@thedarkfigure Wow I really relate to this. I’ve struggled with chronic fatigue every day since I was 17. It was kind of like something “flicked on” and I was exhausted no matter how much sleep I get. I get the same amount of sleep as you; during the week I usually get 7 or so hours and then catch up on the weekends. I’ve been addicted to caffeine for a long time because of this (which I realize at a certain point makes things worse). I’ve been tested for hypothyroidism, anemia, vitamin deficiencies, other physiological issues, etc… nothing. I do have depression and sleeping excessively has been a bit part of that manifesting in my life and sleeping in to avoid commitments and anxiety has held me back tremendously until the last year or two when I finally got a handle on it.
So this affected my workout life too. All throughout my 20’s (I am currently 30 m) I wanted to get back in shape, as I was an avid runner in high school, and lifting, but could never sustain any effort I put forth because I was just so damn tired all the time. My life kind of fell apart a couple years ago and was a wake up call to really try and fix things. I made a number of changes that have since made it possible for me to work out 5 days a week for almost a year now:
- being on a consistent sleep schedule, waking up at 6-7 every day
- not eating a junkie diet (it’s not perfect, but I don’t eat fast food much at all and buy fairly healthy groceries every week
- medication. I take Effexor 300 mg a day which works great for me. It’s a depression medication that helps with low energy. Seriously a life changer.
The sleep and diet are important, but I want to harp on the medication bit. Regardless if it stems from depression or a physiological issue, chronic fatigue can be debilitating. If you have any other symptoms of depression I would investigate medication, seriously, it’s been a life changer for me. I wouldn’t be alive without it. It allowed me to get to a baseline where I could maintain the self discipline to make these changes. You could also have a form of narcolepsy (yes, even if you don’t fall asleep in the middle of a sentence, it really just causes excessive fatigue a lot of the time and can take you like half the day to actually wake up). And typically when these symptoms go unaddressed and you can’t make the changes you want to, you start beating yourself up, and feeling powerless. You can do this!! I was totally hopeless two years ago but I have really turned things around and I hope you can do the same.
