Table of ContentsView AllTable of ContentsBarriers to Weight LossDiet ProblemsFluctuating SymptomsExercise IntoleranceBeing SedentaryWhat Research ShowsA Word From Verywell
Table of ContentsView All
View All
Table of Contents
Barriers to Weight Loss
Diet Problems
Fluctuating Symptoms
Exercise Intolerance
Being Sedentary
What Research Shows
A Word From Verywell
Losing weight withfibromyalgiais especially difficult due to several aspects of the condition. At the same time, research shows that a large percentage of people with fibromyalgia are overweight, as well as studies showing that weight loss can help improve symptoms.
Thus, losing weight may be important for you as you work to manage your illness, but you’ll need to overcome some extra barriers along the way.
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Some of the things that complicate weight loss in fibromyalgia include:
Problems Sticking to a Diet
Sticking to a healthy diet can be tricky for anyone. Now add pain and fatigue, which makes it hard to go grocery shopping so you have fresh food all the time.
Cooking? It’s not only difficult physically, but thanks tocognitive function (a.k.a. fibro fog)and problems with short-term memory,it’s hard for many of us to follow a recipe or remember where we are in the process.
Possible ways to overcome this barrier may not be possible for everyone, due to lifestyle and financial realities. Some of them include:
Challenges of Cooking With Fibromyalgia
Healthy snacks that don’t need to be prepared may be a good option for you. These include:
Unpredictable, Fluctuating Symptoms
When you’re trying to exercise regularly, the ups and downs are killers. It’s hard to get into a routine when, some days, you’re lucky if you can take a bath and feed yourself.
What often happens is, when you’re going through a good spell, you think, “I can handle a light exercise routine now, no problem!” Then, before long, you have a downturn and have to skip a few days.
Then the habit is broken. Once you’re feeling better, you may just not think about it right away. Or perhaps you put it off because now you’re two weeks behind on everything and have to put all your energy into catching up. You probably recognize this pattern.
It’s also easy to wonder if exercise is causing your flares if every time you get a few days into an exercise routine, you have a flare.
Fibromyalgia Symptoms and Complications
Exercise intolerance is a common symptom of fibromyalgia. It should really be called “activity intolerance,” because that’s exactly what it is. The moment you exert yourself too much, it can trigger a flare.
And that over-exertion can be from anything: walking around the block, cleaning the house, having sex, grocery shopping, you name it. You do a little too much, and you pay for it. That kind of push-crash-push cycle does you no good at all when it comes to weight loss.
A lot of people discover exercise intolerance and decide they simply can’t exercise or exert themselves at all. It’s easy to become afraid of it, which is something researchers call kinesiophobia.
Refusing to exert yourself may stop the cycle, but again, it doesn’t help with weight loss (or general fitness). It just makes you more out of shape—which can lead to increased pain from stiff joints and tight muscles and connective tissues.
The solution to this problem is learning how muchmoderate, gentleexercise your body can handle and sticking to it as much as you can. Recommended types of exercise include:Warm-water exerciseYogaTai chiQigongPilates
The solution to this problem is learning how muchmoderate, gentleexercise your body can handle and sticking to it as much as you can. Recommended types of exercise include:
Exercising With Fibromyalgia
When you’re in pain, exhausted, and have exercise intolerance, you can’t help but be more sedentary than you used to be. That leads to a loss of muscle strength and a drop in stamina, which make ordinary things harder to do…which leads to being more sedentary. It’s a difficult cycle to break.
That means the next time you try to get an exercise routine going, you have limitations to your activity level that may even be more constraining than fibromyalgia symptoms. It can be really discouraging to realize that your muscles give out before you can do enough to trigger a flare.
Another possible solution is isometric exercises and simple yoga stretches that can be performed while you’re lying in bed or on the couch.
What is Isometric Exercise?
Numerous studies have pointed out that fibromyalgia can lead to weight gain and a sedentary lifestyle, and that extra weight can lead to more severe symptoms.
For example, research published in 2018 compared symptom severity between peopleassigned female at birthwith fibromyalgia who were average weight, overweight, and obese based on their body-mass index.Researchers say the participants with obesity had:
Less research has focused on why fibromites have weight problems and what to do. One of the earliest studies to do so came out in 2015.
Researchers asked study participants with obesity and fibromyalgia who were between 30 and 60 years old about their physical activity, weight-loss history, and symptom levels. The answers revealed several themes that likely won’t surprise many people with this condition:
In conclusion, the researchers said these participants preferred:
“[A] weight management program for those with [fibromyalgia] that consists of an in-person, group-based approach with a leader but are open to a tailored conventional weight management program.”
That may sound great, but is it feasible? The researchers note that it may not be. First, it could be difficult for an agency or organization to design such a program and find leaders with the qualifications to run it.
Second, it could be difficult for many people with this illness to get to that kind of program regularly because of the nature of their symptoms.
For now, you’re left with either conventional groups that aren’t tailored to your specific needs, or with going it alone. However, as more research is done and more healthcare providers learn about it, better options may crop up.
Until then, it’s important for us to know the proper way to approach exercise with fibromyalgia and eat ahealthy diet that doesn’t exacerbate symptoms.
A healthcare provider may be able to help guide you when it comes to losing weight, so make sure to have that conversation.
3 SourcesVerywell Health uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.Office on Women’s Health. Womenshealth.gov.Fibromyalgia.Koçyiğit BF, Okyay RA.The relationship between body mass index and pain, disease activity, depression and anxiety in women with fibromyalgia.PeerJ. 2018;6:e4917. doi:10.7717/peerj.4917Craft JM, Ridgeway JL, Vickers KS, Hathaway JC, Vincent A, Oh TH.Unique barriers and needs in weight management for obese women with fibromyalgia.Explore (NY). 2015;11(1):51-8. doi:10.1016/j.explore.2014.10.005Additional ReadingCraft JM, Ridgeway JL, Vickers KS, et al.Unique barriers and needs in weight management for obese women with fibromyalgia.Explore. 2015 Jan-Feb;11(1):51-8. doi:10.1016/j.explore.2014.10.005Kocyigit BF, Okyay RA.The relationship between body mass index and pain, disease activity, depression and anxiety in women with fibromyalgia.Peer J. 2018 May 28;6:e4917. eCollection 2018. doi:10.7717/peerj.4917Senna MK, Sallam RA, AShour HS, Elarman M.Effect of weight reduction on the quality of life in obese patients with fibromyalgia syndrome: a randomized controlled trial.Clinical rheumatology. 2012 Nov;31(11):1591-7. doi:10.1007/s10067-012-2053-xTimmerman GM, Calfa NA, Stuifbergen AK.Correlates of body mass index in women with fibromyalgia.Orthopedic nursing. 2013 Mar-Apr;32(2):113-9. doi:10.1097/NOR.0b013e3182879c08
3 Sources
Verywell Health uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.Office on Women’s Health. Womenshealth.gov.Fibromyalgia.Koçyiğit BF, Okyay RA.The relationship between body mass index and pain, disease activity, depression and anxiety in women with fibromyalgia.PeerJ. 2018;6:e4917. doi:10.7717/peerj.4917Craft JM, Ridgeway JL, Vickers KS, Hathaway JC, Vincent A, Oh TH.Unique barriers and needs in weight management for obese women with fibromyalgia.Explore (NY). 2015;11(1):51-8. doi:10.1016/j.explore.2014.10.005Additional ReadingCraft JM, Ridgeway JL, Vickers KS, et al.Unique barriers and needs in weight management for obese women with fibromyalgia.Explore. 2015 Jan-Feb;11(1):51-8. doi:10.1016/j.explore.2014.10.005Kocyigit BF, Okyay RA.The relationship between body mass index and pain, disease activity, depression and anxiety in women with fibromyalgia.Peer J. 2018 May 28;6:e4917. eCollection 2018. doi:10.7717/peerj.4917Senna MK, Sallam RA, AShour HS, Elarman M.Effect of weight reduction on the quality of life in obese patients with fibromyalgia syndrome: a randomized controlled trial.Clinical rheumatology. 2012 Nov;31(11):1591-7. doi:10.1007/s10067-012-2053-xTimmerman GM, Calfa NA, Stuifbergen AK.Correlates of body mass index in women with fibromyalgia.Orthopedic nursing. 2013 Mar-Apr;32(2):113-9. doi:10.1097/NOR.0b013e3182879c08
Verywell Health uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.
Office on Women’s Health. Womenshealth.gov.Fibromyalgia.Koçyiğit BF, Okyay RA.The relationship between body mass index and pain, disease activity, depression and anxiety in women with fibromyalgia.PeerJ. 2018;6:e4917. doi:10.7717/peerj.4917Craft JM, Ridgeway JL, Vickers KS, Hathaway JC, Vincent A, Oh TH.Unique barriers and needs in weight management for obese women with fibromyalgia.Explore (NY). 2015;11(1):51-8. doi:10.1016/j.explore.2014.10.005
Office on Women’s Health. Womenshealth.gov.Fibromyalgia.
Koçyiğit BF, Okyay RA.The relationship between body mass index and pain, disease activity, depression and anxiety in women with fibromyalgia.PeerJ. 2018;6:e4917. doi:10.7717/peerj.4917
Craft JM, Ridgeway JL, Vickers KS, Hathaway JC, Vincent A, Oh TH.Unique barriers and needs in weight management for obese women with fibromyalgia.Explore (NY). 2015;11(1):51-8. doi:10.1016/j.explore.2014.10.005
Craft JM, Ridgeway JL, Vickers KS, et al.Unique barriers and needs in weight management for obese women with fibromyalgia.Explore. 2015 Jan-Feb;11(1):51-8. doi:10.1016/j.explore.2014.10.005Kocyigit BF, Okyay RA.The relationship between body mass index and pain, disease activity, depression and anxiety in women with fibromyalgia.Peer J. 2018 May 28;6:e4917. eCollection 2018. doi:10.7717/peerj.4917Senna MK, Sallam RA, AShour HS, Elarman M.Effect of weight reduction on the quality of life in obese patients with fibromyalgia syndrome: a randomized controlled trial.Clinical rheumatology. 2012 Nov;31(11):1591-7. doi:10.1007/s10067-012-2053-xTimmerman GM, Calfa NA, Stuifbergen AK.Correlates of body mass index in women with fibromyalgia.Orthopedic nursing. 2013 Mar-Apr;32(2):113-9. doi:10.1097/NOR.0b013e3182879c08
Craft JM, Ridgeway JL, Vickers KS, et al.Unique barriers and needs in weight management for obese women with fibromyalgia.Explore. 2015 Jan-Feb;11(1):51-8. doi:10.1016/j.explore.2014.10.005
Kocyigit BF, Okyay RA.The relationship between body mass index and pain, disease activity, depression and anxiety in women with fibromyalgia.Peer J. 2018 May 28;6:e4917. eCollection 2018. doi:10.7717/peerj.4917
Senna MK, Sallam RA, AShour HS, Elarman M.Effect of weight reduction on the quality of life in obese patients with fibromyalgia syndrome: a randomized controlled trial.Clinical rheumatology. 2012 Nov;31(11):1591-7. doi:10.1007/s10067-012-2053-x
Timmerman GM, Calfa NA, Stuifbergen AK.Correlates of body mass index in women with fibromyalgia.Orthopedic nursing. 2013 Mar-Apr;32(2):113-9. doi:10.1097/NOR.0b013e3182879c08
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