Lyme Body Composition

Ideal body composition for increasing immunity and recovering from Lyme: Regular exercise reduces opportunistic infection, and increase immunity and T-Cell Count:

1. Allowable body fat for women from the recommended 28 percent. Men 20%. 19 kilograms to a square meter. Many Lyme suffers experience wasting so many time this is not an issue.

2. VO2 max of approximately 2.0 liters/minute and 48 ml/kg/min

3. Excellent Hydration

You can have these items measured by a physical therapist. But getting to these numbers is hard when chronic fatigue and Lyme arthritis persist. This is a guide on how to get there.

Start with
1. ALL-SITTING EXERCISES by Mary Ann Wilson - even if you have graduated to a full work out this DVD is also good for the "bad days".
Next Steps are the
2. Qi Gong for Seniors DVDs - there are 5 of them.
Next Step
3. Supplement with a treadmill. Start out slow and build up over time
Next step Qi Gong for Beginners and then you guessed it Qi Gong for Athletes

You can move on to Tia Chi and I recommend that particularly for people with neurological issue and brain fog.

Tonight I came home and I was in a great deal of pain. I am considering a cane for work. I wanted to just lay down. But to give you an idea of how important exercise is I came home and got on the treadmill instead of laying down. Here is the interval I can do on days like this. Once you get to 2.5 you can feel the pain melt away:
1.5 for 5 minutes
2.5 for 5 minutes
3.0 for 5 minutes
3.5 for 5 minutes
3.0 for 5 minutes
3.5 for 5 minutes
3.0 for 5 minutes
3.5 for 5 minutes
3.0 for 5 minutes
2.5 for 5 minutes
2.0 for 5 minutes
1.5 for 5 minutes

I never go above 3.5 because this is the point where a walk turns into a light jog.

If you feel joint pain reduce speed. Avoid joint pain even if it means going slower than you would like. When tapering down to my 2.5 interval at the end of my workout the wave of pain returns to my body and all my joints and muscles hurt once again. This is the only time that I keep going in the face of joint pain. Because I know my body will make the needed adjustments to have an evening free of pain if I just keep cooling down. By the time I reach 1.5 I am ok physically. Unlike fibromyalgia the pain will return by 11:00pm. As I lie in bed if my husband lightly touches my knee or foot joints it is terribly painful. I once did an experiment to see how much exercise would be required to stay pain free. It wasn't pretty - it end in me being exhausted and sick. For the most part I had to stay in constant motion - never sitting. Only stopping to sleep.

Once the treadmill stops I experience the vertigo that is normal for treadmill use. But I also have vertigo so that compounds. While the treadmill is off - just stand still and hold the rail until your head clears. Sometimes I just sit down. It can take a while. But if you fall and break a bone it will be a serious set back to your recovery so don't rush.

I don't think about the "used to be" a black belt or cross country runner. Don't do the "used to be" to yourself. You are a different person now. People around the world with debilitating illnesses all say the same thing to me - that which God took he has given back 10 times over. The road is long and pain is great but the rewards are beyond anything we can imagine.

Time to go take a globby spoonful of Mepron for Babesia a co-infection commonly found with Lyme. Ticks never carry just one disease.