commonly experience brain fog, and oftentimes, a dysfunctional thyroid is blamed.

Well, it is also possible that you have an iodine deficiency. Decreased energy is sometimes due to low iodine levels. And your muscles tighten when you get tired.

Seeking a physician who is familiar with fibromyalgia to check your thyroid levels for the hormones T3 (triiodothyronine) and T4 (thyroxine) is recommended. Your metabolism will be fixed when the thyroid is treated.

Also, to boost your metabolism, ask your doctor for supplements like D-ribose (the heart of energy production in the body) and alpha lipoic acid (an antioxidant that gives you more drive by turning blood sugar into energy).

How to eat better?

Eating fruits and vegetables instead of processed foods reduces fibromyalgia symptoms.

Also, it is better to avoid foods with colorings and preservatives. Stick to an all-natural diet to stay healthy!

Conclusion

Fibromyalgia also affects your body weight for several reasons. In fact, most fibromyalgia patients are obese or overweight.

Therefore, it is better to do something to achieve weight loss while beating the frustrating symptoms of fibromyalgia.