Food Guidelines

18 Practical Food Choice Guidelines
for Chronic Fatigue Sufferers
by Majid Ali, MD

This article was provided by:
Aging Healthfully Magazine

Note: The information on this website is presented for educational purposes only.
It is not a substitute for the advice of a qualified professional.

The 18 recommendations that I make to my human canaries (people with chronic fatigue), are discussed at length in the companion volume to The Canary and Chronic Fatigue, The Butterfly and Life Span Nutrition. Here I include a brief outline of those recommendations.
I cannot overstate the case for a sound philosophy of nutrition. Martyrdom in food choices does not work. Good nutrition is neither denial of dieting nor euphoria of eating.
One cannot eat well for a full life span except through a deep visceral-intuitive sense about how various foods affect his general level of energy and well-being.
This cannot come from cortical obsessions about studying foods charts and calorie tables.

1. Seek steady-state energy metabolism.
Avoid starving-gorging-starving cycles.
Avoid sugar-insulin-adrenaline roller coasters

2. Maintain an optimal state of hydration.
Drink 50 to 70 ounces of high-compatibility fluids every day.
Drink fluids even when you are not thirsty.

3. Know your food reactivities.
Avoid foods that cause allergic reactions.
Avoid foods that deplete energy.
Avoid foods that cause abnormal bowel responses.

4. Focus on what you can eat
De-focus foods that should be avoided.
Try new foods, observe their effects.
Think high-compatibility foods when food-shopping.

5. Never miss breakfast.
Body tissues need to be energized in the morning.
Missing breakfast is fasting for 15 to 18 hours and sets us up for nutritional
roller coasters.
Missing breakfast increases the need for undesirable stimulants such as coffee and tea.

6. Get the most out of vegetables.
Develop a taste for uncooked vegetables. (Taste is changeable.)
Develop a taste for steamed or stir-fried vegetables.
Reduce acidotic stress on metabolism. (Vegetables are alkaline-ash foods.)

7. Cut back on fruits.
Avoid allergenic fruits such as oranges.
Avoid very sweet fruits.
Avoid overripe fruits.

8. Increase proteins in food choices.
Proteins are time-release energy sources.
Proteins are building blocks for tissues and for energy and detoxification enzymes.
Minimize meat intake; increase lentils and beans.

9. Favor alkaline-ash foods.
Favor vegetables on the top of the vegetable table (Chronic fatigue states are states
of acidotic overload. All biologic stressors increase acidotic stress.
SAD [standard American diet] increases the body acid burden.)

10. Minimize acid-ash foods
Reduce intake of all meats.
Grains are, in general, acid-ash foods, but are needed to balance the alkalinity
of vegetables and fruits.

11. Understand food cravings.
Food craving is the other side of the coin of food addiction.
Reduce salt intake.
Reduce sugar intake.
Reduce intake of artificial sweeteners. (Salt, sugar and sweeteners increase
sugar cravings.)

12. Have free access to ideal snacks.
The ideal snacks: uncooked or steamed vegetables.
Eat low-fructose fruits — those that are not very sweet.
Soynuts, pumpkin, sunflower and other seeds are also recommended.
Avoid walnuts and other tree nuts. (Tree nuts are among the most allergenic foods.)

13. Rotate foods.
High-compatibility foods may be eaten on three or less days a week.
Low-compatibility foods should not be eaten more often than once a week.

14. Ensure a healthy gut ecosystem.
Seed the bowel with healthful lactic-acid-producing microbes.
Feed the lactic-acid producers with nutrients such as pantothenic acid, vitamin B12,
fructose oligosaccharides and others.
Weed out the toxin-producing microbes such as yeasts, bacteria and parasites.

15. Eat limbically.
Follow visceral-intuitive impulses.
Dieting plans are cortical traps.
(Reading food labels becomes unnecessary after some time.)

16. Do not omit nutrient supplements
Take morning supplements with breakfast.
Take evening supplements with dinner.
Split daily supplements into three, four or more portions if problems of tolerance exist.
Pollutants in the air can only be neutralized by nutrients.
Contaminants in food can only be neutralized by nutrients.
Toxins in water can only be neutralized by nutrients.

17. Don't be a skunk in someone's garden party.
It is not necessary.
It is not desirable.
Enzyme detoxification systems can cope with an occasional workout —but only occasionally.

18. Bring some spiritual dimensions to your day.
(Martyrdom doesn't work in nutrition. Good nutrition is neither the denial of dieting
nor the euphoria of eating.)

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