I've reached the end of my first month and had a look over my diary to note my stats, symptoms, tiredness and wellness. I've also weighed myself and taken a few measurements. I haven't had any blood work done, but I did have some in January and everything was fine at that stage. I might get some checks done soon but in the meantime, this is what I know.
When I started, I'd spent months feeling dreadful. I had no energy, regular fever, sweats, foggy head and a variety of other symptoms. My skin was waxy and cold and I had episodes of confusion. I had zero good days, I felt terrible every day. I was diagnosised with long-tail covid and advised to stay home and wait until I got better. After 4 months of this, I began to think I wouldn't get better. This has all been really quite depressing.
Fast forward 4 and a half weeks and things have changed out of all recognition. I have had 17 good days this month. 17! No symptoms and no exhaustion. There is a pattern of feeling better and then relapsing, but the times of feeling better are definitely getting longer, and the periods of feeling poorly getting shorter. I seem to recover faster. Most of my good days have been towars the end of the month, so it looks like this woe has an accumulative effect over time.
Saying that, I relapsed again the last couple of days. But this morning I'm feeling good again.
All of this has meant I can begin getting back to being more active. I have been so inactive for months now and I realise this will take some time but at least I've been able to get started.
I was symptomatic on 6 days - so few compared with previously.
I spent 8 days with exhaustion, sometimes on the same day as the symptoms, sometimes not. Either way, this is also huge progress.
My skin recovered early on and is now back to normal. I have a clean, fresh feeling in my mouth. I feel light in my step. These are unexpected but welcome side effects.
I have lost 6lbs in weight. 6lbs! I have eaten my fill at every single meal and back at the start I was convinced I was gaining weight, but no. Just to put this in persepctive, I have weighed 10lbs above the healthy weight range for my height all of my adult life. Restricting diets helped me lose them, but they always returned when I started eating again. 6lbs is effectively 60% of the amount I need to lose for maximum health, I'm so pleased.
I have also lost an inch from my waist, an inch from my thighs, and stayed the same in other areas where I wouldn't want to reduce. No wonder my jeans feel loose, this is why. And all of this with a full belly and a satisfied appetite.
I have discovered a love of cooking and putting together low fat, vegan meals with fresh, delicious ingredients. Things seem much more hopeful.
I watched a vidoe of Dr McDougall a few weeks ago. Someone was talking to him about the positive effects of the woe and he sounded almost bored, saying 'yeah yeah, heard it all before'. It made me smile 'cos I really did wonder if it would help me with the virus, I thought I'd be the exception. But so far, this woe is the only thing that has helped.
So I plan to continue for another month at least and see how I go. I have more trust in the woe eating now, I know I won't gain weight eating like this, and I can only continue my recovery.
Thank you, thank you, thank you to Dr McDougall and the entire team. You are saving my life and are truly appreciated.
by vegyluvver » Mon Aug 03, 2020 10:35 pm 
